[click image]Sliming penguins....
Doomed dairy....
Goldstone gives in....
BP drilling in the Gulf....
The war drones on as though it's stopping tomorrow....
Polymer didn't work....
Information that will not land on your synapses....
Worse than Dubya....
Corbett Report....
The banks....
UNSPEAKABLE....
Fidel....
For Phil....
[click image]
This policy is what the Nobel Peace Laureate — the first African-American president in history — is now perpetuating in the only nation to liberate itself from slavery. But of course, the most important thing is not the dispossessed in Haiti, nor the innocent people in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan being killed, day after day, by the Laureate's bombs, bullets and assassins. No, the main thing is — he's not John McCain! And we must put aside these trifles, these heaps of corpses, and rally around the prez to "defend our gains and regroup for a progressive counter-offensive in 2012!" The best is yet to come!
[click image]President Barack Obama warned lawmakers on Friday that it would be the "height of irresponsibility" to shut down the government over a spending battle, pressuring Republicans not to pursue deeper cuts.
[click image]The White House would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a classified briefing to House members Wednesday afternoon.
Clinton was responding to a question from Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) about the administration's response to any effort by Congress to exercise its war powers, according to a senior Republican lawmaker who attended the briefing.
The answer surprised many in the room because Clinton plainly admitted the administration would ignore any and all attempts by Congress to shackle President Obama's power as commander in chief to make military and wartime decisions. In doing so, he would follow a long line of Presidents who have ignored the act since its passage, deeming it an unconstitutional encroachment on executive power.
[click image]There is no health risk from consuming milk with extremely low levels of radiation, like those found in Washington state and California, experts said Thursday, echoing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"When we have a disaster like we've had with a nuclear power plant in Japan, we're probably going to find things that are truly not a public health risk [right along with those that truly are], but I think it's very difficult for the public to assimilate this information and understand the risks [so please don't explain them in public]," said Dr. Wally Curran, a radiation oncologist and head of Emory University's Winship Cancer Center.
The federal agency said Wednesday it was increasing its nationwide monitoring of radiation in milk, precipitation, drinking water, and other outlets. It already tracks radiation in those potential exposure routes through an existing network of stations across the country.
Results from screening samples of milk taken in the past week in Spokane, Washington, and in San Luis Obispo County, California, detected radioactive iodine, or iodine-131, at a level 5,000 times lower than the limit set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, officials said.
At that level, a person would have to drink 1,000 liters of milk to receive the same amount of radiation as a chest X-ray, said Dr. James Cox, radiation oncologist at Houston's MD Anderson Cancer Center. [Except the radiation from the milk stays in the body well over a thousand times longer than that from a chest X-ray and they stopped giving regular chest X-rays decades ago because the accumulation was very hazardous to your health.]
The I-131 isotope has a very short half-life of about eight days, the EPA said, so the level detected in milk and milk products is expected to drop relatively quickly. [Except if nobody caps it off in Japan, otherwise it just keeps coming.]
"The good news about iodine is, it has a short half-life," said Curran. "It doesn't dwell in any biologic system [except if you want to nitpick about your thyroid], be it an adult, a child, a cow, for any significant period of time, and at those levels there's no evidence that there's any medical significance."
Radiation gets into the milk because it falls on grass eaten by cows. The milk does not itself absorb radiation. [So when we measure the iodine in it, we go measure it in the cow paddies on that glowing green grass and extrapolate from that.]
FDA senior scientist Patricia Hansen also said the findings are "minuscule" compared to what people experience every day.
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said tests confirmed the milk is safe to drink.
"This morning I spoke with the chief advisers for both the EPA and the FDA and they confirmed that these levels are minuscule and are far below levels of public health concern, including for infants and children," Gregoire said in a statement.
"According to them, a pint of milk at these levels would expose an individual to less radiation than would a five-hour airplane flight." [And yer kid rides in airplanes for five hours radically more often than he drinks milk, right?]
Similarly, the California Department of Public Health reassured residents that the levels do not pose a threat. [Go back to sleep.]
"When radioactive material is spread through the atmosphere, it drops to the ground and gets in the environment. When cows consume grass, hay, feed, and water, radioactivity will be processed and become part of the milk we drink. However, the amounts are so small they pose no threat to public health," the department said. [We checked the paddies.]
At least 15 states have reported radioisotopes from Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in air or water or both. No states have recommended that residents take potassium iodide, a salt that protects the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine.
Iodine-131 has been found in Eastern states from Florida to Massachusetts as well as in Western states like Oregon, Colorado, and California, according to sensors and officials in those states.
None of the levels poses a risk to public health, they said.
At high levels [at ANY levels], the isotope focuses on and accumulates in a person's thyroid gland, Curran said. A medical test for thyroid health involves a person ingesting iodine-131 and undergoing a nuclear scan to examine the gland. [Congratulations! You no longer have to drink the iodine first!]
The Japanese plant has been leaking radiation since it was damaged in a tsunami that followed a massive earthquake March 11 [and so has been here sliming Californians for approximately two weeks and yer still not dead so shaddap.]
[click image]Not looking for sympathy here, but the life of a political reporter isn’t all champagne and canapes. Consider our man Scott Powers, who was sent over to the Winter Park home of Alan Ginsburg this morning as the designated “pool reporter” — aka scribe — for the fundraiser where Vice President Joe Biden is appearing on behalf of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.
Turns out the veep hadn’t arrived, but about 150 guests (minimum donation $500) were already in the house. So to prevent Scott from mingling with the crowd, a member of Biden’s advance team consigned him to a storage closet — and then stood outside the door to make sure he didn’t walk out without permission.Radiation levels that can prove fatal were detected outside reactor buildings at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, signaling a partial fuel meltdown and complicating efforts to contain the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
...
Plutonium-239, a byproduct of fission used in nuclear weapons, was found in soil samples taken on the plant site March 21 and March 22, Tokyo Electric said in a statement today. Two of the five samples contained more plutonium than known to have been deposited by atmospheric nuclear-bomb fallout and probably came from the damaged plant, according to the statement.
...
Plutonium was part of the fuel mix in reactor No. 3. Used fuel rods from other reactors may also have been a source of the material, Edwin Lyman, a radiological specialist for the watchdog group Union of Concerned Scientists, said on a conference call with reporters. Plutonium inhalation causes lung, liver and bone cancer, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.Five of the six biggest container shippers are maintaining routes to Tokyo and Yokohama after the U.S. Navy said radiation on vessels from the leaking Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant can be scrubbed off with soap and water.
A.P Moeller-Maersk A/S, Mediterranean Shipping Co. and CMA CGM SA, the top three, are still serving Japan’s two busiest container ports, 2 1/2 weeks after an earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima plant, 220 kilometers (135 miles) to the north. Among the top six shippers, only Hapag-Lloyd AG, the No. 4, is diverting vessels to docks in the south of the country.
The Japanese government is allowing ships to sail as close as 30 kilometers to the stricken reactors, and the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, says operations in and out of Japan can continue as normal, with levels of radiation presenting no medical basis for imposing restrictions.
“These are extremely low levels and are easily cleaned off,” Commander Jeff Davis, a spokesman for Seventh Fleet, which is helping with recovery efforts, said by yesterday by telephone. “Even if they weren’t, they still wouldn’t rise to the level where they would cause any harm to human health.”
[click image]To our son, his excellency, Mr Barack Hussein Obama.
I have said to you before, that even if Libya and the United States of America enter into a war, god forbid, you will always remain a son. Your picture will not be changed.
Al-Qa'eda is an armed organisation, passing through Algeria, Mauritania and Mali. What would you do if you found them controlling American cities with the power of weapons? What would you do, so I can follow your example.
[click image]A Wisconsin judge issued a temporary restraining order Friday blocking the state's new and contentious collective bargaining law from taking effect, raising the possibility that the Legislature may have to vote again to pass the bill.
Dane County District Judge Maryann Sumi granted the restraining order in response to a lawsuit filed by the district attorney alleging that Republican lawmakers violated the state's open meetings law by hastily convening a special committee before the Senate passed the bill.
Sumi said her ruling would not prevent the Legislature from reconvening the committee with proper notice and passing the bill again.The Newspaper Guild has joined a group of Huffington Post bloggers in protesting the site's pay policy — specifically, its lack of pay.
The union said it requested a meeting with the Huffington Post to discuss the situation. "Thus far, the request has been ignored," the guild wrote.
“The idea of going on strike when no one really notices,” Huffington said. “Go ahead, go on strike.”
The Newspaper Guild, though, has over 26,000 members.
[click image]The House on Thursday voted to end federal funding to National Public Radio. Republican supporters said it made good fiscal sense, and Democratic opponents called it an ideological attack that would deprive local stations of access to programs such as "Car Talk" and "All Things Considered."
The bill, passed 228-192 along mainly partisan lines, would bar federal funding of NPR and prohibit local public stations from using federal money to pay NPR dues and buy its programs. The prospects of support in the Democratic-controlled Senate are slim. Seven Republicans broke ranks to vote against the bill.
[click image]A Statement on the Events of March 9th
“A Stain on Democracy”
The Autonomous Solidarity Organization was officially formed on Tuesday March 8th, 2011. The roots of our organization date back to the early days of the original occupation of the Capitol. The bulk of our core membership were members of the drum circle and “people's microphone” which kept spirits high and allowed the voice of the public to be heard in the rotunda for the 18 days of the occupation. We worked in concert with unions, the Capitol staff, and the general public as these connections became available. We made every effort to maintain peace and order during the repeated provocations we were faced with. These roles were revisited on the night of March 9th. During the post-occupation period (after March 3rd) we decided to formally organize in order to continue the fight which we had already dedicated weeks of our life to. Our efforts, and our reach, will be much broader than the fight against SB 11 but for now that is a moot point.
To begin discussing the events on March 9th it is useful to begin by examining the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law (State Statute 19.84):
“Public notice of every meeting of a governmental body shall be given at least 24 hours prior to the commencement of such meeting unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical, in which case shorter notice may be given, but in no case may the notice be provided less than 2 hours in advance of the meeting.”
At around 4:00 pm, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald announced that a conference committee on the Budget Repair Bill would meet at 6:00pm. This minimal compliance with our state's laws is the continuance of a disturbing trend we have seen from the Wisconsin Republicans. As stated in the Open Meetings Law, a 24 hour notice is required unless such notice is impossible or impractical. Assembly Speaker Fitzgerald has certainly not provided any argument as to why a 24 hour notice was impractical or impossible. There is no rational, intellectually honest argument behind such a claim.
Immediately members of the ASO and other groups involved in fighting this bill put out a call for the general public to get to the Capitol building as quickly as possible. At this point, access to the building was limited to only two entrances (King St. and North Hamilton St.). I specifically state this because the public entrances are constantly changed. Between 5:30 and 6:00pm, only one of these two entrances was open. Which entrance was open was periodically changed. Again, there is no rational, intellectually honest reason for doing this. It succeeded in slowing the pace at which the general public entered the building.
Despite the fact that Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca has stated that he received only the Legislative Financial Bureau memo on the new bill, the conference committee quickly approved the amended version of SB-11 and within minutes the Senate passed it. Before the Senate was even out of session, the building was locked down. No public hearings were held. Over the next several hours, there were several large breaches of the Capitol building security. Eventually the police largely stood down and the public began to flood into the building. In the past the DOA had clearly demonstrated its ability to lock the building down like a militarized zone. Even in the few days preceding March 9th, public access was severely limited. In the past, the Governors supporters were brought into the building through underground tunnels while a Democratic Assemblymen was literally tackled to the ground while trying to gain access to his own office. Members of ASO dressed in suits were offered quick passage through security while others were prevented access on March 8th. It is an interesting point that security measures were severely relaxed on the evening of March 9th.
While the massive flood of the general public into the building created a hectic scene, at no point did the crowd become violent. For a period there were no sound amplification systems in the building, which we had previously used during the original occupation to maintain order and peace. Eventually megaphones were brought in and members of ASO immediately began using them to urge the crowd to remain peaceful. It was merely a precaution that we have always taken. Despite the justifiable anger of the crowd, we have yet to resort to violence even in times where there was no control at all. Despite all of the provocations, manipulations, despite the DOA's violation of the state constitution and failure to comply with court orders, we have remained peaceful.
Eventually, after discussions with Chief Tubbs of the Capitol Police, the majority of the public left the building. All but a few members of the ASO have left the building. The assembly will vote on the new version of the bill today, March 10th at 11am. If this occurs it will be an unspeakable crime against our democracy. Governor Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans have spent weeks promoting the provisions of the Budget Repair Bill as necessary to close the budget deficit. There was never a rational, intellectually honest argument that stripping collective bargaining from public employees, that putting an unelected official in direct control of Badgercare and Medicaid, that allowing no-bid sale of power plants have anything to do with balancing the budget. However it has now been made even clearer. Explicitly financial portions of the bill were split into a separate bill and they are attempting to pass these provisions into law.
In the Legislative Financial Bureau's memo on modifications to SB 11, page 16, there is a provision titled “Discharge of State Employees.” It states that under current law, “the Governor may issue an executive order declaring a state of emergency for the state or any portion of the state if he or she determines that an emergency resulting from a disaster or imminent threat of a disaster exists.” Remember that the Wisconsin Republicans have shown a disturbing penchant for complying with existing law in the most limited sense. In the event of a Governor declaring a state of emergency, the new SB 11 would allow an appointing authority to discharge any employee who fails to “(a) report to work for any three days during the state of emergency, (b) participates in a strike, work stoppage, sit- down, stay-in, slowdown, or other concerted activities to interrupt the operations or services of state government.” There is a clear coordination between the language used to vilify those exercising their 1st amendment rights and the language used to activate this provision. The Republicans very clearly are interested in giving Governor Walker the ability to wield unreasonable, unprecedented power.
The writing is on the wall. Every day we see more of their intentions and every day our resolve only grows stronger. As always, we will respond appropriately, peacefully, and effectively in Autonomous Solidarity.
Thomas M Bird
Co-Chair, Communications
Autonomous Solidarity Organization
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From now on, whenever you hear the term "the global economy" you should immediately equate it with the destruction of the U.S. middle class. Over the past several decades, the American economy has been slowly but surely merged into the emerging one world economic system. Unfortunately for the middle class, much of the rest of the world does not have the same minimum wage laws and worker protections that we do. Therefore, the massive global corporations that now dominate our economy are able to pay workers in other countries slave labor wages and import the products that they make into the United States to compete with products made by "expensive" American workers. This has resulted in a mass exodus of manufacturing facilities and jobs from the United States.
But without good, high paying jobs the U.S. middle class cannot continue to be the U.S middle class. The only thing that the vast majority of Americans have to offer in the economic marketplace is their labor. Sadly, that labor has now been dramatically devalued. American workers now must directly compete for jobs with millions upon millions of workers on the other side of the world that toil away for 15 hours a day at slave labor wages. This is causing jobs to leave the United States at an almost unbelievable rate, and it is putting tremendous downward pressure on the wages of millions of jobs that are still in the United States.
So when you hear terms such as "globalization" and "the global economy", it is important to keep in mind that those are code words for the emerging one world economic system that is systematically wiping out the U.S. middle class.
A one world labor pool means that the standard of living for the U.S. middle class will continue falling toward the standard of living in the third world.
We keep hearing about how the U.S. economy is being transformed from a "manufacturing economy" into a "service economy". But "service jobs" are generally much lower paying than "manufacturing jobs". The number of good paying "middle class jobs" in the United States is rapidly decreasing. So how can the U.S. middle class survive in such an environment?
What makes things even worse for manufacturers in the United States is that other nations often impose a "value-added tax" of 20 percent or more on U.S. goods entering their shores and yet most of the time we do not reciprocate with similar taxes.
But whenever someone mentions how incredibly unfair and unbalanced our trade agreements with other nations are, they are immediately labeled as a "protectionist".
Well, someone should be looking out for U.S. interests when it comes to trade, because the current state of the global economy is ripping the U.S. middle class to shreds.
Right now, the United States consumes far more wealth than it produces. This nation buys much, much more from the rest of the world than they buy from us. This is called a "trade deficit", and it is one of the most important economic statistics. The U.S. runs a massive trade deficit every single year, and it is wiping out our national wealth, it is destroying our surviving industries and it is absolutely shredding middle class America.
We cannot allow tens of thousands of factories to continue to leave the United States. We cannot allow millions of jobs to continue to be "outsourced" and "offshored". We cannot allow tens of billions of dollars of our national wealth to continue to be transferred into foreign hands every single month.
The truth is that the global economy is bad for America. The following are 23 facts which prove that globalism is pushing the standard of living of the middle class down to third world levels....
#1 From December 2000 to December 2010, the U.S. ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars.
#2 The U.S. trade deficit was about 33 percent larger in 2010 than it was in 2009.
#3 The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.
#4 The U.S. economy is rapidly trading high wage jobs for low wage jobs. According to a new report from the National Employment Law Project, higher wage industries accounted for 40 percent of the job losses over the past 12 months but only 14 percent of the job growth. Lower wage industries accounted for just 23 percent of the job losses over the past 12 months and a whopping 49 percent of the job growth.
#5 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.
#6 In Germany, exports account for approximately 40 percent of GDP. In China, exports account for approximately 30 percent of GDP. In the United States, exports account for approximately 13 percent of GDP.
#7 Do you remember when the United States was the dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe? Well, in 2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.
#8 In 2010, South Korea exported 12 times as many automobiles, trucks and parts to us as we exported to them.
#9 The U.S. economy now has 10 percent fewer "middle class jobs" than it did just ten years ago.
#10 The United States currently has 7.7 million fewer payroll jobs than it did back in December 2007.
#11 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.
#12 In 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in "advanced technology products" of $16 billion with the rest of the world. In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.
#13 The United States now spends more than 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.
#14 In China, working conditions are so bad that large numbers of "employees" regularly try to commit suicide. One major employer, Foxconn, has even gone so far as to install "anti-suicide nets" in an attempt to keep their employees from jumping off of their buildings.
#15 Wages for workers in China are incredibly low. For example, one facility in the city of Longhua that makes iPods employs approximately 200,000 workers. These workers put in endless 15-hour days but they only make about $50 per month.
#16 In Bangladesh, manufacturing workers toil in absolutely horrific conditions and make an average of about $38 per month.
#17 In Vietnam, teenage workers often work seven days a week for as little as 6 cents an hour making promotional Disney toys for McDonald's.
#18 Since 2001, over 42,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been closed.
#19 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
#20 In the United States today, 6.2 million Americans have been out of work for 6 months of longer.
#21 8.4 million Americans are currently working part-time jobs for "economic reasons". These jobs are mostly very low paying service jobs.
#22 When you adjust wages for inflation, middle class workers in the United States make less money today than they did back in 1971.
#23 According to Willem Buiter, the chief economist at Citigroup, China will be the largest economy in the world by the year 2020, and India will surpass China by the year 2050.
Those that promote "free trade" can never explain how the U.S. middle class is going to continue to have plenty of jobs in the new global economy.
By merging our labor pool with the rest of the world, we have also merged our standard of living with the rest of the world. High unemployment is rapidly becoming "the new normal" in America, and wages are going to continue to decline in many, many industries.
Already, there are quite a few formerly great U.S. cities (such as Detroit) that are beginning to resemble third world hellholes. If something is not done about our massive trade imbalance, even more cities are going to follow Detroit into oblivion.
Unfortunately, most of our politicians continue to insist that globalism is good for our society. They continue to insist that we should not be worried that jobs formerly done by middle class American workers are now being done by slave laborers on the other side of the globe. They continue to insist that having 43 million Americans on food stamps is a temporary thing and that soon our economy will be better than ever.
Well, it is time to stop listening to the politicians that are promoting "the global economy". They are lying to us.
Globalism is great for nations such as China and it is helping multinational corporations make huge profits, but for the U.S. middle class it is an economic death sentence.
If you want an America where there are less jobs, where more Americans are on food stamps and other anti-poverty programs and where our cities continue to be transformed into deindustrialized hellholes, then you should strongly support the emerging global economy.
But if you care about the standard of living of the U.S. middle class and you want for there to be some kind of viable economic future for your children and your grandchildren then you had better start caring about these issues and doing something about them.
Please wake up America.
[click image]Don't let Wisconsin divide us.
Conservatives and liberals actually agree about the most important things.
In fact, most Americans — conservatives and liberals — are fed up with both of the mainstream Republican and Democratic parties, because it has become obvious that both parties serve Wall Street and the military-industrial complex at the expense of most Americans.
In reality, all Americans — conservatives and liberals:
— Want to break up the unholy alliance between big government and big banks
— Want to break up the giant banks
— Agree that the Wall Street criminals who committed fraud should be thrown in jail
— Agree that the Federal Reserve should be audited
— Are against corporate socialism
— Are against rampant inequality
— Want to stand up to the ruling class
— And are against unnecessary imperial wars
The powers-that-be try to divide us and demonize the "other side" so that we won't realize how much we all agree on.
Don't let them.
[click image]Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly took the first significant action on their plan to strip collective bargaining rights from most public workers, abruptly passing the measure early Friday morning before sleep-deprived Democrats realized what was happening.
The vote ended three straight days of punishing debate in the Assembly. But the political standoff over the bill — and the monumental protests at the state Capitol against it — appear far from over.
The Assembly's vote sent the bill on to the Senate, but minority Democrats in that house have fled to Illinois to prevent a vote. No one knows when they will return from hiding. Republicans who control the chamber sent state troopers out looking for them at their homes on Thursday, but they turned up nothing.
[click image]Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was elected mayor of Chicago on Tuesday, easily overwhelming five rivals to take the helm of the nation's third-largest city as it prepares to chart a new course without the retiring Richard M. Daley.
With 98 percent of the precincts reporting, Emanuel had trounced all his opponents with 55 percent of the vote — a margin that allowed him to avoid an April runoff. He needed more than 50 percent of the vote to win outright.
It was the city's first mayoral race in more than 60 years without an incumbent on the ballot and the first in more than two decades without Daley among the candidates. Daley and his father have led Chicago for more than 43 out of the last 56 years.
Emanuel called the victory "humbling" and thanked Daley for his lifetime of service, saying the outgoing mayor had "earned a special place in our hearts and our history."
[click image]But for another thing — notice that date: 11,000 years old. If this is correct, we’re looking at something old enough that, as the article linked points out, was built at the time humanity was supposedly just transitioning from being hunter-gatherers to agricultural. Such a tower near the ancient ruins of Jericho, however, is another little monkey wrench thrown into the works of that academic model. This date would place it around 9,000 BC, that is to say, roughly during the same time period as the date proposed by Dr. Robert Schoch and John Anthony West for the re-dating of the Sphinx.
[click image]Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. ... is the third Democrat and sixth member of the Senate to decide to step aside at the end of their current terms.
The others are Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Jim Webb of Virginia; Republicans Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona; and independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
[click image]Sarah Palin has added a veteran Republican strategist to serve as chief-of-staff for her political action committee, Sarah PAC, CNN has learned.
Michael Glassner, an attorney and longtime adviser to former Kansas senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole, has signed on to steer the former Alaska governor's political operation as she considers a possible 2012 presidential bid.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Glassner managed vice presidential operations during John McCain's unsuccessful White House bid.
"We are happy and excited that Mike is joining our team," Sarah PAC Treasurer Tim Crawford told CNN.
[click image]Afghan President Hamid Karzai has confirmed for the first time that the Obama administration has demanded the establishment of a system of permanent US military bases across the country, effectively laying the basis for an indefinite neo-colonial occupation.
Karzai stated that his government was negotiating with US officials on a range of strategic agreements, including the permanent bases. He said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had discussed the issue with him during last week’s Munich Security Conference in Germany.
[click image]Defeat for the proposed extension of the so called PATRIOT Act in the House Tuesday night made national headlines, yet the extension is set to pass by the end of the week anyway as it is brought back to the floor for another vote. But just in case anyone in Congress reaches the sudden epiphany that they are effectively voting on the Enabling Act, Big Sis Janet Napolitano has officially notified a congressional panel that the US faces the greatest possibility of a major terror attack since 9/11.
House Republicans wanted to extend three of the PATRIOT Act’s most draconian provisions by a further year. For anyone who values the Constitution and freedom per se, that was bad enough, yet Obama went one better, stunning many in the House by suggesting that the legislation be extended for another THREE years.
A prepared statement issued Tuesday afternoon stated that Obama “would strongly prefer enactment of reauthorizing legislation that would extend these authorities until December 2013.”
Republicans attempted to fast track the extension using an expedited procedure that allowed for just a 40 minute debate and no amendments. However, this failed to pass as under such rules a 2/3rds super majority is required.
Even so, the extension fell short by just 7 votes, making it extremely likely that the bill will pass when it is brought back the floor either today or tomorrow. Under standard rules, only a simple majority will be needed for the extension to pass.
The ACLU describes the three provisions that would be extended under the bill:
Section 215 of the Patriot Act authorizes the government to obtain “any tangible thing” relevant to a terrorism investigation, even if there is no showing that the “thing” pertains to suspected terrorists or terrorist activities. This provision is contrary to traditional notions of search and seizure, which require the government to show reasonable suspicion or probable cause before undertaking an investigation that infringes upon a person’s privacy. Congress must ensure that things collected with this power have a meaningful nexus to suspected terrorist activity or it should be allowed to expire.
Section 206 of the Patriot Act, also known as “roving John Doe wiretap” provision, permits the government to obtain intelligence surveillance orders that identify neither the person nor the facility to be tapped. This provision is contrary to traditional notions of search and seizure, which require government to state with particularity what it seeks to search or seize. Section 206 should be amended to mirror similar and longstanding criminal laws that permit roving wiretaps, but require the naming of a specific target. Otherwise, it should expire.
Section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, or the so-called “Lone Wolf” provision, permits secret intelligence surveillance of non-US persons who are not affiliated with a foreign organization. Such an authorization, granted only in secret courts is subject to abuse and threatens our longtime understandings of the limits of the government’s investigatory powers within the borders of the United States. This provision has never been used and should be allowed to expire outright.
In addition, Senate Democrats are set to fast track the companion legislation (S. 149) to the House bill, as they seek to bypass the committee process and push the bill straight to the floor.
Unless the likes of Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich can attract scores of their peers to change their votes and defect from the party agenda, then the passage of the legislation is assured.
Also noteworthy is the fact that several representatives who ran on a Tea Party platform actually voted FOR the extension to the PATRIOT Act yesterday.
Slate’s Dave Weigel notes that high profile Tea Partyers like Michele Bachmann, Kristi Noem, and Allen West all voted for the extension. “I break this out because there’ll be a temptation to say ‘the Tea Party and its isolationist elements beat the reauthorization,’ and that’s not quite it,” he writes.
In addition, Ryan Hecker, a Houston lawyer and tea-party organizer, told the Wall Street Journal he believes the act has helped curb terrorism and “the movement should remain agnostic.”
This once again highlights the fact that the Tea Party has been almost entirely co-opted by the establishment GOP. It is now a bloated unrecognizable shadow of the Libertarian grassroots movement that was founded on the need to expel such freedom destroying legislation for good.
Tea Party or no Tea Party, Republicans and Democrats alike are working in tandem to destroy what is left of the Constitution.
One reason bipartisan support for reauthorization has grown, according to the Journal, is the perceived threat of homegrown terrorism, seen in the absurd Times Square firecracker and underwear non-bombings last year. Both questionable non-events and other over hyped and completely manufactured threats have led directly to programs such as the “See Something, Say Something” campaign — a literal citizen spy operation overseen by the DHS.
It seems that Big Sis is on the march again, this time to ensure that the PATRIOT Act gets extended.
AFP reports that Janet Napolitano has directly told the congressional Security Committee that the United States is facing “heightened” threats of attacks from extremists. “And in some ways, the threat today may be at its most heightened state since the attacks nearly 10 years ago.” Napolitano is quoted as saying.
She noted that there is “an increased emphasis on recruiting Americans and Westerners to carry out small scale attacks.”
Booga booga, better re-authorize the power to let the federal government keep a track of exactly what library books everyday Americans are checking out. You wouldn’t want to be the elected representative who tips the scales to allow another 9/11 now would you?
We have previously documented how such terror threats have been routinely hyped purely for political purposes.
Never forget that the media and the government have been totally discredited over and over again by their complicity in issuing phony terror alerts designed to manipulate elections and frighten the public into slavish acquiescence.
Just as former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge admitted that DHS would issue fake terror alerts shortly before elections in a bid to influence the outcome during the Bush era, the Obama administration is mimicking the same tactic.
No one has to "marry" anyone else politically; no one has to embrace every tenet or belief that an anti-imperialist ally might hold. You simply have to say: "All of us, regardless of our other views, believe this truth to be self-evident: dismantling the empire will bring immediate and enormous benefits to our nation and to the world."
If in your travels you meet the Buddha, throw him through your tv set.
—Davis Fleetwood
I've found that culture, however useful and important, is neither the foundation nor the ceiling of human experience, even if it is commonly used for walls.
I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States. —Hillary Clinton
