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I just hope they don't use a loose definition of "belligerent" because then anyone questioning the US Government in the war crimes they committed might be sorry they believed in freedom of speech. It has happened before, of course, being imprisoned merely for saying something to the effect that "our sons are being used by the Government as cannon fodder".
In that Section 1034 of that HR 1540 bill one could almost substitute "Hitler" or "the Furor" in for "the President"...and "the Jews" (who the Germans believed were committing economic terrorism) or the "communists".
The Germans had their false flag burning of the Reichstag building that led to Hitler's ascension to dictatorship...and we had our false flag 911 attacks. Like the Reichstag fire (the building was pre-planted with incendiaries by the Nazis before) and the WTC buildings were pre-planted with explosives including nano-thermite used in the demolition of the buildings made to look like the crashing planes guided by Muslim terrorists. I think the Muslims are like the German's Jews and used as scape goats to elicit the history that followed...ie: ultra-nationalism and jingoist misguided patriotism. This was needed by the ruling elite because of the Ponzi scheme capitalism that was crashing in on the high-rollers who rolled the dice with everyone else's money.
We have had a "war economy" for quite a while and some saw a new war on terrorism as the detractor of the criminal actions the ruling elite had been waging against us. The illegal invasions of these middle east countries sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Muslim patsies so that the war economy would prosper and help keep the country from collapsing economically. But the war economy and printing more money to create more bubbles won't save it either.
It is such a shame that in order for rich people, or any of us for that matter, to maintain a certain consumerist lifestyle that our country continues to murder people that don't deserve to die. Women, children....I shutter to think if that ever happened here...to us...and most people would not even imagine that it would be possible. And so it is so easy to shut off the atrocities our military commits against people... Vietnamese..Iraqis...Afghanis...Yemenis...Pakistanis...and most of them are Muslims...But many Americans have not even been outside of America and are grossly misinformed and misled about so many things. Many are too myopic and shallow and their minds have been forged in Hollywood movies and propaganda.
It is not an accident that Americans have been dumbed down...for one thing...it gives our corporations the excuse to seek more highly trained and less paid workers in other countries. If you are not educated...you will be too dumb to fight back and see how you are being screwed...it is only too easy to be manipulated into thinking that legions of evil Muslim terrorists are out to destroy America and that they were totally behind 911. Well, I imagine that was not the case before we invaded and killed so many of them.
How would you feel if our country was invaded and occupied and almost daily murders killed some of your family? I would bet that more than a handful of Americans would be pissed off enough to take revenge against the invaders and their country even many years into the future. If they killed your children or you wife or brother or sister you'd be classified as a terrorist too by that evil invading force.
Thank you for your reply.
I want to make my self very clear,Im a Democrat for many years,Im not Bashing President Obama,i have vote for him.
I do agry w/ most of everything w/ you,
What i say is this ;there has to be some one that can put the Brakes On, before we get to the Cliff!!
It hurts to see our Country getting wasted,
we use to be #1.
LarsMac:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1540rh/pdf/BILLS-112hr1540rh.pdf
page 440 line 16 Section 1034...it's there.
Wheter is The Newt,The Tiger,The Arnold.&so many more.
They are not Good!!
I have no use or respect for any one of them,& i can not trust them or will i vote for them.
Another note: regarding giving Bush credit for getting Bin L.
Imagine you are a Coach of a football team for 8 years and you can't get them to the Rose Bowl. You and all of your Asst. coaches are replaced by another Coach and within a year, that new coach and his assistances take the team to the Superbowl. You, the old coach, do NOT get credit for getting the team there!!!
We MUST change how we talk about things.
Don't call them "oil company subsidies". Call them PROGRAMS. Then we can say "cut this 21 billion dollar PROGRAM".
Let's see the GOP vote against that.
Ending our endless wars would certainly be possible if the Department of Defense was forced to raise revenue in the same manner many Public Schools have to - with property tax. At the same time we could switch the funding of all public education to federal income tax. Think about it, instead of everyone pissing and moaning about unions and overpaid teachers, the high cost of war would become the righteous focus.
What the heck are you talking about?
There is no section 1034 in that bill, and there is no bill in the House that would grant the Pres "perpetual war powers"
Read it for yourself. Go to Thomas.gov.
Effectively we've been on a war footing since 1939, which has been a big factor in keeping the economy going. This provision just "legalizes" the process. Whether it was fighting the Axis, Communists, or Terrorists, there always seemed to be an enemy to justify payouts and repression. Sometimes the conflicts were justified, sometimes they weren't, except maybe in the minds of those on the front line. Perhaps the only difference is that the process isn't even being kept half-hidden anymore, having moved from overseas to right here. Orwell thought military spending was used to absorb resouces that otherwise would help the people become more independent. That might not be the intention here, Thom, but the effect is the same. Endless war is just another way this country is drifting further into being a feudally stratified society. If this continues I do not believe America can survive in recognizeable form; "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" is already a mockery.
Someone on this blog, a few days ago, said that "Obama is not a dictator!" But it sure looks more and more like a reincarnation of one stunted, mustachioed dictator back in the 30s and early 40s. Remember Obama (or whomever will be President in the future) now has the power to arrest anyone in America he wants, then torture them, then kill them. They already use the Muslim terrorists as an excuse to spy on any/or all American citizens for things absolutely not related to Muslim terrorism...or any kind of terrorism.
And with the new NDAA Section 1034, and the precedence that Bush set of illegally invading other countries and Obama's continuation of that behavior (we illegally invaded Pakistan many times killing civilians even during, before and after we got OBL), Obama can get the US in one hell of a lot of trouble with the rest of the world...but that prospect didn't bother Hitler either because he thought he was invincible and could do anything he wanted. Maybe what the rest of the world needs is to set up a War Crimes Nuremberg Trial....or setup high-level Americans in a juicy sex-scandal claiming rape charges against hotel maids when the Americans visit their countries. I believe this was done to Julian Assange...a setup...and it wasn't the first nor will it be the last.
I suspect that the Republicans, who voted for this, probably were looking forward to the next Dictator to be Republican..which may very well be, unfortunately....but as I have said in previous posts....it really doesn't matter much...Republican...Democrat...they are really two wings of The Party as Winston would have known Big Brother in "1984"
In "V for Vendetta" the character V (the leading protagonist, hero, and anarchist portraying Guy Fawkes) long past realized that democracy was dead and that the corporations had gotten so strong and unified that they controlled...or was..the government. The only thing left was to physically rebel against the corrupt system.
Today's heroes (Wikileaks, Anonymous, etal) use the weapon of truth and exposure of corrupt officials and corporate crimes and war crimes.
In "V for Vendetta" the detective (Stephen Rea), in trying to stop V (Hugo Weaving) from fomenting a revolution, discovered that the corporate criminal/government he worked for was in fact committing really horrible crimes against humanity and murdering hundreds of thousands of people in their medical experimentation camps (it's been a while since I watched the movie so the exact method of these mass murders I am not clear on).
It is not the terrorism from without that scares the ruling elite...although that gives the MIC the excuse to bully other countries into submission....it is the potential for terrorism from within...when the people finally say: "enough is enough and your crooked, corrupt political gaming system is no longer fooling us...instead of voting with worthless ballots...we'll overwhelm you with our numbers of mass dissenters!"
From Robert Scheer's article in today's Truthdig:
"One Lawman With the Guts to Go After Wall Street"
"All of the leading politicians and officials, federal and state, Republican and Democrat, were on board to complete the job of saving the banks while ignoring their victims ... until last week when the attorney general of New York (Eric Schneiderman) refused to go along."
"Despite a mountain of evidence of robo-signed mortgage contracts, deceitful mortgage-based securities and fraudulent foreclosures, the banks were going to be able to cut their potential losses to what was, for them, a minuscule amount.
In a deal that had the blessing of the White House and many federal regulators and state attorneys general—a settlement probably for not much more than the $5 billion pittance the top financial institutions found acceptable—the banks would be freed of any further claims by federal and state officials over their shady mortgage packaging and servicing practices and deceptive foreclosure proceedings.
At the same time, the SEC and other federal regulatory bodies are making sweetheart deals with the bankers to close off accountability for creating and collecting on more than a trillion dollars’ worth of toxic mortgage-based securities at the heart of the nation’s economic meltdown..."
"The financial crisis occurred only because Republicans and Democrats passed the laws that Wall Street lobbyists wrote ending reasonable banking industry regulation installed in the 1930s in response to the Depression. And when the greed they enabled threatened the foundations of our economy, under Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, it was the bankers who were assisted into lifeboats that had no room for ordinary people."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/one_lawman_with_the_guts_to_go_after...
Again...both the Republicans and the Democrats (some of them...especially Obama) are not your friends! They have all committed economic treason against the majority of Americans. So go ahead and vote for your favorite parasite this next election but it really amounts to folly and a waste of time.
This is just the tip of the Titanic Bank iceberg. They are PAC-0, MAC-0, WAC-0, Whacko, through centuries of inbreeding. And, kicks just keep getting harder to find. So more unthinkable crimes are to be expected from The Important Ones, as well as accelerated retaliations and silencings in the form of bankster kidnappings and murders amongst themselves like we saw in The Godfather.
XXXXX
I hope you are correct, Jimspy, because I think it will be a really bumpy ride no matter who is elected or re-elected...unless Obama does pull through for us like you think he will. You think, or at least hope, he is a shrewd politician playing the corporations and not just a corporate lackey. But do you think the corporations would be so fooled if that were the case?
I think that the ones being fooled are the majority of American voters who keep falling into the same trap over and over again hardly ever making any gain for themselves. It's the good-cop/bad-cop game..the bad cops (Republicans) psych us out then the good cops(Democrats) get what they both want...to be in positions of power that make the laws that favors big business...and in our case big business is no longer manufacturing...it is smoke and mirrors FIRE economy and big-time Wall Street reckless gambling of our 401k and pension plans.
The Democrat Party is being used as a kind of pressure relief valve...a psychological ploy to diffuse built up discontent by feeding the voters hope..false hope....and then the ruling elite makes gains, perhaps more slowly than when the Republicans are in charge, but makes gains nevertheless. And the people are forever losing out to this manner of exploitation.
I think the corporations have played Obama for the inexperienced and weakling that he appears to be. I think he is in over his head and will gain no further ground (if you can even count the "gains" that some people think he has taken...the health care issue?...a sell-out...the economy...a sell out to Wall Street). You think Obama is going to turn around 180 degrees and start representing his base again? I really don't think so!
I am kind of hoping that the two party system is finally shattered by the win of an independent party....but definitely not the Tea Baggers who are owned by the Koch Bros. By showing those fat ticks in the two-party system, and even those ruling elite that own them, that the idea that "we have no other choice" but to vote for one or the other would show them that their strategy is a fallacious mistake. Those parasites, both the ruling elite banksters, corporateers, and their incestuous toadies in both the Republican and Democrat Parties have been sucking the life's blood out of America and we need to recognize that fact.
And I suspect that there are highly visible talk show hosts that come across as someone whose values you align with and he/she says all the right things that you cherish and fawn over. The question is if that person on the one hand seems to be fighting for your best interests and against the really evil political and corporate monsters out there but on the other seems to be pushing for the re-election of someone whose actions seems to show that he is owned by corporations don't you begin to wonder whose side is he really on? Could there be such apparently "left-wing" public personalities who are really owned by the corporations themselves so that he/she will steer the voters to the corporate owned Democrat Party and renounce any alternatives...like massive demonstrations....or voting for an independent Presidential candidate? Someone like Chris Hedges seems to be indicating that nothing short of rioting in the streets of every American city for days, or weeks, or years on end and bringing the country to a complete standstill is what is needed to make any kind of real change...and that voting for yet another Democrat is just a waste of time if not helping to support the myth and illusion that American democracy works.
What would be alternative to Marbury Versus Madison?
Thom, you frequently say you think that the concept of judicial review that stems from Marbury Versus Madison is not something the Founding Fathers envisioned. In a future show, could you walk us through what the right course would be? Does this mean that someone couldn't challenge a law and take it all the way up to the Supreme Court? Or does it mean that it could still go to the Supreme Court and the Court could vote but then Congress would have to make the law conform to the Constitution? In other words, what would happen if you thought a law was unconstitutional if there hadn't been a Marbury Versus Madison?
Thanks!
Gwynne
Social Security isn't an entitlement because you've paid for it? How are you not "entitled" to what you've paid for?
Gee Thom are you sure we aren't a very socially mobile country, feels like I've gone from middle to lower class. Seems like a lot of my fellow citizens are in the same boat too.
N
Angela McGlowan starts out by saying she's "Taxed Enough Already" and then says she can't be required to answer a question of tax policy because she's not a public official? Despite the fact that she ran for public office?
Re: Obama's Made in America t-shirts & mugs.
Are the T-Shirts & mugs made in America?
Why are Democrats shunned when the mess around on their wives, and Republicans get a pass? Easy Thom, Republicans have NO SHAME! So they don't care what is said about them, and are nearly impossible to embarass... remember these are the guys that openly take corporate cash, heck the shop for it. THEY HAVE NO SHAME.
N
Re: Why is John Edwards the worst man ever but Newt Gingrich gets to run for President.
Fundamentals vote republican, regardless of sexual morals because they are one issue voters; in a patriarchal society all that maters is denying a woman's right to choose abortion.
TEApublican feminism = Bare-foot, pregnant and beaten into a pre-Dickensian nightmare.
THOM!!! You are not being fair to the serial wife-recycler and slimy amphibian impersonator. You should stop interferring with Gingrich's martial process. Gingrich just wants to recycle his current wife and only knows how to dump a woman if she is sick and he can line up the next ex-Gingrich by boinking her while he is on the public dole.
"AH . . . FRANKLY", if you examine his intentions under any other light, you will be left wanting.
Gingrich's Tiffany's bill
Gingirch's Tiffany's bill might not be his wife's penchant for jewelry, maybe it's Gingrich buying peace offerings every time he gets caught having an affair.
"a provision that affirms we are at war with Al-Qaeda"
If there was a provision that stated we are not at war with Al-Qaida or any other anti US militant organization or individual what you wind up with is an oxymoron and a bunch of bad guys laughing their arses off at us.
Semantics amounting to a big Duh ! IMO
The Anti-Christ is allowing permanent wars. I never want to hear that the Anti-Christ nation is good, holy, and saintly. The American psyche worships permanent wars.
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/05/congress-proposes-bill-to-allow.html