robinlea

who do they represent ? not us !

Voters say US should not intervene in Syria
thursday, 23 may 2013 – fox news

Syria is a rare instance of agreement across the political spectrum: majorities of independents (65%), Democrats (69%) and Republicans (70%) agree the United States should stay out of Syria.

Voters who have served in the military also say the U.S. should not intervene (67%).

73% Think U.S. Should Stay Out of Syrian Civil War
thursday, 09 may 2013 – rasmussen

73% think U.S. should stay out of Syrian civil war

Americans want U.S. to keep out of Syria conflict: poll
thursday, 02 may 2013 – reuters

Only 10% of those surveyed in the online poll said the United States should become involved in the fighting, 61% percent opposed getting involved.

Civil war … right.

It’s yet another attempt to overthrow the government of another country.

Not get involved .. right.

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate cut the ‘civil war’ from whole cloth ! He belongs in the Big House, making little rocks out of big rocks with a sledge hammer, rather than in our White House.

Of all the honorable, upstanding Black Americans … Rahm Emanuel found this guy under a rock in Chicago.

We need to remove 546 politicians, (435 + 100 + 9 + 2 = 546), in Washington DC and – putting one foot in front of the other – replace them with ordinary, honest Americans of every shape, size and color who’ll represent the rest of us.

If we’d started in 2003 we’d be home now. The exercise is the end is the exercise.

“ … our country is going toward a non-democratic situation of civil inequality between us and the Palestinians … the Israeli military plays a major role in preserving this situation, and my conscience does not allow me to participate in it … ”

“The main reason that I am refusing to serve is that I feel that our country is going toward a non-democratic situation of civil inequality between us and the Palestinians, a situation in which there are two peoples in the same state, one of which has the right to vote and participate in elections, and the other does not,” he [Natan Blanc] said.

“I believe the Israeli military plays a major role in preserving this situation, and my conscience does not allow me to participate in it.”

Blanc’s father, David, said his son was supposed to be inducted for compulsory military service last November, and after declaring his refusal to serve, he was sent to a military prison. Since then, he has been sentenced to a series of 10 consecutive terms totaling 178 days in jail, with no end in sight.

Ishai Menuchin, an activist in the Israeli group Yesh Gvu … estimated that dozens of Israeli youths refuse to serve each year.

In most cases, the military dismisses objectors as “unfit” for physical or psychological reasons. A small number are sent to jail for short stints, and then agree to meet with a mental health officer to receive an exemption on psychological grounds.

“The army prefers this. You accept that there is something wrong about you,” he said.

But Blanc has refused to leave on psychological grounds.

“He’s not going to lie to get out. That’s apparently what’s required,” said Blanc’s father.

Earlier this month, Blanc was handed a 10th sentence, this time 28 days. According to Yesh Gvul, it is the most trials an objector has had, though several have spent longer behind bars.

[S]aid David Blanc. “His principles are what they are … “He should certainly follow his conscience, I think I’m proud for standing up for what he believes in.”

drones don’t kill people, nobel peace prize laureates kill people

Obama Admits Drones Killed 4 Americans

Drones don’t kill people. Nobel Peace Prize Laureates kill people. And laugh about it.

Hey Hey Obama-fay

Twelve children killed in the Kunar province, April 2013. Namatullah Karyab for The New York Times

Why Would They Kill Children?

It’s one thing to chronicle sparse details about these U.S. led NATO attacks. It’s quite another to sit across from Afghan men as they try, having broken down in tears, to regain sufficient composure to finish telling us their stories. Last night, at a restaurant in Kabul, I and two friends from the Afghan Peace Volunteers met with five Pashtun men from Afghanistan’s northern and eastern provinces. The men had agreed to tell us about their experiences living in areas affected by regular drone attacks, aerial bombings and night raids.

THE FIRST RESPONDER’S TALE

murdered : 3 fathers
survivors : their 3 widows and their orphans – 2 boys and 8 girls

THE MANUAL LABORER’S TALE

terrorized : 400 families

THE STUDENT’S TALE

murdered : 12 children, 7- and 8-year-olds
survivors : their 8 orphaned families

THE FARMER’S TALE

murdered : 3 fathers and 2 of their little girls
survivors : their 3 widows

“All of us keep asking why the internationals kill us,” said Jamaludeen.

“One reason seems to be that they don’t differentiate between people. The soldiers fear any bearded Afghan who wears a turban and traditional clothes.

“But why would they kill children?

“It seems they have a mission. They are told to go and get the Taliban.

“When they go out in their planes and their tanks and their helicopters, they need to be killing, and then they can report that they have completed their mission.”

Anyone will do.

totals :

(not counting the 54 killed at the wedding party of 4 years ago)
eight blameless adults and fourteen blameless children murdered
6 wives widowed, 8 girls and 2 boys orphaned.
16 grieving parents of the mass-murder
400 families terrorized

cost :

who knows how many millions of tax dollars, all tranferred from the American people to multi-national corporations. US corporations don’t pay taxes.

business as usual :

as Barack Obama, General Petraeus, and Lt. Col. Kauzrich say, “It’s all good.”

the wannabes – lost already
think they still have something to lose

On network news show, Nation editor rushes to the defense of Obama

Appearing Sunday on the ABC News public affairs program “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor and publisher of the left-liberal Nation magazine, defended the Obama administration and played down the significance of its attacks on democratic rights.

Vanden Heuvel’s appearance underscored the role of the Nation in providing a supposedly “left” rationalization for the reactionary policies, foreign and domestic, of Obama and the Democratic Party. …

The Nation speaks and sets the political tone for a whole social layer of the upper-middle class “left” … which collaborates with and shares political platforms with leading Nation writers. All of these organizations, notwithstanding certain differences in rhetoric, serve as the left flank of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.

The decomposition of American democracy

On Thursday, Assistant Defense Secretary Michael Sheehan told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the war on terror would continue at least another 10 or 20 years. Alluding to last month’s lockdown of Boston, he said the president and the military would continue to assert “wartime” powers, unchecked by Congress or the courts, extending from “Boston to FATA [the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan].” These asserted powers include the power to unilaterally launch new wars and the power to carry out assassinations, including of US citizens.

On the same day, Obama gave a press conference in which he bluntly defended his administration’s unconstitutional spying on the press, exposed by the revelation that the Justice Department had secretly seized the telephone records of Associated Press editors and reporters. As grounds for this patently illegal action, Obama stated that “national security” and other government interests trumped the Bill of Rights in this instance.

The Pentagon’s assertion of the power for the indefinite future to unilaterally deploy the US killing machine wherever the president sees fit – including within the US and without any oversight or “checks and balances” … are all the more remarkable for the fact that they encountered no serious opposition on the Senate Armed Services Committee or more broadly within the media or the political establishment.

Pursuant to military regulations already in place, the military is authorized to deploy itself within the US to suppress “civil disturbances” and “provide for the restoration of law and order in a specific State or locality.” The regulations define a civil disturbance as “[g]roup acts of violence and disorder prejudicial to public law and order.”

These regulations state that the military may be deployed within the US where “[d]uly constituted Federal, State, or local authorities are unable or decline to provide adequate protection…” In other words, the military expressly asserts the power to intervene with force and violence to put down what it has determined to be an unacceptable “civil disturbance,” including over the opposition of civilian federal, state or local agencies. The regulations even authorize military action in response to “large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances” where “prior authorization by the President is impossible.”

… “The AUMF, presented at the time as a temporary and limited measure of self-defense against those who committed acts over 12 years ago, is well on its way to being transformed into something akin to the Reichstag Fire Decree or the Enabling Act – an all-purpose pseudo-legal rationalization for police state measures and unfettered executive power for the indefinite future.” …

Just as the Pentagon’s assertion of unbridled executive power encountered no significant objections within the political establishment, no serious opposition has emerged to Obama’s embrace of the “balancing” theory of constitutional rights, according to which basic rights can be trampled on where “government interests” outweigh them. …

Behind Obama, and next to the financial aristocracy, stands a privileged middle class layer – approximately the top 90th to 99th percentile. … they depend on the existing setup for their privileged status, income and respectable positions in corporate management, university departments, law firms, the entertainment industry, the trade unions, NGOs, the media and so forth. On board for imperialist war and the defense of the capitalist system in general …

The vast majority of the American population – the bottom 80 to 90 percent – is wholly excluded from the official political life of the country. Obama does not address himself to them. Their interests are not taken into account in any major political decision. They do not matter.

Ask an American worker in that bottom 80 to 90 percent whether the First Amendment contains mere suggestions conditioned on “government interests,” or whether it guarantees absolute, inalienable rights.

Ask whether the US president and military should have unlimited and unchecked powers for the indefinite future, up to and including the power to violently suppress “civil disturbances” without regard for the Constitution or basic rights.

Ask whether the president should be able to secretly order the assassination of US citizens.

Ask, and you are highly likely to get very different answers than if you ask a Supreme Court justice, a member of Congress, a “liberal” newspaper columnist or the president (who is purportedly a one-time “constitutional law lecturer” at a top US law school).

which one(s) disappeared Sombath ?

On 15 December 2012 a police video camera in Wieng Chan, or Vientienne, Lao recorded Sombath Somphone – stopped at a police checkpoint; led into the police station; a motorcyclist rode up, parked then rode away in Sombath’s car; then Sombath was led out of the police station, put into a truck and driven away.

No one has seen or heard from him since … five long months.

The ‘authorities don’t know nuthin’. They’re lying. They’re giving ‘communism’ a bad name.

The ‘communist’ disappearance of Sombath in Lao appears indistinguishable from the neoliberal ‘elite’ disappearance of Somchai here in Thailand. It’s the police/the military/the ‘elite’ in each country … and their in-your-face complete immunity from prosecution … that’s to blame.

the butcher of bangkok checks the papers of his new recruit

Three years after bloody crack-down: No illusions in Yingluk or Pua Thai

Anyone who cares to open their eyes to see, will understand that Yingluk, Taksin and Pua Thai have made a deal with the military ever since the Pua Thai election victory in 2011. Taksin has stated in the past that he has “no dispute” with the military and his opponents are merely Abhisit’s Democrat Party …

So in their arrogance they believe that whatever they do, Red Shirts will follow like naïve lambs. They can step on the bodies of the Red Shirts and spit in the faces of those who elected the government by ignoring the need for justice, democratic rights and equality and no one will object.

Certainly the reactionary Red Shirts, like those in Chieng-Mai who hate gays and protests by the poor, or those who call the southern Malay Muslim rebels “mere criminals”, will carry on cheering this government.

But there are progressive Red Shirts who need to become more organised and coordinated so that we don’t have to commemorate future anniversaries of blood baths while nothing is done to create justice in society.

Analysis and exhortation from Giles Ji Ungpakorn, driven from Thailand by the KKK – the Koup’s Kangaroo Kourt – more than four years ago but, like his father and unlike Thaksin, not likely ever to cut a deal himself that would allow him to return to Thailand in ‘peaceful co-existence’ with the treasonous mutineers and murderers of the Royal Thai Army.

The last of the three brutes who formed Argentina’s
most brutal junta has died in prison

Videla Dies in Prison – a Victory Against Impunity

Videla’s death in prison “is a very important symbolic development,” Víctor Abramovich, executive secretary of the Institute of Public Policies on Human Rights of South America’s Mercosur (Southern Common Market) trade bloc, told IPS.

“Ten years ago this was unthinkable. Today it is the result of a process of regional scope, a process that is moving forward at different speeds, under different laws, but is generating very interesting debates throughout Latin America,” said the representative of the bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Abramovich, a former vice president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said the fact that the former dictator died in a common jail “reaffirms the principle of equality before the law.”

“This process, which is moving ahead at varying rates, is occurring in Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Uruguay, as well as Guatemala, where (former dictator José Efraín) Ríos Montt was sentenced to 80 years in prison (on May 10),” he said.

May Thailand become the state that takes a major stride forward in bringing its treasonous mutineers to trial, and may Thailand become a model for Southeast Asia and the region.

Chaiwat Sinsuwong exhorts his yellow-fellow stragglers
to go through the motions

PPT links to an article on the Bangkok ‘elite’ nd their Yellow Shirted rearguard action, or that of their paid substitutes, attempting Yet Once More to overthrow an elected Thai government.

A few hundred Thai Patriotic Front members [PAD/yellow shirts] have been camping in Sanam Luang since May 7, despite an order by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to move to another rally site.

The Thai Patriotic Front boasted yesterday that up to 50,000 people would join its rally at Sanam Luang today to demand the Pheu Thai-led government resign.

Chaiwat Sinsuwong, a leader of the group, said the mass rally would begin at 5pm and continue until the government agreed to step down.

If the gathering wore Red Shirts rather than Yellow, and the Royal Thai Army’s proxy Democrats were in power – they’d call out the snipers. As 0n 19 May 2010 – three years ago tommorrow. After dark no doubt, try out their newly supplied US night-vision sniping tools. Not much cover on the Yellow Lawn.

As it is, if they didn’t have solid contacts with the English language propaganda mills in Bangkok, and if PPT didn’t doggedly do its job reporting … nobody’d know they were there.

The Large Yawn at the Yellow Lawn.

The real commemoration will be on Sunday, of the more than 90 Thais – Thais seeking not the extralegal overthrow of the unelected Thai government of that time, but simply to elect a Thai government – who were gunned down by the Royal Thai Army, as they were in 1976 and 1992, once again, three years ago at Kok Wua and finally at Ratchaprasong.

the tank coup comes to the united states

U.S. Military ‘Power Grab’ Goes Into Effect

By making a few subtle changes to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” the military has quietly granted itself the ability to police the streets without obtaining prior local or state consent, upending a precedent that has been in place for more than two centuries.

Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.

“It’s no different than the emergency powers clause in the Weimar constitution [of the German Reich]. It’s a grant of emergency power to the military to rule over parts of the country at their own discretion.”

–Bruce Afran, civil liberties attorney and constitutional law professor at Rutgers University

18 May

fixed the links above to point to the DoD’s actual ‘instruction’.

shackles now reserved for victims of the royal thai army
lese majeste inquisition exclusively

Amnesty International Welcomes Unchaining Of Thai Prisoners

It should be noted that although shackles are mostly applied to serious crime prisoners or suspects, those who were charged with lese majeste, such as Mr. Somyot Prueksakasemsuk, are often [always!] shackled when they appear before the judges. The practice has caused uproar among civil rights activists who see it as further punishment of ′prisoners of conscience′.

The practice has caused uproar among civil rights activists … but not among civil rights poseurs and exploiters like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, etc …

PPT notes concerning Somyos and his jailing …

Before the Supreme Court of the Kingdom of Thailand

Mr. Somyot Phruksakasemsuk (Khun Somyot) has been in detention for over two years, since 30 April 2011. On 23 January 2013, Khun Somyot was convicted in first instance for two violations of the lese-majeste law based on two articles published in Voice of Taksin magazine in 2010. On 1 April 2013, Khun Somyot filed an appeal against the decision of the first instance court. On that day, Khun Somyot also filed his 14th request for bail. The appellate court rejected Khun Somyot’s request for bail on 3 April 2013.

The entire reasoning of the Court of Appeal’s decision to reject Khun Somyot’s request is as follows:

“After consideration, the allegation is a severe crime and affected the morality and feelings of the people, and the first court handed down a verdict of 10 years imprisonment, so if the court granted bail, we don’t believe that he would not flee. Therefore, the court does not approve the bail request during appeal and notifies the applicant promptly.”¹

FIDH, MLDI and MD-SEA humbly submit that the Thai courts did not duly consider Khun Somyot’s request for bail based on the national and international laws applicable in Thailand.

The organizations submit the following points in particular:

• A. The court must meaningfully review all of the individual circumstances of the case in a well-reasoned decision on provisional release.

• B. The recitation of the “severity of the crime” and “the morality and feeling of people” should not be considered as a basis for the denial of bail.

• C. The decision not to grant Khun Somyot bail is an arbitrary deprivation of his liberty as it results from the exercise of rights and freedoms guaranteed by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

1 Court of Appeal of the Kingdom of Thailand, 1 April 2013, Case no. Red Or.272/2556.

The points are obvious but well-argued by international groups of long standing and high repute. I suppose it is always possible that the Royal Thai Court will not digrace themselves once again. We’ll see, won’t we.

Thank you International Federation for Human Rights, Media Legal Defense Institute, and Media Defense Southeast Asia for your continuing efforts seeking justice for Somyot!

the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate has proven himself
capable of complicity with any crime
no matter how depraved.
will Bibi order nuclear war?

Nuclear Terror in the Middle East

“Nuclear War Between Israel and Iran: Lethality Beyond the Pale,” published in the journal Conflict & Health by researchers from the University of Georgia and Harvard University. It is the first publicly released scientific assessment of what a nuclear attack in the Middle East might actually mean for people in the region.

Its scenarios are staggering. An Israeli attack on the Iranian capital of Tehran using five 500-kiloton weapons would, the study estimates, kill seven million people — 86% of the population — and leave close to 800,000 wounded. A strike with five 250-kiloton weapons would kill an estimated 5.6 million and injure 1.6 million, according to predictions made using an advanced software package designed to calculate mass casualties from a nuclear detonation.

Estimates of the civilian toll in other Iranian cities are even more horrendous. A nuclear assault on the city of Arak, the site of a heavy water plant central to Iran’s nuclear program, would potentially kill 93% of its 424,000 residents. Three 100-kiloton nuclear weapons hitting the Persian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas would slaughter an estimated 94% of its 468,000 citizens, leaving just 1% of the population uninjured. A multi-weapon strike on Kermanshah, a Kurdish city with a population of 752,000, would result in an almost unfathomable 99.9% casualty rate.

The US needs to end all military aid to any country not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and not open to inspection as to compliance.

The idea of the US spending any of its freshly printed greenbacks on weapons of its own is repugnant enough, let alone its financing others.

The US – why do I even write as though the US cared about life or its desolation and destruction?

after the attack – israelites in the ruins of their homes

pogrom

A pogrom is a violent mob attack generally against Jews, and often condoned by the forces of law, characterized by killings and/or destruction of homes and properties, businesses, and religious centers. The term, a Russian word, originally entered the English language to describe 19th and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire; similar attacks against Jews at other times and places also became known as pogroms.

… a violent mob attack generally against Jews … except now in Palestine where it is generally a violent mob attack by Zionist Israeli Jews against the indigenous Palestinian population.

dozens of [Zionist Israeli Jewish] settlers torch over 15 dunams of [Palestinian] land in Nablus village and prevent locals from extinguishing flames.

Settlers torch fields near Nablus

Jewish extremists torch cars, desecrate mosque in Israel

15 May

Clashes at Al-Aqsa mosque compound

16 May

Israeli forces uproot olive tree saplings near Nablus

Settlers attack northern West Bank town

17 May

Israel plans to legalize 4 settler units in occupied West Bank

Al Nakba (and Canada)

21 May

Settlers severely beat handicapped boy near Hebron

22 May

Israeli forces shoot teen near Ramallah

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Israeli forces on Tuesday shot and injured a Palestinian teenager in Jalazoun refugee camp near Ramallah, witnesses and the Israeli army said.

Witnesses told Ma’an that Atta Sabah, 13, was walking with school friends when Israeli forces opened fire at the group and hit him in the back.

Israel demolishes 4 homes in East Jerusalem

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli forces demolished two residential buildings in the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Tuesday, having earlier destroyed two Palestinian homes in al-Tur.

Witnesses said that a large Israeli police force surrounded the buildings in Jabal al-Mukabbir and closed off the area before demolishing the buildings.

One building belonged to the Abu al-Dabaat family and consisted of three floors housing four families in four apartments totaling 480 square meters.

“The building has been there since 1973,” said Raed Abu al-Dabaat, one of the apartment owners. “It was built on land owned by my father, and he lived there since 1930,” he told Ma’an.

“After the building was finished my father was arrested and sentenced to two years for allegedly building without a permit.

“In 2007, we were fined 160,000 shekels ($44,000), and two years later a demolition order was given but we managed to stop it,” Abu al-Dabaat said, adding that the family had not received any new demolition orders.

Israeli forces assaulted family members in clashes that erupted before the demolition, and three Palestinians were arrested, a Ma’an reporter said.

The second building was home to the al-Qaq family and housed three people.

The al-Qaq family built the property 13 years ago and received a demolition order in 2002 for lacking a building permit. The demolition order was halted and an Israeli court ordered the family to pay 80,000 shekels ($21,800) as a penalty.

The family then tried to obtain a building permit, but were unable to do so.

Earlier, Israeli forces demolished two houses in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Tur, leaving seven people homeless.

According to the UN, 33 percent of all Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem lack Israeli-issued building permits, potentially placing at least 93,100 residents at risk of displacement.

Figures from Israeli NGO Bimkom show that 95 percent of Palestinian applications for a building permit are rejected.

Since 1967, the Israeli authorities have demolished some 2,000 houses in East Jerusalem. Over 1,630 Palestinians were made homeless in house demolitions carried out by Israel between 2004-2012, B’Tselem says.

Gaza: a Lie Agreed Upon

In New Guinea there is a word for a truth that everybody knows but nobody speaks: Mokita. In the official discourse surrounding Palestine—Gaza in particular—politicians, President Obama, and the media speak from a phony script full of false vocabulary, false assertions, and deliberate omissions…all lies agreed upon.

Everyone in the world knows who the bad guys are in Palestine
and who form the other pole of the Zionist/Imperial Axis outside of Palestine.

The last of the Semites

The Palestinian people … continue to affirm … that the Israeli government does not speak for all Jews, that it does not represent all Jews, and that its colonial crimes against the Palestinian people are its own crimes and not the crimes of “the Jewish people”, and that therefore it must be criticised, condemned and prosecuted for its ongoing war crimes against the Palestinian people. This is not a new Palestinian position, but one that was adopted since the turn of the 20th century and continued throughout the pre-WWII Palestinian struggle against Zionism.

it is not going to get easier to force our government to serve our nation as time goes by

Yes, they’ll jail us for decades for speaking freely (1st amendment).

They’ll also keep us imprisoned ‘pre-trial’ for, say, seven years (6th amendment) …

US Supreme Court attacks right to a speedy trial

… and they’ll bankrupt us for organizing to defend ourselves (1st & 8th amendment) …

IRS targeted groups that criticized the government, IG report says

… and of course they’ll murder us outright if they happen to be feelin’ that way with no warnin’ …

Our nation consists of ourselves and our constitution. Our government, in rebellion against both, is now public enemy number one and everyday in everyway it is getting bolder and stronger and more dangerous.

15 May

The criminalization of political dissent in America

The drive towards the establishment of an American police state, initiated under the Bush administration, has shifted into high gear under Obama. For nearly twelve years, the phony “war on terror” has been used as the overarching pretext for illegal imperialist war abroad and a methodical assault on democratic rights at home. The basic structure of authoritarian rule is now emerging into plain view.

Tens of thousands of drones are slated to be launched over the US mainland in the coming years, with thousands already buzzing overhead. These high-tech aircraft are able to monitor meetings and demonstrations, access wireless networks and record the movements of citizens. Obama’s recent appointee for the position of CIA director, John Brennan, expressly refused at his confirmation hearings to rule out the possibility that these drones could be armed and used for carrying out assassinations within the US.

[L]ocal police departments are awash in billions of dollars of military hardware and training provided by the Department of Homeland Security. When local police are mobilized to respond to a political protest, they now do so in coordination with the federal military and intelligence agencies. It is not a rarity for armored vehicles, body armor and military equipment to be deployed.

Under the precedent set by the recent events in Boston, the authorities now have the power to subject an entire city to a military siege, with the population ordered to “shelter in place,” while businesses and transportation are shut down and heavily armed SWAT teams are deployed to conduct warrantless house-to-house searches without regard for basic rights.

A person can be designated a “terrorist” on the secret, unreviewable say-so of the president, without notice and without a trial. Under the “material support” for terrorism laws signed into law as part of the PATRIOT Act of 2001, a person may be jailed simply for offering vaguely-defined “material support” to any person or group labeled as “terrorist.”

Under the National Defense Authorization Acts of 2011 and 2012, as tested in the case of Jose Padilla, the US government asserts the power to subject a designated “terrorist” to arbitrary arrest and detention without trial.

[I]n the cases of Anwar Al-Awlaki, Samir Khan and Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, the US government tested out its asserted power to murder “terrorists” outright, even if they are US citizens.

Under these precedents, it would not be necessary to officially suspend the Constitution in order for the US government to meet future domestic opposition with military lockdowns, curfews, house-to-house searches, mass arrests, torture and even assassination. With political dissent labeled as “terrorism” or “material support for terrorism,” Congress, the president, the courts, the military, and the so-called “free press” could continue in their present roles.

as time goes by, it is not going to get easier to force our government to serve our nation

Of course the US government is not only the enemy of us Americans …

14 May

Syria Endgame Approaching Fast

18 May

Washington gets explicit: its ‘war on terror’ is permanent

“Asked at a Senate hearing today how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, ‘At least 10 to 20 years.’ . . . A spokeswoman, Army Col. Anne Edgecomb, clarified that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today – atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted. Welcome to America’s Thirty Years War.”

… the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate is the font of desolation, division, death, and destruction worldwide.

relatives cry as pallbearers carry the coffin of Fehmi Karaca
one of scores killed and well over a hundred injured by terrorist bombers
in the town of Reyhanli

Turkish protesters blame govt. for blasts

Hundreds of people have gathered in the southern Turkish province Hatay to protest against Saturday’s twin car bombings, which killed 46 people and injured over a hundred others in the town of Reyhanli.

On Sunday, the protesters held banners calling on the United States to stop its intervention and meddling in Syria.

The protesters are blaming the Turkish government for the incident because of its support for armed groups inside Syria.

Deadly Bombs Spark Protests In Turkish Border City

Turkey has taken in more than 400,000 Syrian refugees, many of whom have settled in Hatay, and has thrown its full weight behind the armed opposition fighting to overthrow Assad, although it denies supplying weapons.

Fighters are able to cross back and forth across the frontier virtually unchallenged, unsettling many on the Turkish side of the border, who say more and more radical groups are joining the opposition ranks.

“We have a message for our people: We will rid our city of the jihadist murderers,” read one of the protesters’ banners.

“Hands off Syria,” read another, with a picture of Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Barack Obama wearing military helmets with a fighter jet in the foreground.

“We don’t have a problem with the Syrian refugees who come here to shelter, but we are against the jihadists and murderers on our streets,” one man in the crowd shouted.

“The people of Reyhanli were not alone,” the crowd shouted back, before breaking into chants calling on Erdogan to resign.

People all over the world see through the lies spewed forth by the USNato/Gulf Oil Oligarch/Israeli Axis in order to effect the desolation and destruction of yet another Arab/Islamic nation in the Middle East.

cameron d’ambrosio looking at 20 years

Massachusetts high school student charged as terrorist for Facebook post

Teenager Cameron D’Ambrosio faces up to 20 years in prison on “terror” charges for making reference to the Boston Marathon bombings in a Facebook post.

The “terror” allegations against D’Ambrosio are remarkable for what is not alleged.

• D’Ambrosio did not have any weapons or bombs.
• He did not have any plans to acquire weapons or bombs, and he did not attempt to acquire any.
• He did not have any accomplices and there was no conspiracy.
• There were no victims, real or intended.
• He did not threaten anyone in particular.
• He had no contact, affiliation, or membership in a terrorist group.
• There was no plan to carry out an attack in a particular place, or with a particular device, or on a particular date.

All D’Ambrosio did was post the lyrics to a rap song on Facebook.

• Alex David Rosario, a Michigan high school student, was charged with “domestic terrorism” in January for allegedly threatening to shoot fellow Subway employees, which he claimed was a joke.
• In February, two high school girls in Louisiana were arrested and charged with 10 counts of “terrorism” for emailing threats to students and faculty “to see if they could get away with it.”
• Teenager Abdella Ahmad Dounisi was arrested last year in Chicago for allegedly attempting to join a Syrian militant group that the US government claims is linked to Al Qaeda. While the US government is working hand-in-glove with similar groups in its drive for regime-change in Syria … *

These prosecutions mark a further step in the steady drive to transform the “war on terror” into a domestic war against opposition and dissent …

The US government already asserts that a person designated as a “terrorist” by the president is subject to

• abduction and detention without trial (tested in the case of Jose Padilla and codified by the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act),
• trial before a military commission (pursuant to the Military Commissions Act),
• torture (tested in the case of Bradley Manning), or even
• assassination (tested in the cases of Anwar Al-Awlaki, Samir Khan, and Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki).

Moreover, under the Patroit Act of 2001, it is a crime to offer any kind of vaguely defined “material support” to any person designated as a “terrorist.”

Lawyers who provide legal advice to individuals designated as “terrorists” may themselves be subject to arrest.

In a unanimous 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the US Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a KKK leader who openly called for violence against politicians in a speech. The KKK leader was convicted under an Ohio statute that made it a crime to “advocate … the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform.”

I guess you have to apply to the CIA for a list of approved terrorist groups to join? Perhaps that’s what Tamerlan Tsarnaev did?

More likely Tamerlan was activley recruited by the CIA.

And I guess the KKK are still OK in calling for the assassination of ‘the right kind’ of politicians?

And of course it’s OK for Hollywood to sell those same lyrics Cameron was busted for repeating, and for the MSM to continue to hype them on the radio. In those cases the “terrorism” is cleansed by the sacred dollars exchanged. It is high-church-capitalist dogma that sacred dollars cleanse everything they touch.

Is it “terrorism” to renounce that dogma?

It’s those of us speaking freely who need to ‘watch what we say’.

And all of our ‘friends‘ on Facebook, associating with us terrorists as they are.

14 May

* Syria: The Casualty Count

Time magazine has a piece about a video which shows a Syrian insurgency fighter cutting the heart and liver from a man and then eating it.

The man has been seen in other videos. He is known as Abu Sakkar of Baba Amro, Homs, also known as Khaled Al Hamad. He was a senior commander of the “moderate” Al Farouq brigade. “Was” because he is now dead. And no, he did not die of food poisoning. The Farouq brigade is part of the Free Syrian Army which is supported by the United States.

If it were terrorists they were looking for they could arrest hundreds, if not thousands, at CIA headquarters in Langley, McLean, Fairfax County, Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, DC.

the bungler, the bundler, and the baglady billionaire

Who’s running the ‘show’? The bungler, the bundler, and the baglady billionaire.

(3) Last week, the Obama administration announced its choice to lead the Federal Communications Commission: Tom Wheeler, who is not only a former telecom lobbyist but also a huge bundler for the Obama campaign … “given his background, it is almost certain that [Wheeler] raised money [for Obama] from people whose companies he would regulate, creating potential [outright!] conflicts of interest.”

Last week, President Obama named another big bundler of his, the billionaire heiress Penny Pritzker, to be his Commerce Secretary … At this point, the only surprising thing is that there are any more bundlers left for Obama to appoint to important administration positions.”

“Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”

–Benito Mussolini

Another apt Italian quote comes from Sicily rather than Northern Italy, “A fish rots from the head” … but it’s the whole fish that rots. Looks like the whole school is rotten at this point.