Glenn: The War on Terror has normalized even the most warped powers

from the wapo...

President Obama plans to issue an executive order Wednesday giving the Treasury Department authority to freeze the U.S.-based assets of anyone who “obstructs” implementation of the administration-backed political transition in Yemen.

The unusual order, which administration officials said also targets U.S. citizens who engage in activity deemed to threaten Yemen’s security or political stability, is the first issued for Yemen that does not directly relate to counterterrorism.

Unlike similar measures authorizing terrorist designations and sanctions, the new order does not include a list of names or organizations already determined to be in violation. Instead, one official said, it is designed as a “deterrent” to “make clear to those who are even thinking of spoiling the transition” to think again. . . .

The order provides criteria to take action against people who the Treasury secretary, in consultation with the secretary of state, determines have “engaged in acts that directly or indirectly threaten the peace, security or stability of Yemen, such as acts that obstruct the implementation of the Nov. 23, 2011, agreement between the Government of Yemen and those in opposition to it, which provides for a peaceful transition of power . . . or that obstruct the political process in Yemen.”

glenn...

Jeremy Scahill, who has reported extensively from Yemen over the last year, reacted to the news of this Executive Order this morning by writing: ”This Executive Order appears to be an attack on Americans’ 1st Amendment Rights and Yemenis’ rights to self-determination“; he added: ”apparently the 1st Amendment had an exception about Yemen in it that I missed.” He then asked a series of questions, including: “What if a Yemeni citizen doesn’t believe in a one candidate ‘election’ and is fighting to change their government? US sanctions?” and ”How would Obama define an American citizen as ‘indirectly’ threatening the stability of Yemen’s government?” and “what if an American citizen doesn’t support Yemen’s government and agitates for its downfall? Sanctions from US Treasury? Wow."

but wait, there's more...

[A] bipartisan group of House members is attempting to enact a law specifying that the indefinite detention powers vested in the President by last December’s passage of the NDAA does not apply to those arrested on U.S. soil; in other words, they are trying to ban military detention on American soil without charges. Even though President Obama, after he signed the bill into law, said he does not intend to use these powers for that purpose, the sponsors of this bill are concerned that — because the law does vest this power — Obama could change his mind at any time or a subsequent President could use those powers. Unfortunately, they are being opposed by key Democratic Senators such as Carl Levin in close cooperation with standard neocon members of Congress. As one tweeter wrote to me yesterday about this: “The fact that government has to be told NOT to do that is insane.” Indeed, and it’s easy to forget how frequently true that is. But the War on Terror has so normalized even the most warped powers — warrantless eavesdropping, torture, indefinite detention, renditions, due-process-free-assassinations, Executive Orders like the one today — that it’s sometimes easy to forget that this is the only real reaction that should be needed.

god i hate reading about this shit... it seems that a day doesn't go by without more bad news about the u.s. constitution and the bill of rights being summarily shredded...

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Even the SERE experts on torture questioned its value but the Bushies didn't want to hear it

yeah, well, just more fuel for the fire... everything that's coming out now merely validates what we've known all along and basically what's been available in the public domain for years, IF, that is, you've been paying attention...

The military agency that provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects referred to the application of extreme duress as "torture" in a July 2002 document sent to the Pentagon's chief lawyer and warned that it would produce "unreliable information."

"The unintended consequence of a U.S. policy that provides for the torture of prisoners is that it could be used by our adversaries as justification for the torture of captured U.S. personnel," says the document, an unsigned two-page attachment to a memo by the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency.

[...]

The document was included among July 2002 memoranda that described severe techniques used against Americans in past conflicts and the psychological effects of such treatment. JPRA ran the military program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), which trains pilots and others to resist hostile questioning.

[...]

Daniel Baumgartner, who was the JPRA's chief of staff in 2002 and transmitted the memos and attachments, said the agency "sent a lot of cautionary notes" regarding harsh techniques. "There is a difference between what we do in training and what the administration wanted the information for," he said a telephone interview yesterday. "What the administration decided to do or not to do was up to the guys dealing with offensive prisoner operations. . . . We train our own people for the worst possible outcome . . . and obviously the United States government does not torture its own people."

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he thinks the attachment was deliberately ignored and perhaps suppressed. Excerpts from the document appeared in a report on the treatment of detainees released this month by Levin's committee. The report says the attachment echoes JPRA warnings issued in late 2001.

"It's part of a pattern of squelching dissent," said Levin, who added that there were other instances in which internal reviews of detainee treatment were halted or undercut. "They didn't want to hear the downside."

the united states has operated from an ideological perspective for a long, long time, ideology based on such dogmas as free markets, united states exceptionalism, undiluted materialism, our right to appropriate resources for our own use wherever they may be in the world, and the universal applicability of the american way of life... the bush administration, however, made the application of such political and economic ideology an ideology in itself, an ideology to be practiced totally and without reservation, and with special punishment reserved for those who dared to deviate... the nation may have indicated a strong desire to check itself in to re-hab in the last election, but we've still yet to show up for the first treatment session...

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Why Raise Taxes??????????

Let's just start collecting the ones due right now. Why should the wealthy corporatists and bankers pay little to no taxes?

The Senate is looking into it. It'll be interesting to see how far it actually goes.

Senate report says dividend taxes being dodged

By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. financial institutions are using stock swaps and intricate loan transactions to help foreign investors avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes on dividends paid by U.S. companies, according to a Senate report to be released on Thursday.

The report by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security subcommittee on permanent investigations said investment bankers use phrases like "dividend enhancement," "yield enhancement" and "dividend uplift" to market an array of transactions "whose major purpose is to enable non U.S. persons to dodge payment of U.S. taxes on stock dividends."

Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who along with Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman led the year-long investigation into these transactions, said the Internal Revenue Service has not done enough to crack down on abusive swap and loan transactions.

"There is no business purpose other than avoiding taxes," Levin told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday. "The IRS ought to go after that, they ought to go after that heavily, they have not."

The committee estimates that using offshore entities to avoid paying U.S. taxes costs the federal treasury about $100 billion annually. The report did not put a specific amount on tax losses due to stock swaps and loans transactions with offshore entities, but said the amount is "substantial."

[...]

Levin said transactions aimed at avoiding U.S. dividend taxes have become widespread in the offshore hedge fund industry and that some of the funds function as shell companies controlled by Americans.

"It adds insult to injury when so-called 'offshore' hedge funds turn out to have a shell operation offshore and their real headquarters are in the
United States with U.S. personnel advising them on how to dodge U.S. taxes," said Levin.

...........and they're talkin' 'bout thowin' me in Debtor's Prison, and seizing everything I own, including wife, children, and pets, for owing less than $5,000.

Go figure......................

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Ray McGovern examines why Sen. Carl Levin so willingly raised the white flag

some thoughts on why levin would undermine harry reid so blatantly...

Never before have I felt such irk from a Cheney smirk -- the one with which he confidently assured CBS's Bob Schieffer on April 15's "Face the Nation" that the Democrats will continue to vote to fund the war without including serious restrictions.

Cheney referred approvingly to the fact that "Carl Levin, who's chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has indicated that they definitely do want to pass funding for the troops."

[...]

But how is it that Cheney can enlist the likes of Carl Levin in a policy built on the backs of American troops? Based on recent casualty rates, some 1,500 American troops already "in harm's way" will die, and several times that number will be wounded before Cheney and Bush leave office -- not to mention the ever mounting casualties among Iraqis.

ray mcgovern asks a very good question and offers a possible answer...

Federal Election Commission records show that Levin has received more money from pro-Israel political action committees than any other senator. But, given his distinguished record, it would seem appropriate to give him the benefit of the doubt. It seems less likely that he is influenced by the money than by his penchant to see little or no daylight between what he perceives to be Israel's interests and those of the United States.

wouldn't it be nice if we could have labels on our elected representatives as informative as those we have on our food products...? levin's would read, Sen. Carl Levin, D-MI AIPAC...

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The WaPo's on a roll - both page 1 and op-ed

undiluted crap...

Fortunately some of the coolest heads in this discussion [the Iraq war funding proposal] belong to Senate Democrats such as Barack Obama (Ill.) and Carl M. Levin (Mich.), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Both have suggested that if Mr. Bush vetoes a bill containing a withdrawal mandate, as he has promised to do, Congress should nevertheless approve the war funding.

is a "cool head" really what it takes to continue to support an illegal war, initiated on lies, and led by criminals in the white house, or is it a head carefully wired in to the wishes of those who are pulling your strings...?

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"Such excuses no longer are good enough"

damn right, they're not... while i may be a democrat, i certainly don't think living in argentina qualifies as living in the heartland, but, i can tell you this... i'm pissed...

In Washington, Democrats are blaming Republicans for the Senate's failure so far to vote on a resolution opposing a troop increase in Iraq.

But in the heartland, some voters say such excuses no longer are good enough.

Having banked on the promise that Democrats would force a change of course in Iraq if they won control of Congress, some of the people who helped the Democrats get there are growing impatient.

They're frustrated that Democrats sank so much energy into a nonbinding resolution then dropped the bipartisan plan of Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., like a hot potato when Republican leaders who support President Bush maneuvered them into a corner.

as i said above, i'm pissed, not impatient... and it's not only iraq i'm pissed about... it's the wholesale destruction of my country that has been taking place for over six years at the hands of the worst band of criminals in the nation's history...

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