Obama's veto threat of the NDAA proves to be as bogus as he is

sorry for the rancor, but i'm fucking fed the fuck up... the fact that this truly abominable piece of constitutional-destroying legislation could possibly become law is the final straw for me... now, i'm REALLY PISSED...

The White House on Wednesday said it would not veto the controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

President Barack Obama’s spokesman Jay Carney said lawmakers who crafted a compromise version from rival Senate and House versions of the legislation had addressed his worries about proposed tough rules on detainees.

fucking goddam son of a bitch... our president should be impeached for shredding the united states constitution... son of a BITCH...! if our president is looking to radicalize people, he just succeeded with me...

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Naomi Wolf on using the Espionage Act of 1917 to prosecute Julian Assange: the zombie that has enslaved the village just won't die

thank god for the internet... without it, i simply wouldn't have this kind of context...

The Espionage Act was crafted in 1917 -- because President Woodrow Wilson wanted a war and, faced with the troublesome First Amendment, wished to criminalize speech critical of his war. In the run-up to World War One, there were many ordinary citizens -- educators, journalists, publishers, civil rights leaders, union activists -- who were speaking out against US involvement in the war. The Espionage Act was used to round these citizens by the thousands for the newly minted 'crime' of their exercising their First Amendment Rights. A movie producer who showed British cruelty in a film about the Revolutionary War (since the British were our allies in World War I) got a ten-year sentence under the Espionage act in 1917, and the film was seized; poet E.E. Cummings spent three and a half months in a military detention camp under the Espionage Act for the 'crime' of saying that he did not hate Germans. Esteemed Judge Learned Hand wrote that the wording of the Espionage Act was so vague that it would threaten the American tradition of freedom itself. Many were held in prison for weeks in brutal conditions without due process; some, in Connecticut -- Lieberman's home state -- were severely beaten while they were held in prison. The arrests and beatings were widely publicized and had a profound effect, terrorizing those who would otherwise speak out. Presidential candidate Eugene Debs received a ten-year prison sentence in 1918 under the Espionage Act for daring to read the First Amendment in public. The roundup of ordinary citizens -- charged with the Espionage Act -- who were jailed for daring to criticize the government was so effective in deterring others from speaking up that the Act silenced dissent in this country for a decade. In the wake of this traumatic history, it was left untouched -- until those who wish the same outcome began to try to reanimate it again starting five years ago, and once again, now. Seeing the Espionage Act rise up again is, for anyone who knows a thing about it, like seeing the end of a horror movie in which the zombie that has enslaved the village just won't die.

[...]

If Assange can be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, then so can the New York Times; and the producers of Parker Spitzer, who discussed the WikiLeaks material two nights ago; and the people who posted a mirror WikiLeaks site on my Facebook 'fan' page; and Fox News producers, who addressed the leak and summarized the content of the classified information; and every one of you who may have downloaded information about it; and so on. That is why prosecution via the Espionage Act is so dangerous -- not for Assange alone, but for every one of us, regardless of our political views.

remember... it's not just about wikileaks and julian assange... it's about you and me...

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John Sidney McCain III [with note from profmarcus]

War Hero ........ or Traitor?

You decide




A wealth of information can be found with a little use of Google.

Go on ....................Give it a try.

[Note from profmarcus]

as i watched this video clip, i discovered it was produced by vietnam veterans against john mccain... as a vietnam veteran, i thought it would be a good idea to call attention to this apparently well-organized group and its seemingly well-documented assertions... however, it's just more information and, just like all the rest of us, as brother tim pointed out, you have to decide...

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Defending Democratic complicity

i was deeply angry yesterday to learn of the dems' five-year conspiracy of silence in covering up the bush administration's endemic violations of our constitution and the rule of law...

today, i read this from glenn...

If someone wants to defend these Democrats' complicit behavior (on the craven ground that what they did was understandable because it was politically wise), then they should make that argument. But nobody should pretend that these Senators and Representatives were "helpless" and had no options for putting a stop to Bush's torture programs and other lawbreaking if they were actually interested in doing so.

that was shortly after i read this by john aravosis...

It's also clear that had Pelosi raised any private objections during the meeting - remember, it took place in the first year after September 11 - Bush and the Republicans would have leaked that fact to the public (like they just did) and destroyed her career and marked her publicly as a traitor. No member of Congress, no American, could have spoken up about anything in the months after September 11 and survived. It's patently unfair to suggest that somehow because Pelosi didn't object then that she doesn't have the right to object now.

sigh... i am terribly disappointed to read john's perspective... hell yes, pelosi has the right to object now, but she didn't when she should have and that fact cannot be excused... would it have destroyed her career...? very possibly... would it have marked her publicly as a traitor...? quite likely... but sorry, john, i don't give a rat's ass... she took an oath to protect and defend the constitution, she chose not to do that, and THAT is the REAL treason she is guilty of...

on another note... while i completely understand that, in the bigger picture of things, what i think about anything matters little, i must say that i am liking what i am seeing of john aravosis' perspectives less and less every day... in many, many ways, i admire and respect john, but his determined blindness in the face of our nation's constitutional crisis is disappointing, disturbing, and puzzling in equal measure... while it's certainly his prerogative to form and express his own opinions, this defense of nancy pelosi is another nail in his coffin, as far as i'm concerned... ah, well...

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This isn't the first time the U.S. has been exposed to a coup d'etat

some things simply can't get enough exposure... i posted on this bbc documentary [RealPlayer file] back at the end of july... it links george bush's grandfather, prescott bush, to the attempted coup exposed by general smedley butler in 1933, during the presidency of fdr... we seriously need to keep in mind just what kind of family is running our country...

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

scott horton wrote this in harper's at about the same time as the bbc documentary was aired...

A key element of the plot involved a retired prominent general [Smedley Butler] who was to have raised a private army of 500,000 men from unemployed veterans and who blew the whistle when he learned more of what the plot entailed. The plot was heavily funded and well developed and had strong links with fascist forces abroad. A story in the New York Times and several other newspapers reported on it, and a special Congressional committee was created to conduct an investigation. The records of this committee were scrubbed and sealed away in the National Archives, where they have only recently been made available.

The Congressional committee kept the names of many of the participants under wraps and no criminal action was ever brought against them. But a few names have leaked out. And one is Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the incumbent president. Prescott Bush was of course deep into the business of the Hamburg-America Lines, and had tight relations throughout this period with the new Government that had come to power in Germany a year earlier under Chancellor Aldoph Hitler. It appears that Bush was to have formed a key liaison for the group with the new German government.

Prescott Bush, of course, went on to service as a U.S. Senator from Connecticut, and his son, George H.W. Bush emerged from World War II as a hero.

The Plot Against America portrayed in this episode of the BBC series “Document” gives fascinating insight into a dark and little known piece of American history in which the nation stood on the brink of betrayal. The role of the most powerful political dynastic family in the nation’s history in this whole affair is shocking.

it's truly astounding that prescott bush went on to become a u.s. senator AFTER his involvement in the plot... and no less astounding that the records were sealed...

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George Bush and Dick Cheney are enemies of the state and the Democrats giving them aid and comfort are guilty of treason

let's cut to the chase...

The enemies are President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney. Like no other president and vice president in history, these men attacked their country.

It was not our geography George Bush and Richard Cheney invaded. Instead they abandoned and subverted the bedrock institution of our constitutional democracy: the rule of law. By word and deed, Mr. Bush repeatedly and arrogantly sets himself above the law, claiming obedience to be a matter of presidential choice. Mr. Cheney orchestrates, coaches, applauds and iterates.

This cannot stand if the country we know and cherish is to survive. George Bush and Richard Cheney are literally enemies of the state; long before now and by any measure of constitutional justice, they should have been impeached and removed from office.

Abjectly, continuously and stubbornly refusing to hold them accountable, however, the mainstream Democrats adhere to this criminal president and vice president: Nothing they have asked for has been denied, no barriers placed in their way. That is giving them aid and comfort, and that is treason. George Bush and Richard Cheney took the country to war illegally, with a deliberate, carefully designed and executed package of fear-mongering propaganda: lies, distortions and deceptions. No informed citizen entertains the slightest doubt about this.

[...]

For the sake of the rule of law, for the sake of the integrity of the Congress, for the sake of the country's future and incidentally for the sake of a potential Democratic victory in 2008, the politics of truth and justice must be showcased. The Judiciary Committtee must hold hearings immediately, to see if impeachment is in fact warranted -- and polls say the greater part of the country thinks it is.

If the mainstream Democrats will not do this, if their treason continues, then decent and thinking citizens everywhere -- concerned patriots all -- can only weep for their country.

this topic should have been front and center at last night's democratic debate in las vegas, but noo-o-o-ooo... i'm weeping...

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More Wisdom From The Past

Once again, a Founding Father provides guidance and more than a little prophecy.
In 1821, John Quincy Adams stated the following about America:

“She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.(emphasis added) She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... [America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty.”

NeoCons and their Democratic Party co-conspirators would call this isolationism. However, if you really READ the passage, Adams is denouncing military intervention. This isn't promoting a restriction on political and/or economic support. Political and economic pressure are the preferred methods to influence world affairs by civilized nations.
The total lack of WMD's in Iraq are an excellent example of how sanctions can prevent tyrants from expanding their arsenals. The war in Iraq was totally unnecessary.
Our Government and Elected Officials constantly violate the guidance written down by the Founders, including the Constitution.
They are not just guilty of Impeachable offenses, they are guilty of Treason.
If there are any free generations of Americans to come, how will they judge our generation?

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