"Anybody have any questions .... ?"
Showing posts with label 5th Amendment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5th Amendment. Show all posts
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Thursday, February 16, 2017
The Shapeshifters of Bullshitistan - 3
A Dog Has Died
by Pablo Neruda
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.
So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
The 1% May Face The Wrath of Sea Level Rise First
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| Fig. 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza? |
I. Who Gets It First?
Regular readers know that I have been writing about sea level rise (SLR) a lot lately, which means reading a lot of research material.
In this post I want to point out, based upon that recent research, what I see written and spoken often.
It is a misunderstanding frequently printed and spoken by social and corporate media.
That misunderstanding is the notion that life-threatening SLR will first be tilted against the world's poorest people:
"As the coastal cities of Africa and Asia expand, many of their poorest residents are being pushed to the edges of livable land and into the most dangerous zones for climate change. Their informal settlements cling to riverbanks and cluster in low-lying areas with poor drainage, few public services, and no protection from storm surges, sea-level rise, and flooding.(World Bank: What Climate Change Means for ... the Coastal Poor). The New York Location of the World Bank is in between the Hudson River and the East River, thus, Fig. 1 seems appropriate.
These communities – the poor in coastal cities and on low-lying islands – are among the world’s most vulnerable to climate change and the least able to marshal the resources to adapt, a new report finds."
New York Harbor and its surroundings are at the front of the line for tidal inundation and/or tidal disruption when Greenland does its thing (Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization).
The wealthy 1% will lose the dynamism of their fortunes first, by those events described in that Dredd Blog post.
Has anyone noticed any poor people owning the mechanisms and shipping fleets which utilize the ports of the world (Bulker, Container, Combo, Tanker, LNG, Multigas, or LPG)?
Is it the poor who thereby become wealthy 1% billionaires like Aristotle Onassis or Daniel K. Ludwig?
Hey World Bank, how about this comparison of the poor with the port users (Billionaire Greek Ship Owners, Shipping companies of the United States)?
Likewise, has anyone compared ocean-front property prices to property prices inland 20-100 miles?
II. Relying On Killers For "Protection"
So, when the military fails to stop the invasion (Why The Military Can't Defend Against The Invasion), and then SLR gets up high enough to shut down the ports, what is planned for the hoi polloi (A Closer Look At MOMCOM's DNA - 4)?
When civil unrest gets some steroids and goes through the roof, the 1% have directed their body guards, through the Commander In Chief, to make due:
(Will The Military Become The Police? - 3). Plans, orders, training, and equipping of the local police as surrogates for martial law have already taken place.A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.
Do What With These Tanks?
“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the War College report.
The study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.
I am not sure that they contemplated unrest caused by SLR, but they do expect that unrest is coming, thus, they have been training and preparing for it:
This lesson is designed to describe the nature and causes of disaffection and social unrest; define the potential for social unrest in the United States; identify the types of confrontations; define crowd behavioral and psychological influences; identify patterns of disorder.(U.S. Army Military Police School Civil Disturbance Operations Course). I have written about this in the context of the popular question "what could go wrong?"
…
2. Application of Force.
a. General.
(1) Civil disturbance operations by federal forces will not be authorized until
the President is advised by the highest officials of the state that the situation cannot be controlled with nonfederal resources available. The mission of the control force is to help restore law and order and to help maintain it until such time as state and local forces can control the situation without federal help. In performing this mission, the control force may have to actively participate, not only in subduing the disturbance, but also in helping to detain those responsible for it. Control force commanders are authorized and directed to provide such active participation, subject to restraints on the use of force.
Safe from SLR at last
(2) Prior to committing any federal forces in the quailing of civil disturbance whether in CONUS or OCONUS commanders should train and continually brief the control force on the rule of engagement (ROE). The commander is responsible for drafting, interpreting, disseminating, and training the control force on the ROE. The staff Judge Advocate (SJA) should be included in the ROE development to ensure that it will not improperly constrain actions, but still will remain consistent with domestic and international laws, polices, and orders of the chain of command.
For quite a while now, the gist of that writing has been about what happens once the "put them all in camps to protect and care for them policy" degrades into an operation of killer-cop types:
“Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, ....whence it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or accidental condition of circumstance.”(Thomas Jefferson, emphasis added). The current nationwide policy, of giving used-battle-gear and equipment to local police forces, shows that "there are many here among us" who are not human-rights, civil-rights, constitutional-rights, or democratic-rights oriented.
There have always been, and will continue be, those who chose to push the limit way past those concepts, and on into tyranny:
- A Tale of Coup Cities
- A Tale of Coup Cities - 2
- A Tale of Coup Cities - 3
- A Tale of Coup Cities - 4
- A Tale of Coup Cities - 5
- A Tale of Coup Cities - 6
- A Tale of Coup Cities - 7
- A Tale of Coup Cities - 8
- A Tale of Coup Cities - 9
- A Tale of Coup Cities - 10
- A Tale of Coup Cities - 11
- A Tale of Coup Cities - 12
- Will The Military Become The Police?
- Will The Military Become The Police? - 2
- Will The Military Become The Police? - 3
- Will The Military Become The Police? - 4
- Will The Military Become The Police? - 5
- Will The Military Become The Police? - 6
- Will The Military Become The Police? - 7
- Will The Military Become The Police? - 8
- Will The Military Become The Police? - 9
- Will The Military Become The Police? - 10
III. The Demise of The Ports Will Be A Trigger
I recently wrote: "The roads to and from the harbor are closed, the power is off, everyone is gone inland to camps, etc., and it is that way at every port at every coastal area" (Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization).
Recall what the breakdown of International Commerce and Intercourse due to SLR damage to ports causes:
"By volume, more than 95 percent of U.S. international trade moves through the nation's ports and harbors, with about 50 percent of these goods being hazardous materials."(Will This Float Your Boat - 8). Obviously the camps will have to be activated, and the policies mentioned above will be implemented (think Japanese Interment Camps of the 1940's, but on a much more massive scale).
I hope you can envision the reality that SLR is a big-time game changers (at only ~1m / 3 ft.), because it is a trigger for causing a mega-domino cascade (Will This Float Your Boat - 10).
The World Bank's own figures on civilization-sustaining trade @ world ports should make it clear that the most serious of worldwide recessions/depressions, at best, would result (Merchandise trade (% of GDP), Imports of goods and services (% of GDP)).
All of the international trading nations of this civilization will be impacted.
Don't forget to compute those damages as if they were choreographed at an ongoing Groundhog Day movie set, because the SLR is not going to stop just because we become uncomfortable (Will This Float Your Boat - 9).
The maximum stopping point is 263.5 feet of SLR.
I could go on, but I am sure you get the gist of it, so let's get back to the dynamics of SLR.
IV. Another Contributor To Greenland's Ice Demise
 |
| Warm water sources impact Greenland |
I focused on that area because of their proximity to Greenland's impact, and because they have already experienced the planet's highest SLR (Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization).
Furthermore, there are new dynamics of warming that are joining older ones to imperil the Greenland Ice Sheet even more (Arctic's Hudson Bay Warming Rapidly, at Tipping Point, “If this warm blob of water in upper Indian Ocean is transported all the way to North Atlantic, that could affect the melting of Arctic sea ice," - Heat is Piling Up in the Depths of the Indian Ocean).
To close this section, I will urge you to watch the two short videos below (if you haven't already).
V. Conclusion For The 1%
Highly organized groups are still hunting down and prosecuting the NAZI architects in a society that killed some six million people in death camps.
By all indications, they will continue to hunt down those NAZI criminals as long as the hunters still have breath.
How do you in the 1% think you will fare should they determine that you did far worse than those NAZI mass murderers?
See you in the camps (Pentagon Warning).
The next post in this series is here.
HBO Vice: "Our Rising Oceans", with Dr. Eric Rignot:
-----------------------------------
2:43 - "One meter [of SLR] would be a global catastrophic event, 3 meters would remap the world as we know it?"
2:50 - "Yes, absolutely."
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Must Be The Season of the Witch
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| 162,000 DOJ Grand Juries produced 11 no-bills |
That statement elucidates the weak threshold that "probable cause" connotes ... but ... "all by himself", it was police officer Darren "Serve & Protect" Wilson, (the police officer who fired 12 shots at an unarmed citizen who did no-nos that
 |
| "I am not a ham sandwich" |
The jury returned a "the not-a-ham sandwiches have it" no-bill.
Rumors have it that Wilson also brought his "guitar" to the show.
Accompanied by the McProsecutor, they presented a début of his new folk song.
Sung to the tune of "Garbage, Garbage, Garbage", Wilson's "Remember, My Bubbas Will See You on the Streets and Call Your Name" made an impression on the 12 person grand jury.
He also wished them all Season's Greetings and gifted them with an autographed copy of the photo shown at the top of this post.
And wouldn't you know it, the world knows nothing about ham sandwiches:
The killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., by police officer Darren Wilson has made the Midwestern U.S. city a focal point for the world's media. It shone a spotlight on what the world perceived to be America's deep, entrenched problems ... British news outlets covered the night extensively: In the past few months, a number had sent war correspondents to cover the violent protests and the militarized police response ... In Germany, the criticism was harsher. The conservative newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung argued that the underlying reasons for the violence in Ferguson are deep in American society ... France's leftist Liberation newspaper took a similar focus. "A predominantly white jury chooses not to pursue another white, accused of murdering a black in a predominantly black city," the newspaper wrote, concluding that Ferguson raises yet again the question of racism and police brutality in the United States ... The paper's centrist competitor Le Monde was equally concerned about Ferguson's segregation. "Michael Brown's death had highlighted a racial divide in a city which is undergoing a demographic transition and where blacks are now majority, while municipal institutions remain dominated by whites," the paper writes ... In France, the situation also saw a political reaction, with Justice Minister Christiane Taubira also wading into the controversy:(Washington Post). They pick on American "fascism," but don't they know that only 27% of American presidents have owned black slaves (The Germ Theory - of Government - 7), and that only a few black slaves were required to build the White House and Capitol (Black Slaves Built White House & U.S. Capitol)?
How old was #Mickael Brown ? 18. #TrayvonMartin ? 17. #TamirRice? 12. How old next? 12 month? ‘Kill them before they grow’ Bob Marley ChTCloser to home, the Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail wondered what was next for their neighbor. "After Ferguson, America’s conversation about race has only just begun," an op-ed in the paper read. The same paper had previously used the events in Ferguson to marvel at how effective its own policing was in comparison ... In India, a reporter for NDTV, the cable news channel, said that “the case epitomized race crimes in America” and that the photos of protesters evoking the images from Tiananmen Square ... In Turkey, a country that has seen its own heavy-handed response to protests criticized by the international community, there were reports that the country's official press agency Andalou News had sent war correspondents to Ferguson ... Iran's state-owned Press TV ran stories that focused on the protests in 90 other U.S. cities, which it noted started "after St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch said that white police officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted and that he would not even face charges for killing the unarmed African American." ... Ferguson also gained the attention of the United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, who released a statement asking that U.S. authorities review the "deep and festering" distrust in the country after the shooting and grand jury decision ...
— Christiane Taubira (@ChTaubira) November 25, 2014
UPDATE: The Ferguson prosecutor conspired with racist perjurers to obstruct justice (The Smoking Gun).
by Donovan
Thursday, January 30, 2014
A Great Danger to America From The Islamic World: Coffee Houses
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| Which way to the Coffee House? |
I had also read a post at 3QuarksDaily entitled How The Islamic World Gave Us Coffee Houses and Democracy.
So, the testimony of one of the Chicago Police Department undercover operatives (a.k.a. "domestic spy") caught my attention specifically because her testimony on the witness stand was about their spy techniques which they employ against citizens, even though they have no evidence or probable cause to spy on those citizens.
Except that those citizens happen to frequent coffee houses, and that particular type of Café.
Those Coffee House Cafés which are known for several hundred years now to harbor certain undesirables (wink, wink).
So, I could not resist making the following comment there:
“She was to go undercover to 'gather intelligence' at coffee shops …” – Kevin Gosztola(Dredd Comment @ Dissenter). Little did the neophyte officer or the Chicago Police know that their escapades have been practiced by despots for hundreds of years.
This spying on coffee houses is an ancient practice that goes back to the origin of coffee in the Islamic world, long before it made its subversive way to the West:
Douglas defends coffee by comparing its use in Europe to its history in the East. “The first publick Coffee-Houses,” he explains, were “from the beginning very little different from what it is in London and Paris at this day.” Oriental coffeehouses welcomed “persons of all ranks,” from students to “the Officers of the Seraglio … and others of the First Quality.” The coffeehouse gave all men the “opportunity of discoursing on all manner of subjects, without the least ceremony or constraint.” A place for entertainment, conversation, and debate, the coffeehouses fostered a new kind of sociability that threatened religious and political authority. Douglas celebrates their intellectual edge, observing that the coffee-drinking Sufis enjoyed “great Alacrity and Freedom of the Mind.” Coffeehouses were information exchanges where patrons discussed news, carried on business, and learned about the latest developments in art and science. Unsurprisingly, Douglas dismisses complaints about coffeehouses as “a great deal of noise and useless railing.” In a conspicuous swipe at Charles II’s attempt to close down London’s coffeehouses, Douglas recounts how “the Liberty” of the Ottoman coffeehouses led a Grand Vizier to disguise himself and secretly investigate them. He discovered “Men of Gravity and Character discoursing seriously concerning the Affairs of the Empire, blaming the Ministry, and deciding freely concerning things of the greatest importance. He had been likewise to visit the taverns, where he met only with People singing, or talking of their amours and warlike Exploits … and therefore he allow’d the Taverns to continue.” A King of England who tried to shut down coffeehouses, Douglas contends, would be acting like a tyrannical sultan.(How the Islamic World Gave Us Coffee and Democracy). “History repeats itself, and that’s one of the things that’s wrong with history”, said Clarence Darrow.
What makes it especially ironic is that the ancestors of the phantom "terrorists of Islam" they were seeking out had created the vestiges of democracy in their coffee houses long, long ago.
The very vestiges of democracy which those ignorant officers purport to protect by their witless operations to destroy it.
The Chicago Police are so wannabe NSA (cf. the Heartland Café which the Chicago PD "saved the world" from).
UPDATE: The jury quickly acquitted the NATO 3 of all terrorism charges (Jury Acquits ‘NATO 3′ of All Terrorism Charges).
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Deja Voodoo
Recent investigations and/or reports have soundly condemned those practices, as Dredd Blog has also pointed out (see On The Recent Condemnation of Torture and On The Recent Condemnation of Torture - 2).
The Obama regime has kept many of the Bush II officials, so the voodoo continues in the form of the greatest civil rights violations against the American people in the history of the United States of America.
Yesterday, we updated the information on the progress of the ACLU lawsuit taking place in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York (ACLU vs. Clapper, Alexander, Hagel, Holder, and Mueller - 2, cf. ACLU vs. Clapper, Alexander, Hagel, Holder, and Mueller).
In the United States the military NSA is spying on all Americans, and has been spying on "every square inch" of the planet for over a decade:
If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency and four English-speaking allies: Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.(A Tale of Coup Cities - 4). There is no doubt that certain sections of the U.S. government, specifically the military, has lost its mind and gone over the edge into tyranny.
The mission is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon's computers capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world.
How does it work, and what happens to all the information that's gathered? A lot of people have begun to ask that question, and some suspect that the information is being used for more than just catching bad guys.
(Footage of satellite; person talking on cell phone; fax machine; ATM being used; telephone pole and wires; radio towers)
KROFT: (Voiceover) We can't see them, but the air around us is filled with invisible electronic signals, everything from cell phone conversations to fax transmissions to ATM transfers. What most people don't realize is that virtually every signal radiated across the electromagnetic spectrum is being collected and analyzed.
How much of the world is covered by them?
Mr. MIKE FROST (Former Spy): The entire world, the whole planet--covers everything. Echelon covers everything that's radiated worldwide at any given instant.
KROFT: Every square inch is covered.
Mr. FROST: Every square inch is covered.
This was foretold by those who had watched tyranny grow, and who knew that allowing accountability to exit the realms of government would prove disastrous:
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison(see Dredd Blog "Quotes" page). And so here we are with a military that has pulled off a policy coup while the guardians (The Queens of Stalingrad - 2) take off their clothes (Is The Empress Taking Off Her Clothes?).
...
“Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson
The militarization of the civilian police forces adds greatly to the danger:
Between about the early 1980s and today, American police forces have undergone some substantial changes. Most notable among these is the ascent of the SWAT team. Once limited to large cities and reserved for emergency situations like hostage takings, active shooters, or escaped(Too Many Cops Are Soldiers Fighting a War, emphasis added). This voodoo domestic and foreign policy is just plain madness.
fugitives, SWAT teams today are primarily used to serve warrants on people suspected of nonviolent, consensual drug crimes.
Military NSA Version 2.0
The numbers are staggering. In the early 1980s, there were about 3,000 SWAT "call-outs" per year across the entire country. By 2005, there were an estimated 50,000. In New York City alone, there were 1,447 drug raids 1994. By 2002, eight years later, there were 5,117 -- a 350 percent increase. In 1984, about a fourth of towns between 25,000-50,000 people had a SWAT team. By 2005, it was 80 percent.
Today, the use of this sort of force is in too many jurisdictions the first option for serving search warrants instead of the last. SWAT teams today are used to break up poker games and massage parlors, for immigration enforcement, even to perform regulatory inspections.
Troubling as all of this is, the problem goes beyond SWAT teams. Too many police departments today are infused with a more general militaristic culture. Cops today are too often told that they're soldiers fighting a war, be it a war on crime, on drugs, on terrorism, or whatever other recent gremlin politicians have chosen as the enemy.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Drones Take Out The 5th & 6th Amendments
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| Above The Supreme Law? |
Let's discuss it in the context of drone strikes against United States citizens as well as citizens of other nations.
Any such inquiry naturally begins with the text of the Amendment at issue, and so let's take a look at the text of the Fifth Amendment first, before we begin to discuss it:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.(Wikipedia). And there is also the Sixth Amendment to consider:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.(Wikipedia). A white paper drafted by the DOJ makes the argument that the Fifth and Sixth Amendment requirements (first presenting evidence to a Grand Jury; then that body making the decision to indict or not, which also determines whether a subsequent petite jury trial takes place) do not apply:
Here the Department of Justice concludes only that where the following three conditions are met, a U.S. operation using legal force in a foreign country against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force would be lawful: (1) an informed high level official of the U.S. government has determined that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; (2) capture is infeasible, and the United States continues to monitor whether capture becomes feasible; and (3) the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.(DOJ Memo, PDF). If the issue is so clear under international "law of war principles", one wonders why the body charged with international "law of war principles" is conducting an investigation into U.S. drone strikes that kill suspected individuals in the manner the DOJ described (without an indictment or trial):
An independent U.N. human rights researcher this morning announced the opening of an investigation into the use of drone attacks and other targeted assassinations by the United States and other governments.(Foreign Policy). During the confirmation hearings concerning the CIA Director nominee, the issue is likewise scheduled to be discussed:
Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, told reporters in London this morning that the "exponential" rise in American drones strikes posed a "real challenge to the framework of international law," according to a statement issued by his office. Emmerson said there was a need to develop a legal framework to regulate the use of drones, and ensure "accountability" for their misuse.
"The plain fact is that this technology is here to stay," he said. "It is therefore imperative that appropriate legal and operational structures are urgently put in place to regulate its use in a manner that complies with the requirement of international law.
The decision to open a drone investigation drew praise from critics of America's drone policies. "We welcome this investigation in the hopes that global pressure will bring the U.S. back into line with international law requirements that strictly limit the use of lethal force," said Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project. "To date, there has been an abysmal lack of transparency and no accountability for the U.S. government's ever-expanding targeted killing program."
After 25 influential years in the CIA, chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan is currently in charge of Barack Obama’s increasing drone-plane assassinations of terrorism suspects, all of which is happening outside our courts. On Feb. 7, he will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a promotion to CIA director.(WND). The issue is not cut and dried in the eyes of many outside the DOJ, because the killing of U.S. citizens without charges and a fair trial runs against the grain of our long standing grand jury and petite jury trial requirements.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Obama Administration And Straw Men
The Obama administration's lawyers in the Department of Justice have made a silly argument and have argued that prisoners should be denied the justice of due process of law by the courts:The Obama Administration, taking its first position in a federal court on claims of torture of Guantanamo Bay detainees, urged the D.C. Circuit Court on Thursday to reject a lawsuit by four Britons formerly held there. In addition, the new filing argued that a recent appeals court ruling makes clear that “aliens held at Guantanamo do not have due process rights.”(SCOTUS blog). So their position is "We don't torture, but if we do too bad"? Get used to it?
Moreover, the document called for a sweeping ban on lawsuits against U.S. military officials, claiming constitutional violations by such officials. Allowing such lawsuits “for actions taken with respect to aliens during wartime,” it said, “would enmesh the courts in military, national security, and foreign affairs matters that are the exclusive province of the political branches.”
The brief was another indication that, at least so far, the new Administration is not moving to make a wide-ranging break with detention policies of the former Bush Administration. While President Obama has ordered the closing of Guantanamo by next January, lawyers for the government have taken positions in a variety of detainee court cases that do not propose fundamental change.
They are siding with those who say "I was following orders", which is the Nuremberg defence.
That is patently bogus and hypocritical. It does not meet the standards we have agreed to and stood for all these decades and centuries.
This chump change does not bode well for the future either, at a time when the reputation of the United States needs to be improved to say the least.
It is egregious when it comes soon after another flip flop on presidential signing statements which Obama raged against in the past.
It is all the more egregious when he wants to send more troops to Afghanistan where the Supreme Court there has upheld:
Afghan courts have produced yet another example of its de-evolution into a medieval Sharia system. The country’s Supreme Court has upheld the 20-year-sentence of Parwez Kambakhsh for blasphemy. He was convicted of asking questions in a university class about women’s rights under Islam and downloading an article on equal rights for woman. We are about to send thousands of more troops into the country to preserve it from . . . radical Islamic influences.(Professor Turley). Obama what the hell has gotten into you? Is Michele with you on this one?
In another case today before Judge Bates in the DC federal court the administration departed from the Bush II regime:
The Obama Administration disclosed on Friday that it will no longer claim the power to detain terrorism suspects under the label “enemy combatant,” even while claiming broad authority to detain those who are a part of terrorist networks or who supplied “substantial support” to such forces.(SCOTUS blog). It is difficult to tell whether these variations are positions of individual US Attorneys of the Bush II era who are refusing to leave, or whether it is muddled policies that are causing these seemingly inconsistent positions.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Taking Without Just Compensation
You have done nothing negative to your house for years.But your equity in it, what you use as a measure of what you are financially worth, is being taken away from you daily. As a matter of fact, one shocking article says it this way:
The net worth of American households fell by the largest amount in more than a half-century of record keeping during the fourth quarter of last year.(NY Times). Who is taking this equity, value, wealth, and worth from you?
The Federal Reserve said Thursday that household net worth dropped by a record 9 percent from the level in the third quarter.
The decline was the sixth straight quarterly drop in net worth and underscored the battering that U.S. families are undergoing in the midst of a steep recession with unemployment surging and the value of their homes and investments plunging.
If it was the government, it might violate the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment which is an injunction against violations of your property rights.
That amendment says "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation". When it is taken without an official declaration that is what is called inverse condemnation.
This current form of "taking your property" is just as real as if they build a garbage dump in the lot adjacent to your property.
The loss is just as real but there seems to be no just compensation to this current insidious mess.
We have suggested here and here some remedy that we feel could, if properly and carefully developed over time, bring more security and safety to our economy.
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