The Many Faces of US Politics...

[The Iceman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW-e7z7S6VI

[deiseach]

Obama Will Not Veto Bill That Would Indefinitely Detain U.S. Citizens

On Wednesday, the White House said President Obama would not veto the controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which would allow the indefinite detention of Americans suspected of terrorism.

At one point the bill contained a provision that would have authorized the U.S. to use military force anywhere there were terrorism suspects, including within the U.S. itself, which would violate U.S. law. That section was removed from the bill in July.

But Section 1021 (c) still remains and states: "The disposition of a person under the law of war as described in subsection (a) may include the following: (1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of hostilities authorized by the Authorization to Use Military Force."

The law would effectively extends the battlefield in the "war on terror" to the U.S. and applies to anyone "who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban or associated forces.".

Democratic senators tried amend the provisions, but failed. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) warned the provisions "put every American at risk" of being sent to Guantanamo Bay. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) said it violated the Constitution because U.S. citizens could be apprehended on U.S. soil and held without a trial.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said the provisions would disrupt, rather than strengthen, efforts to fight terrorism in the U.S.

"The statute lacks clarity with regard to what happens at the time of arrest," he explained to the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It lacks clarity with regard to what happens if we had a case in Lackawanna, New York, and an arrest has to be made there and there's no military within several hundred miles."

"What happens if we have ... a case that we're investigating on three individuals, two of whom are American citizens and would not go to military custody and the third is not an American citizen and could go to military custody?"

"It's something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. "It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent."

Basically it extends the notion of 'enemy combatants' to everyone, not just non-US citizens. Absolutely outrageous. And the worst part is that the only person who would reverse this if they became President would be Ron Paul, a man who would bring us all back into the economic Stone Age.

[muppet]

That article says who is either against it, or in the case of Obama, not vetoing it. It doesn't say which lunatics are proposing and supporting it.

[thejuice]

Obama was going to veto it, than got some rather meaningless changes and then signed it. A similar bill was proposed back during the cold war but Harry Truman had the backbone to actually veto it fully.

It already has been for many months flagged internationally for violating human rights. 

The bill I believe came from John McCain, Senator Carl Levin and amazingly Dick Cheney who I thought was no longer a government official, but there you go.

[muppet]

Civilisation is really hurtling back in time at an incredible rate.

[muppet]

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/12/judge-rules-iran-taliban-al-qaeda-liable-for-911-attacks/1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=384245

Iran, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are liable in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a federal judge in New York has ruled, the Associated Press reports.

U.S. District Judge George Daniels signed a default judgment today in a $100 billion lawsuit filed by families of victims.

A magistrate judge will determine compensatory and punitive damages.

[mannix]

If mitt Romney gets power he says the first thing he will do is make the us army bigger and fix the Iran problem.

[theskull1]

If mitt Romney gets power he says the first thing he will do is make the us army bigger and fix the Iran problem.

In fairness the yanks have a quare history at "fixing" things

[seafoid]

If mitt Romney gets power he says the first thing he will do is make the us army bigger and fix the Iran problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SMHBEAeNa-c

[seafoid]

Civilisation is really hurtling back in time at an incredible rate.

It's going back to the way society was pre WW1 in the US.
Small group of ultra rich and the rest feed over the scraps.  Middle class gets squeezed .
Very little social mobility. Obesity and premature death for the poor. 

[Eamonnca1]

Middle class gets squeezed .
Very little social mobility. Obesity and premature death for the poor.

You can't say that! That's class warfare! Stop talking about this issue immediately!

[seafoid]

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/12/judge-rules-iran-taliban-al-qaeda-liable-for-911-attacks/1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=384245

Iran, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are liable in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a federal judge in New York has ruled, the Associated Press reports.

U.S. District Judge George Daniels signed a default judgment today in a $100 billion lawsuit filed by families of victims.

A magistrate judge will determine compensatory and punitive damages.

FFS. They just make it up as they go along.

Saudis did it . But the US needs the oil.
And how does the US treat its own soldiers?   

http://www.utne.com/Wild-Green/Toxic-Trash-Pits-Take-Toll-on-U.S.-Soldiers.aspx#ixzz1hOzrKSFr

Did the United States poison tens of thousands of its own soldiers in Iraq with fumes from burning toxic trash? Before you consider it an outlandish suggestion, I suggest you read J. Malcolm Garcia's moving account in the Oxford American of two American soldiers who made it back from their tours of duty having escaped insurgents' shells, bullets, and improvised explosive devices—only to die slow, torturous deaths from the effects of garbage torched in open pits by the U.S. military.

Personal stories like those of Billy McKenna and Kevin Wilkins may only become more common in coming years, according to Garcia, since the U.S. military operated at least 23 burn pits in Iraq before combat operations ended this year, including a notoriously noxious one that often literally cast a pall over Balad Air Base.

"The burn pit at Balad consumed about 250 tons of waste a day," he writes, "exposing 25,000 U.S. military personnel and thousands of contractors to toxic fumes."

Garcia's immersive narrative is a humanizing look into a slowly unfolding story that has been reported in bits and pieces for a few years, but hasn't entirely sunken into the national consciousness, perhaps in part because it runs so counter to a reflexively patriotic, military-booster mindset: We wouldn't have harmed our own soldiers, would we?

It just so turns out that we probably did. Writes Garcia:


The Veterans Administration states on its own webpage that chemicals, paint, medical and human waste, metals, aluminum, unexploded ordnance, munitions, and petroleum products among other toxic waste are destroyed in burn pits. Possible side effects, the department notes, "may affect the skin, eyes, respiration, kidneys, liver, nervous system, cardiovascular system, reproductive system, peripheral nervous system, and gastrointestinal tract."


Read more:

[Puckoon]

I really do despair.

Fox news has accused The Muppets movie, and "liberal hollywood" of "brainwashing" children - with the new Muppets movie - because the bad guy is an Oil Tycoon. It's not cause he's an oil tycoon that makes him the bad guy - but it's that he wants to tear down the muppets theatre to drill for oil. Watch this video and come to terms with the fact that this video is real, it's not a joke...A more disgusting pair of opinions I've yet to see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl6ekkvWnOE

I guess the muppets had somewhat of a response though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8YhED4IgQA

Hell, in a handbasket, on a rocketship. That's where we're going.

[omagh_gael]

I really do despair.

Fox news has accused The Muppets movie, and "liberal hollywood" of "brainwashing" children - with the new Muppets movie - because the bad guy is an Oil Tycoon. It's not cause he's an oil tycoon that makes him the bad guy - but it's that he wants to tear down the muppets theatre to drill for oil. Watch this video and come to terms with the fact that this video is real, it's not a joke...A more disgusting pair of opinions I've yet to see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl6ekkvWnOE

I guess the muppets had somewhat of a response though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8YhED4IgQA

Hell, in a handbasket, on a rocketship. That's where we're going.

2nd Youtube link is very good

[thejuice]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kxw4uZAezaI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LUumD0MwL8


Can you imagine these kind of campaign ads anywhere else?

There is a real argument within all this about the madness of US economic policy but greater care needs to be taken not to stir things by making it appear that the Chinese are laughing all the way to bank at US peoples expense.

Its like Red-Terror all over again.

It was after all, the short-sightedness of the Chicago school of economics that are the root of the problem. And while that is implied in these ads, what use is it framing the Chinese in a bad light.