michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Oct 6, 2005 9:07:33 GMT 4
MARTIAL LAW?What exactly does Bush plan on bringing up before the Supreme Court in the next three years that is so important? Now John Roberts is the 17th Chief Justice of the United States. And if Miers joins him, the Bush White House is sure to have two solid votes in its war on terror -- and its war on civil liberties as well. From the Boston Globe: WASHINGTON -- As President Bush's counsel, Harriet E. Miers continued the expansive interpretation of presidential powers favored by her predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, who backed Bush's authority to hold terrorist suspects without trial, as well as the White House's right to withhold more administration documents from public disclosure than in the past. Miers has also been outspoken in her support of eauthorizing the Patriot Act, which gave the executive branch new powers of surveillance over US citizens. Now, Miers is Bush's choice to join the Supreme Court, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. That selection determines how much power a president can wield under the Constitution. Her nomination, announced Monday, followed the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who supported broad war powers for the president in a case he heard during his brief tenure as an appellate judge. The two appointments, both of lawyers with extensive White House experience, have raised alarm among critics of the Bush administration's broad reading of executive branch authority. ''The fact that the president is now seeding the Supreme Court with people who have been handmaidens in his efforts to increase the power of the executive without any check or oversight whatsoever is very disturbing," said Bill Goodman, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which sued Bush on behalf of prisoners at the US facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. tinyurl.com/dpgy7After Katrina “posse comitatus” worked its way into our conciousness. It's the law that keeps active duty military on a leash in the U.S., and does not allow the military to be used domestically for law enforcement. In the wake of Katrina, there was talk about the need for congress to revisit the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 to address the law and order “concerns” raised in New Orleans The Posse Comitatus Act is being pulled out again by the Bush Adminstration.This time, in terms of a response to the avian flu and enforcing planned quarrentines: “If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?” Bush asked at a news conference. "It's one thing to shut down airplanes. It's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine?” Bush added. “One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move. So that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have.” What is Posse Comitatus?POSSE COMITATUS ACT:Passed in 1878 after the end of Reconstruction, and was intended to prohibit Federal troops from supervising elections in former Confederate states. It generally prohibits Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or the Congress. Coupled with the Insurrection Act, the powers of the Federal government to use the US military for law enforcement are limited. "POSSE COMITATUS ACT" [Original Draft]20 Stat. L., 145 June 18, 1878 CHAP. 263 - An act making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, and for other purposes. SEC. 15. From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress; and no money appropriated by this act shall be used to pay any of the expenses incurred in the employment of any troops in violation of this section And any person willfully violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding two years or by both such fine and imprisonment.10 U.S.C. (United States Code) 375Sec. 375. Restriction on direct participation by military personnel: The Secretary of Defense shall prescribe such regulations as may be necessary to ensure that any activity (including the provision of any equipment or facility or the assignment or detail of any personnel) under this chapter does not include or permit direct participation by a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps in a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity unless participation in such activity by such member is otherwise authorized by law.18 U.S.C. 1385Sec. 1385. Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. PAST AMENDMENTS:"POSSE COMITATUS ACT" (18 USC 1385): A Reconstruction Era criminal law proscribing use of Army (later, Air Force) to "execute the laws" except where expressly authorized by Constitution or Congress. Limit on use of military for civilian law enforcement also applies to Navy by regulation. Dec '81 additional laws were enacted (codified 10 USC 371-78) clarifying permissible military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies--including the Coast Guard--especially in combating drug smuggling into the United States. Posse Comitatus clarifications emphasize supportive and technical assistance (e.g., use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance, etc.) while generally prohibiting direct participation of DoD personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). For example, Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETS) serve aboard Navy vessels and perform the actual boardings of interdicted suspect drug smuggling vessels and, if needed, arrest their crews). Positive results have been realized especially from Navy ship/aircraft involvement. Many people feel that the Posse Comitatus act of 1878, might protect them from a police state combining the military and civil law enforcement, with heavy managerial input by the US Department of Justice. But laws are already on the books authorizing martial law, including Section 32CFR 501.4** of the Code of Federal Regulations. These are the rules written by unelected bureaucrats that govern our lives. How easily our individual liberties and constitutional government can be set aside! With constitutional government "temporarily" placed aside, the American people would be subject to direct control by unelected bureaucrats. I've been saying this over and over, for years, they have been testing the waters of public reaction to martial law all along. I wish people would have paid attention; it's already here. Maybe now it's time to say, "God Help Us!"Michelle
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DT1
Moderator
You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
Posts: 428
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Post by DT1 on Oct 20, 2005 6:00:42 GMT 4
Parasites and TRAITORS!!! If the American People do not shake off this tyranny we will soon find ourselves forever beyond the ability to do so. Today it suddenly appeared it the MSM news loop that the president holds the position that in the event of an Avian Bird flu outbreak,then cities would be quarantined...by military force. Who has the world's largest stockpiles of viruses and biological weapons... Oh yeah- WE DO. Think boiling frog... A little more clarification,courtesy of the BUZZFLASH.COM mailbag: Subject: Can't Shake This Sick Feeling... No one wants to be a chicken little, but sometimes there is writing on the wall and you have to look and you have to read it. Bush is calling for an increased role of the military in emergency management, and he recently called for permission to use the military to quarantine whole regions of the country in the event of a flu outbreak. First of all, isn't that what the national guard is for? Why do we need the regular army to handle what has for years been handled by the national guard? Secondly, what happened in New Orleans that needed the military, as opposed to FEMA, the Red Cross, and the national guard? Most of the rioting and violence that was reported has been debunked, so why divert troops from Iraq just for the sake of putting down the local population? The Avian flu hasn't really happened yet, but he's calling for permission to use the military to control it? First things first, cleanse the CDC of cronies that can't handle their job, and then stockpile whatever medicine that we may need, etc., etc. ... and then, when and if that fails, and there really is rioting, we can call the guard in, in an absolute worst case scenario. What the hell is he talking about using the military here in the United States so often for? Isn't he looking a little too far into the future? BUSH: read your memos, pay attention to what's going on around you as it's happening, get to work, get your mind off the yard in Crawford, get to know how the systems that we already have work, and if, when they are properly used, and still don't work, THEN you can start to talk about ramping up, or whatever needs to be done! I wish that he could have been so forward thinking about 9/11, or Katrina. All of sudden he's got a plan. I can't help but wonder why. SE Jersey city
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leon
Junior Member
Posts: 38
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Post by leon on Oct 28, 2005 10:25:49 GMT 4
You gotta read the rest of this,Judi Villa The Arizona Republic Oct. 20, 2005 12:00 AM Give fingerprint or get jail time. Motorists cited for criminal traffic violations will have to give their thumbprint to Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies or go to jail. "This will be mandatory. No exceptions," Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Wednesday. "If they don't want to give the print, they're going directly to jail. Period."Arpaio launched the new policy Wednesday across the Valley, expanding and toughening a pilot program in which motorists pulled over for routine traffic stops were asked to voluntarily provide a thumbprint. The goal was to catch people who took the wheel with stolen or phony driver's licenses and ultimately to combat identity theft in Arizona, which ranks top in the nation for the crime. But Arpaio said about 67 percent of motorists declined to voluntarily give their thumbprints. Although Arpaio cannot require people to provide a fingerprint if they are cited for civil traffic violations, he said he can if the citation is criminal. Criminal traffic violations include reckless driving, excessive speed (more than 20 mph above the posted speed limit) and driving under the influence, while civil violations include speeding, failure to yield or unsafe lane changes. Officials at the Maricopa County Attorney's Office said they had not been consulted about the new policy and could not comment whether it was legal. "Of course we can take prints," Arpaio said, referring to criminal traffic violators. "We can arrest everybody if we want to." www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1020tickets20.html Alex Jones, over at Prison Planet, must be beside himself, for years Alex has ranted about The Police State. No body believed him. paranoid suffering from schizophrenia, people would proclaim, dismissing him entirely. This is how, freedom, dies. Not in one fail swoop, but in a death, by a thousand cuts. Are apathy for those of our own culture, let alone others, is the common ground upon which the genocide of millions, has been allowed to prevail. As was said in, The United Vegetative States of America. Them. is really, us. We are in fact, individually responsible, locally and globally.
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james
Full Member
Posts: 62
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Post by james on Oct 28, 2005 10:39:54 GMT 4
merge for michelleCrying "wolf" in a crowded subwayOctober, 11, 2005 From: Attytood Remarkably enough, Karl Rove's possible legal problems were book-ended today by two pieces of terror news. Before, came a presidential speech on the war on terror. After, came a supposed terrorist threat to New York's subway system. Stop what you're thinking. It's just an amazing coincidence. The terrorists just happened to wait to make these threats until there's bad news about the administration that it needs to preempt. Just a coincidence.
-- Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, Oct. 6, 2005.NYC BLOWN UP FOR PAYING TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO ROVE, MIERS--headline on Gawker, Oct. 7, 2005. Have you heard this one before -- the one about the terrorist who threatened to explode America on the very same day that the Bush White House was imploding? Of course you have. And by now, you know it's not very funny. When you heard last night that authorities believed there was a credible terrorist threat in the New York subways on the same day that the Bush administration was under siege, with Karl Rove's legal woes accelerating and Bush's approval rating hitting a record low of 37 percent, did you think to yourself: Hasn't this happened a couple time before? How about...13 times, according to Olbermann on his "Countdown" show last night. Unfortunately, he didn't document them, but this pretty good 2004 timeline does trace 15 such incidents -- and that's before yesterday's cry-wolf-a-thon. Let's pull out three of the most egregious ones: READ THE REST: tinyurl.com/7szgpN.Y. officials defend response Sources: Subway threat tip a hoax: tinyurl.com/8r84f Timeline of Terror Alerts: tinyurl.com/6e8cw_______________________________________________ • October 12, 2005 | 8:35 p.m. ET The Nexus of Politics and Terror (Keith Olbermann) [Snip]: I suggested that in the last three years there had been about 13 similar coincidences - a political downturn for the administration, followed by a “terror event” - a change in alert status, an arrest, a warning. We figured we’d better put that list of coincidences on the public record. We did so this evening on the television program, with ten of these examples. The other three are listed at the end of the main list, out of chronological order. The contraction was made purely for the sake of television timing considerations, and permitted us to get the live reaction of the former Undersecretary of Homeland Security, Asa Hutchinson. We bring you these coincidences, reminding you, and ourselves here, that perhaps the simplest piece of wisdom in the world is called “the logical fallacy.” Just because Event “A” occurs, and then Event “B” occurs, that does not automatically mean that Event “A” caused Event “B. ”But one set of comments from an informed observer seems particularly relevant as we examine these coincidences. On May 10th of this year, after his resignation, former Secretary of Homeland Security Ridge looked back on the terror alert level changes, issued on his watch.Mr. Ridge said: “More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it. Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don’t necessarily put the country on (alert)… there were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said ‘for that?’”Please, judge for yourself. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9665308/#051012aNote: The timeline Keith Olbermann provides goes to June 2005
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DT1
Moderator
You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
Posts: 428
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Post by DT1 on Jan 28, 2006 12:24:19 GMT 4
Mod's note:This heads up(complete with built-in SCANDAL)brought to you by the fine folks over at rense.com.Are Concentration Camps Coming to U.S.? Privacy By John Newby 1-26-6 I've heard and seen many reports concerning detention camps that have been built throughout the country. Quite frankly, I viewed them with a bit of skepticism, not that I didn't trust the source or the information, I didn't trust the conclusions. The claims have been many and include information (including pictures) indicating some of these camps are built to hold as many as a million people if need be. While these types of stories are easy to fabricate and can provide plenty of speculation fodder to spread; the following news release should give cause for concern to even the most conspiracy challenged Americans. Here is the word for word news release: KBR Awarded Homeland Security contract worth up to $385M. (HAL) (By Katherine Hunt) SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- KBR, the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co, (HAL), said Tuesday it has been awarded a contingency contract from the Department of Homeland Security to supports its Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in the event of an emergency. The maximum total value of the contract is $385 million and consists of a 1-year base period with four 1-year options. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005. The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to expand existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs, KBR said. The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster, the company said. If no one has ever heard anything about detention or concentration camps within the United States, the above press release would appear relatively harmless. However, if anyone is waiting for the government and KBR to come out and say "Hey, we're building concentration camps for all you minions," before they will take note, you'll be in those camps 'before' you figure it out. Several items about this concern me greatly. First, instead of paying $385+ million for the next five years to build detention centers or so they say; why not stop the flow at the borders which would be much cheaper? On the other hand, if the illegals are the real problem and reason for building detention centers; why not cancel all jobs for illegals, stop all government payments to illegals and their off-spring and watch the illegal problem dry up like a drought stricken river. You won't have to send them back, they will leave. But that would mean that the illegals are the real problem being addressed, could there are other reasons for these little mini Gitmos?... Secondly, what are these other detention center type projects? Maybe they learned something in New Orleans, maybe they learned that they needed detention camps in which to send people that lost their homes during this natural disaster. By having Haliburton (Man, why does Hallibuton get all the plush assignments) build local camps, we can herd the mindless little masses into them whenever a natural disaster or even potential disaster occurs. Not to mention NWO orchestrated disasters. Now I'm sure that many will say, not to worry, no big deal or your just making a mountain out of molehill. Maybe I am, however I believe our country has survived quite well without detention or concentration camps for the past 200 years. Just not sure why King George feels we need them now? Wasn't there another country that built and operated a few concentration camps about 60 years ago? I wonder what little piece of propaganda Hitler used to convince the little minions to look the other way? Color me naive, but when I hear talk of cages, detention and/or concentration camps, my mind usually wonders in devious directions. I haven't seen anywhere in history where detention centers and so forth were used as freedom enhancing tools. View this anyway you wish, but do so at your own peril. Consider yourself warned, what you choose to do with this information is only up to you.
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Post by gimmishelter on Feb 12, 2006 1:18:58 GMT 4
MARTIAL LAW?What exactly does Bush plan on bringing up before the Supreme Court in the next three years that is so important? Now John Roberts is the 17th Chief Justice of the United States. And if Miers joins him, the Bush White House is sure to have two solid votes in its war on terror -- and its war on civil liberties as well. From the Boston Globe: WASHINGTON -- As President Bush's counsel, Harriet E. Miers continued the expansive interpretation of presidential powers favored by her predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, who backed Bush's authority to hold terrorist suspects without trial, as well as the White House's right to withhold more administration documents from public disclosure than in the past. Miers has also been outspoken in her support of eauthorizing the Patriot Act, which gave the executive branch new powers of surveillance over US citizens. Now, Miers is Bush's choice to join the Supreme Court, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. That selection determines how much power a president can wield under the Constitution. Her nomination, announced Monday, followed the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who supported broad war powers for the president in a case he heard during his brief tenure as an appellate judge. The two appointments, both of lawyers with extensive White House experience, have raised alarm among critics of the Bush administration's broad reading of executive branch authority. ''The fact that the president is now seeding the Supreme Court with people who have been handmaidens in his efforts to increase the power of the executive without any check or oversight whatsoever is very disturbing," said Bill Goodman, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which sued Bush on behalf of prisoners at the US facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. tinyurl.com/dpgy7After Katrina “posse comitatus” worked its way into our conciousness. It's the law that keeps active duty military on a leash in the U.S., and does not allow the military to be used domestically for law enforcement. In the wake of Katrina, there was talk about the need for congress to revisit the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 to address the law and order “concerns” raised in New Orleans The Posse Comitatus Act is being pulled out again by the Bush Adminstration.This time, in terms of a response to the avian flu and enforcing planned quarrentines: “If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?” Bush asked at a news conference. "It's one thing to shut down airplanes. It's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine?” Bush added. “One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move. So that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have.” What is Posse Comitatus?POSSE COMITATUS ACT:Passed in 1878 after the end of Reconstruction, and was intended to prohibit Federal troops from supervising elections in former Confederate states. It generally prohibits Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or the Congress. Coupled with the Insurrection Act, the powers of the Federal government to use the US military for law enforcement are limited. "POSSE COMITATUS ACT" [Original Draft]20 Stat. L., 145 June 18, 1878 CHAP. 263 - An act making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, and for other purposes. SEC. 15. From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress; and no money appropriated by this act shall be used to pay any of the expenses incurred in the employment of any troops in violation of this section And any person willfully violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding two years or by both such fine and imprisonment.10 U.S.C. (United States Code) 375Sec. 375. Restriction on direct participation by military personnel: The Secretary of Defense shall prescribe such regulations as may be necessary to ensure that any activity (including the provision of any equipment or facility or the assignment or detail of any personnel) under this chapter does not include or permit direct participation by a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps in a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity unless participation in such activity by such member is otherwise authorized by law.18 U.S.C. 1385Sec. 1385. Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. PAST AMENDMENTS:"POSSE COMITATUS ACT" (18 USC 1385): A Reconstruction Era criminal law proscribing use of Army (later, Air Force) to "execute the laws" except where expressly authorized by Constitution or Congress. Limit on use of military for civilian law enforcement also applies to Navy by regulation. Dec '81 additional laws were enacted (codified 10 USC 371-78) clarifying permissible military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies--including the Coast Guard--especially in combating drug smuggling into the United States. Posse Comitatus clarifications emphasize supportive and technical assistance (e.g., use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance, etc.) while generally prohibiting direct participation of DoD personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). For example, Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETS) serve aboard Navy vessels and perform the actual boardings of interdicted suspect drug smuggling vessels and, if needed, arrest their crews). Positive results have been realized especially from Navy ship/aircraft involvement. Many people feel that the Posse Comitatus act of 1878, might protect them from a police state combining the military and civil law enforcement, with heavy managerial input by the US Department of Justice. But laws are already on the books authorizing martial law, including Section 32CFR 501.4** of the Code of Federal Regulations. These are the rules written by unelected bureaucrats that govern our lives. How easily our individual liberties and constitutional government can be set aside! With constitutional government "temporarily" placed aside, the American people would be subject to direct control by unelected bureaucrats. I've been saying this over and over, for years, they have been testing the waters of public reaction to martial law all along. I wish people would have paid attention; it's already here. Maybe now it's time to say, "God Help Us!"Michelle Yes love save Indio ca. from the boogie people. some guy just escaped from our local prison and every one on the boulevard was stopped and searched for identity.I guess we all are prison look alike's ..lol..
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Feb 16, 2006 20:23:25 GMT 4
Mod's note:This heads up(complete with built-in SCANDAL)brought to you by the fine folks over at rense.com.Are Concentration Camps Coming to U.S.? House Representative Cynthia McKinney's [D GA] interview below on concentration camps in the US. Also mentioned is House Representaive Ron Paul's [R TX] comments. The House of Representatives is full of honest, legitimate Congressional leaders who are truly working for the American people. Forget about the Senate, too many members here are invested with long term membership [although there are exceptions such as Russ Feingold] . One only has to look at the actions of many House Reps to see beacons of light within our govenment. [John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich, John Murtha, etc.].....MichelleCongresswoman Says America Run By Criminal Syndicate McKinney: American citizens could be put in forced labor campsPaul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | February 14 2006 Cynthia McKinney, the only House Representative to stand up to the Bush White House crime syndicate, has gone further than ever before in her efforts to warn people about what the Neo-Cons' ultimate goals actually entail for freedom in America. During a recent radio interview on the Alex Jones Show, McKinney illustrated the nature of a corrupt occupational government, stating that the administration was "stolen in 2000 and stolen again in 2004." McKinney said that it was doing the government a favor to describe them as a "criminal syndicate." "It appears to me that our country is literally being hollowed out....our economy is being hollowed out," said McKinney. McKinney shared Alex Jones' fears and those previously voiced by Republican Congressman Ron Paul, that Americans may be arrested and taken to forced labor camps in light of recent developments confirming Kellogg Brown and Root have secured a government contract to build the camps. READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE:www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/140206criminalsyndicate.htmJUST IN NOW, TODAY: 10:22PM/1:28EST I really appreciate Senator Feingold's solitary actions:Feingold, Alone, Filibusters Patriot Actwww.truthout.org/docs_2006/021606J.shtmlIn a case of legislative deja vu, Sen. Russell Feingold launched another lonely filibuster against the USA Patriot Act, but sponsors predicted enough support to overcome the objection and extend parts of the law set to expire March 10.
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DT1
Moderator
You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
Posts: 428
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Post by DT1 on Feb 24, 2006 23:46:29 GMT 4
Published on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 by CommonDreams.org It’s Munich In America. There Will Be No Normandy. by David Michael Green This is it, folks. This is the scenario our Founders lost sleep over. This is the day they prepared us for. Outside the Philadelphia convention Benjamin Franklin was asked what sort of government he and his colleagues were crafting. His reply? “A republic. If you can keep it.” And that is just the question at issue today. Can we keep it? Sure, it can sound melodramatic to use the f-word (no, not the one Churlish Cheney hurled at Patrick Leahy), and I have mostly avoided doing so for just that reason. Especially where the politically less informed are concerned, arguing that America is slipping into fascism can be the first and last point they’ll hear you make. But, nowadays, even George F. Will is worried. You know you’re in a seriously bad place when that happens. America may not be a fascist country today, but it’s not for want of trying. I have no question but that through Dick Cheney’s dark heart courses the blood of Mussolini. No wonder the damn thing’s so diseased. And I have no doubt that Karl Rove has only admiration and envy for Joseph Goebbels. Hey, why can’t we do that here? (Hint: We are.) America is not a fascist country (if it was, you wouldn’t be reading this), but pardon me if I don’t defer to Bush defenders and ringside Democrats who consider me hysterical for worrying about the direction in which we’re heading. These are the same people who’ve spent the last two decades denying the existence of global warming, while we now learn with each passing week how much worse than we had ever imagined is that environmental wreckage. These are the same people who said Iraq would be a cakewalk, and planned accordingly. These are the same people who prepared us for 9/11, the Iraq occupation, Hurricane Katrina and the prescription drug plan, and who have set new records for ineptitude in responding to those crises. These are the people who can’t get body armor on our troops, three years after launching the war, and who are getting flunking grades in terrorism preparation from the 9/11 Commission four years after that attack. These are the same people who have turned a massive surplus into a record-setting debt, and coupled it with equally breathtaking trade deficits. And now they want to cut federal tax revenue even more. Yes, he is the president, but golly gee, Sargent Carter, he sure seems to make an awful lot of mistakes! So forgive me if I don’t trust their judgement on matters of rather serious importance. Forgive me if I don’t stand by hoping they’re right as the two hundred year-old experiment in American democracy goes down the toilet. Besides, I thought being a conservative meant taking the prudent course, anyhow. Even if there was only a one in a hundred chance that a grenade was live, would you play with it? Wouldn’t it have been better to have acted ‘conservatively’ with the fate of the planet at stake, and assumed that global warming might be real? And, likewise, shouldn’t we worry about what is happening to American democracy now, while we still can? The truth is, there is a government in office which seeks such complete power and dominance that even some conservatives have started to notice. Too blind to see the true intentions of this bunch, they can at least figure out that an imperial presidency created by George Bush might one day be inherited by Hillary Clinton (complete with her plans for a revolutionary dope-smoking lesbian Marxist state and global UN domination, enforced by an armada of black helicopters), so now even these fools are getting nervous about where this goes. They know that the only difference between the monarchism our Founders so reviled and contemporary Cheneyism is that the technology of our time allows George Bush to turn George III into George Orwell. It’s Munich in America, people. We can dream the pleasant dream that if we just stand by quietly while the Boy King gobbles up some of our liberties, he won’t want any more, but that would be a lot like Chamberlain dreaming that a chunk of Czechoslovakia would be enough to appease Hitler. It wasn’t, and it won’t be. Do I overstate the concern? The New York Times recently editorialized “We can't think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers – and just trust him. We also can't think of a president who has deserved that trust less.” The Times should know. Between rah-rah’ing the war for Bush, sitting on the Downing Street Memos as if they were banana import trade policy documents, and covering for Judith Miller while she covered for The Cheney Gang, they have about as much blood on their hands as does Donald Rumsfeld. But if even the Times can work up the concern to print a line like that, we’re in a world of hurt. And we are, in fact, in a world of hurt. Those shreds of parchment on the floor of the National Archives aren’t from Mrs. Washington’s shopping list, I’m afraid to say. It is true, of course, that other presidents – even the best of them – have taken enormous liberties with the Constitution, especially during wartime. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, FDR jailed Americans on the West Coast for the crime of having Japanese ancestry, Truman and Eisenhower stood by while McCarthyism ripped a gaping hole through American civil liberties, and Nixon and his plumbers went to work on his political enemies in the name of national security. Of course, we now look back on those episodes as among the most shameful in American history. But the present crew is even more dangerous for their intentions of creating permanent war to justify permanent repression. Already they’ve torn large chunks out of the Constitution. Article One creates the legislative branch, that which the Founders intended to be the most powerful and consequential. Today, we have a president who makes the stunning assertion that he is the “sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs”. This Congress seems mostly to agree, even though the Founders gave them the power to declare war, to fund all governmental activities, to ratify treaties and to oversee the executive. Who, us? Bye-bye Article One. Article Three creates a Supreme Court to adjudicate disputes (especially over governmental powers) and to protect the Constitution. But BushCo can’t be bothered to follow even the Court’s tentative interventions into due process concerning Guantánamo and beyond. And why should it? By the time they get done with loading the damn thing up with ‘unitary executive’ fifth-column shills like Roberts and Alito, it will be a moot court, just like the ones in law school. Once the Supreme Court becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of the executive branch (about one vote from now), it’s bye-bye Article Three. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom to assemble in protest. But protest is a joke in Bush’s America. People are kenneled off into pens so far from the president he is never confronted with any contrary views at all, apart from the odd funeral he has to show up at but Rove can’t script. The halls of Congress are ground zero for American democracy, much boasted about at home and jammed down the throat of the world (except when the results don’t favor American corporate or strategic interests). But go there and sit in the balcony wearing a t-shirt with the number of dead soldiers in Iraq printed on it and see how fast you get a lesson in Bush’s interpretation of the Bill of Rights. And that little display at the state of the union address was no freak event, either. That kind of thing happened all the time during the 2004 campaign. At Bush rallies, people were getting arrested for the bumper-stickers on their cars. The First Amendment also protects freedom of the press. That freedom has not been eliminated, per se, but it has been effectively neutered beyond effectiveness. Between the White House intimidating most of the press, coopting the rest, stonewalling information requests, planting stories in the American and foreign media, and buying off journalists, today’s mainstream media has too often become a pathetic megaphone for White House lies, and that includes those supposed bastions of liberalism, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Bye-bye First Amendment. The Fourth Amendment guarantees “against unreasonable searches and seizures” and requires that “no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation”. Can you say “NSA”? “Guantánamo”? “Abu Ghraib”? It’s bad enough that Bush has authorized himself to bug anybody, arrest anybody, convict anybody and silence anybody, but his NSA chief doesn’t even appear to have read the Fourth Amendment. That whole thing about probable cause was lost on him, as he and his president simultaneously trampled the separation of powers and checks and balances doctrines by eliminating two out of three branches of government from their little surveillance loop. Meanwhile, informed estimates repeatedly assert that the majority of detainees rotting away in Guantánamo are there either because they were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time simply and got swept away like so much garbage into a dustpan, or were reported as al Qaeda so that one Afghan clan could use the US military to burn another. And so there they sit, unable to be charged, to be tried, to exercise habeas corpus, to have representation, to confront witnesses – unable now even to starve themselves to death in protest. If this wasn’t precisely the fear of the Founders when they put this language into the Constitution, then Dick Cheney is a poster boy for the ACLU. Strike the Fourth Amendment. And take with it the Fifth (no one shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”), the Sixth (“the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury”, the right “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense”), and the Eighth, providing against “cruel and unusual punishments”). Boom, boom, boom. In a disgusting display of legal sophistry, the administration would argue that these provisions don’t apply because of jurisdiction, which of course was the entire purpose for putting their gulag in Guantánamo in the first place. As if it is not American territory since we ‘lease’ it from Cuba. As if Castro could send in the police to clean up the open sore of Bush’s human rights travesty there, and the US could do nothing about it, since it is Cuban land. Right. But even if Fun With Domestic Jurisprudence is to be their game, the actions of the administration also represent a massive breach of international law, since the Geneva Conventions prohibit precisely these sorts of horrors which the Creature from Crawford has visited upon the poor SOBs caught in his dragnet. Your scissors are probably getting a bit dull by now, but this means that not only is international law in scraps, but you can also go ahead and cut out Article Six of the Constitution as well, which provides that “all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land”. Ah, how ‘quaint’. How very ‘obsolete’. Such treaties may be the supreme law in some land, but apparently not in Bush Land. Or, at least not if you don’t mind another cute legal charade, in which a new category of POWs called “unlawful combatants” is fabricated with the intention of rendering – with disingenuousness extraordinaire – the detainees as falling outside the Geneva provisions. That’s precious, as if a ‘lawful’ Bush all of a sudden got religion for the fine points of international jurisprudence. Except, of course, when it came to the need for obtaining a Security Council resolution to invade Iraq. Except when it comes to the International Criminal Court, which the Bush junta has been desperately trying to undermine at every opportunity (gee, I wonder why, given the Court’s mandate to prosecute war criminals). Except for nuclear nonproliferation. Except for the use of white phosphorus in Falluja. Apparently the only legal distinctions these guys follow are the ones Bush orders Alberto Gonzales, that paragon of legal independence and the rule of law, to create for him out of whole cloth. That international law. There’s not much left of the Constitution now that these guys have tortured it as if it were some personal project in Lynndie England’s basement. Of course, they’ve made damn sure that the Second Amendment is fully protected, to the point where John Ashcroft wouldn’t investigate the gun purchase records of the 9/11 hijackers. You gotta love that. I wish they gave the rest of the Bill of Rights a tenth of the attention the Second Amendment gets. Heck, for that matter, I wish they’d even interpret the Second Amendment properly. Maybe in my next lifetime. Meanwhile, arguably the three most brilliant inventions of the Constitution are separation of powers, the guarantee of civil liberties, and federalism. Even the latter – which has least to do with foreign affairs or checking executive power, and therefore has been least assaulted – is under duress as the Bush Gang attack state power any time it strays from their regressive political agenda, for instance with respect to euthanasia, medical marijuana or affirmative action. In fact, all three of these key constitutional doctrines are suffering under a brutal assault from a regime which finds democracy and liberty fundamentally inconvenient to their aspirations for unlimited power. The administration absurdly claims to be bringing democracy to the Mid-East. (After that whole WMD thing went MIA, and Saddam’s links to al Qaeda proved equally credible, what the hell else were they going to say?). But far from the ludicrous claims that they are agents for the spread of democracy abroad, they are busy unraveling it with furious industry here at home. It is, I’m afraid, Munich in America, and now we must decide whether to appease the bullies and pray for happy endings, or fight back to preserve a two hundred year-old experiment in democracy. Despite all its flaws and failures, Churchill was still right about it: Democracy is the worst system of governance except for all the others. And that makes it worth fighting for. But the spot we’re in now is actually worse than Munich, because there will be no Normandy in this war, and no Stalingrad. No country with the deterrent threat of a nuclear arsenal can ever be invaded by another country or group of countries, regardless of the magnitude of the latter’s own military power. That means we’re on our own, folks. If we flip completely over to the dark side, nobody will be storming our beaches and scrambling up our cliffs to liberate us from our own folly. Hell, if they weren’t so worried about the international menace we represent, they’d probably be laughing at us, anyhow, thinking how richly we deserved the government we got. But there’s nothing funny about this situation. Hitler dreamed of a thousand year reich, but didn’t count on the resilience of an endless army of Slavs, or the technological prowess of a nation of shopkeepers’ great-grandchildren hammering his would-be millennium down to a decade. If the US goes authoritarian (or worse), on the other hand, who will play Russia or America to our Germany? The answer is no one, and it is not apocalyptic paranoia to fear a very, very long period of unrelenting political darkness, once the curtain comes down. Is this the beginning of the end for American democracy? Maybe. I have no doubt that unchecked Cheneyism intends precisely that. It’s therefore up to the rest of us to stop it. It’s up to us to say yes to Philadelphia, and no to Munich. Because there will be no Normandy. Now we find out if we can keep Mr. Franklin’s republic, after all. David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (pscdmg@hofstra.edu), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond.
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DT1
Moderator
You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
Posts: 428
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Post by DT1 on Mar 10, 2006 2:36:25 GMT 4
The 'New American Freedom' Defined*stolen for your infomusement from rense.comBy Ted Twietmeyer tedtw@frontiernet.net 3-8-6 Our dictator states we now have a "new freedom." But he has never taken the time to tell us just what this means. Based on his announcements, new laws and acts we can now define this wonderful gift for all. Below is a partial list of some of those wonderful new freedoms we all have now. And those in other countries like the UK have been enjoying these for years. You have the right to: * Have your home broken into, possessions taken and bugs planted * Not remain silent and the right to be tortured if you do * Be declared an "enemy combatant" - not by your peers, but by one man * Shut up and be politically correct, or have the ADL make your life hell * Have all of America's ports/corporations taken over by foreign interests - the Arabs and the UK * Purchase an airline ticket, show up for the flight and then find out you can never fly again * Vote either democrat or republican, as it makes no difference at all (and never really did) * Be taxed by the UN, to propagate slothfulness and laziness all around the world * Drill a water well, maintain it, pay for it's electricity and then pay taxes on the water to the UN * Click your heels together when the dictator appears on your television * Send your children to fight an oil war, for a resource in abundance and no real shortage * Be arrested and be "disappeared" never to be seen again * Be held without bail, outside contact or trial indefinitely and be executed in secret * Believe we are a free nation with unrigged elections * Believe the government is here to help you * Not control your thoughts because you want to be on a red or blue FEMA list * Tell yourself that fascism is dead * Worship the new fourth Reich (the other three were disasters) * Be gouged by your utility company each month for a shortage that doesn't exist * Believe that weather control doesn't exist, and that Katrina made a 90 degree turn by itself * Think that chemtrails don't exist, and the sharp increase in respiratory problems is a coincidence * Sleep well at night knowing that lost jobs are never coming back here. Ever. * Rest well knowing the greatest country on earth is now a third world country with a veneer of wealth * Train a foreign national replacement for your job, so you can become unemployed * Sleep well at nigh knowing that when that job is over, you'll be able to find another one * Want a "war president" to stay in office. Forever * Support a war that has been stated to "last 100 years." * Support invading every country in the mid-east to force them into "the core" (USA) * Believe the dictator looks our for you interests, and not those corporations he represents * Think that Haliburton is a health care plan * Believe Kellogg, Brown and Root are a law firm subsidiary of a famous cereal company * Ignore the hundreds of POW camps for Americans - they are all holographic projections * Never worry about the government detonating a nuclear device on American soil * Believe an airliner crashed into the pentagon and not a missile * Believe the government can't control the "free press" * Allow government spyware on your computer to be used against you unlawfully * Think that Microsoft never received a 34+ million dollar contract with homeland security * Allow your children to be kidnapped, never to be seen again * Think that Bohemian Grove is a place where oranges are grown and children play in the sun * Believe the Bilderberger group doesn't exist - despite published membership rolls * Have the government turn your children against you, spy on you and then reward them * Believe that the government does not have highly advanced alien technology * Think that we are all alone in the universe and we are all that God made * Believe that uncle is looking our for your best interests * Think that before, during and after a national disaster that uncle sam will take care of you * Believe that Congress is your friend (Note the first root word - "Con") * Be assured that dictators look out for your best interests and future * Think that a population control program does not exist and all diseases are natural pathogens * Believe that Americans are never covertly killed by the government on American soil * Think the government never experiments on it's own citizens without their permission * Rest well at night knowing that your emails and phone calls aren't really monitored * Sleep with the knowledge it's now safe to be an altar boy again * AIDS, MS and Fibromyalgia came from monkeys, and not the bio lab at Ft. Dietrich * Believe that the government would never engage in any form of population control * Think that God will take you from the earth before the real nightmare begins * Believe there have been no real terrorist attacks in America in 5 years because they were all stopped * Believe that bigger, uncontrolled government is a good thing for all * Be a nice human doormat for uncle sam when sanctioned foreign national thugs kick in your door * Know and believe our government would never support terrorism. It's just plain "un-American" * Believe the government cannot control what doctrine your church teaches or doesn't teach * The right to believe that with all this new freedom, we can't possibly be under secret martial law. Ted Twietmeyer
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DT1
Moderator
You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
Posts: 428
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Post by DT1 on Mar 23, 2006 23:30:03 GMT 4
Subject: The Next StepNow that the Bush administration has established, with the help of Congress, that warrantless searches of not only our communications but of our homes and possessions are legal, we might be concerned about the next step in the larger plan. Many might wonder how much farther they will go, now that the protection of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution has been removed. The Republican Supreme Court will need to support both Bush's warrantless searches and his indefinite detention of people without trial for this to go forward, but we have no reason to assume they won't. A more liberal court validated the no-knock search in the "Drug War" and also validated the power of the police to use a dog to carry out warrantless searches for drugs at traffic stops. With the powers of warrantless search and detention without trial, the possibility of a new, powerful tool in the "War on Terror" and the "War on Drugs" emerges in the form of the neighborhood sweep. This is an operation in which the police, generally with the help of the military, sets up a cordon around an area (often at three in the morning). With movement controlled, they then sweep through the area searching all cars, homes, and people, arresting anyone without jobs or identification and confiscating any contraband such as drugs like marijuana and birth control pills, political papers and other illegal information, weapons, pornography, etc., and arresting those in possession of such things. The Supreme Court has already established the legality of state confiscation in the drug war, so the operation should pay for itself by selling the houses, cars, televisions, computers, and bread mixers of the apprehended criminals. Forced labor will provide the money for the detainee's continued incarceration. The administration and their corporate associates are now in the process of setting up the camps which could be used to hold those rounded up in the sweeps. Of course, lack of medical care, generally abusive conditions (16 hour work days with beatings), and a no-work-no-food policy should keep the life span of any individual in the camps to a minimum, particularly among the elderly, the very young, the sick, and those disabled who can't work. Naturally, photos will be released from the camps showing happy people being re-educated, but no statistics will be available. The only real questions are where and when will the first sweeps occur. To continue the anti-immigrant façade, they will probably conduct the first sweeps in connection with some undocumented worker roundups in which they happen to search nearby unrelated properties that might appear suspicious. When will it be? With the tools in place now, it could be soon in a neighborhood near you. Remember, many of these things they are doing now and are arguing that they have a right to do, they just haven't yet applied it to an entire neighborhood. Do you really think they won't? Sure, I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough? A BuzzFlash Reader
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Oct 22, 2006 18:14:28 GMT 4
THE BIG QUESTION [and some thoughts]: What Has Congress done by voting in favor of the Military Commissions Act of 2006?Congress has screwed us and went against the POSSE COMITATUS ACT, handing all authority to the Executive Branch of our government:
Passed in 1878 after the end of Reconstruction, and was intended to prohibit Federal troops from supervising elections in former Confederate states. It generally prohibits Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or the Congress. Coupled with the Insurrection Act, the powers of the Federal government to use the US military for law enforcement are limited.
The Secretary of Defense shall prescribe such regulations as may be necessary to ensure that any activity (including the provision of any equipment or facility or the assignment or detail of any personnel) under this chapter does not include or permit direct participation by a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps in a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity unless participation in such activity by such member is otherwise authorized by law.18 U.S.C. 1385Sec. 1385. SEE MORE ON POSSE COMITATUS AT THE VERY BEGINING OF THIS THREAD
Some thoughts about Marshal Law and the Military Comissions Act of 2006: Even though this Act is clearly against the Geneva Convention, clearly allows the Bush Admin to escape war crimes, and leads us further down the road to facism [hell we're already there]; it also is of grave concern to US citizens in particular.
The Bush regime has slowly been stacking the judicial system in their favor; this is the last area of our 3 branches of government not under their total control. We saw this during Supreme Court nominations. However, there was and still is strong opposition to this, especially at the Federal circuit and State Courts. There are judges who are very vocal against this. I think that they and the law enforcement will resist following orders to arrest citizens under this Act once they get the full meaning of it: that if they don't follow in line, they will both be replaced by the military.
US citizens arrested under this Act would be placed in military hold and if given a trial, it would be by the military. Clearly Marshal Law is already enacted. I'm not sure the American people have put this together yet: the media still only speaks of our loss of Habeas Corpus and does not mention being under Marshal Law. Loss of Habeas Corpus doesn't cause apprehension or fear in most Americans as Marshal Law might.
Below are various articles and interviews to read and watch:I Hereby Declare Myself an Enemy Combatantby Bill Losapio October 19, 2006 ‘‘(1) UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT.—(A) The term ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ means— “a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces); or ‘‘(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.”
~HR6166, The Definition of Enemy Combatant, ushering in the utter destruction of Habeas Corpus in its mirrored form SB3930 (actually signed into law) I hereby declare myself an Unlawful Enemy Combatant. No, I am not, nor have I ever been part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces, but I will save a Combat Status Review Tribunal or any other [in]competent tribunal established by Dubya or Rummy the trouble. Yes, I know this means I can be tortured under whatever distorted definition of “information gathering” these war criminals utilize to make me admit that I am a terrorist. Maybe by admitting it now, I can save them the trouble of doing that too, but they may do it anyway just for practice. You know, keep the torture machine nicely greased and all that. Don’t want it to get messy, mind you. And yes, I know this means I’ll end up in Gitmo or in one of those nifty new Kellogg Brown and Root Detention Centers . But I would suffer the fate of demons should I make a whore of my soul, to paraphrase another Unlawful Enemy Combatant. Why do I consider myself even remotely capable of being labeled this way? Posted on www.whitehouse.gov, the National Security Council’s “Strategy for Winning the War on Terror” states the following: “Subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation. Terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda.” On Monday, October 16, 2006 , Fatherland Security Chief Chertoff stated that an “area of concern” is the threat of “plots involving local communities, American citizens, who may become radicalized over the Internet . . . .” It is clear: the next front of control is the blogosphere and the alternative news media. By contributing towards the “subculture” exposing the fascist nightmare oozing out of D.C., I must be necessarily “keeping alive grievances” that make our population a ripe recruiting ground for bad people. Any parent can quickly imagine how horrible it would feel being forcibly separated from one’s children. Any parent would sacrifice lofty ideals to see their children and loved ones protected from the ugliness of the world, and from suffering. We are willing to tolerate so much just to have the chance to watch our children grow up happy. Never did I think that I would find myself dragged to the horrible grey area between keeping my mouth shut in the hopes that nothing bad would happen, or risk persecution (no exaggeration) for speaking out against these travesties of freedom in the fear that the future for my children fades to bleakness. Economic margin theory now comes into play. We must now make the determination within our own value systems as individuals: Is the future in which our children must live too horrible to contemplate for those who value liberty? Are the ever-increasing chances of this nightmare becoming real high enough now that we can no longer sit on the sidelines hoping it will fix itself? Keep our mouths shut and hope for the best, or speak out in defiance against this nightmarish Orwellian veil descending on our lives -- though that exposes us to renegade kangaroo proceedings with the real chance of being held indefinitely with no charges filed, and no ability to even see the evidence against us. I’m afraid for many of us who see the writing on the wall, this quandary looms quite closely overhead. Come and get me, you sons of bitches! I will not suffer this farcical disgrace. I will not silence myself in the hope that maybe this evil machine of injustice, oppression, and horror overlooks me, though I, of all that is good and decent, expose my family to God knows what. By writing this article, I may very well have doomed myself to a first class ticket to the KBR Camp o’ Horrors. Has it come to this? Am I hallucinating? Is this really what is going on in this country? I sit typing this, pausing, looking around, thinking “I’m sure I’m not just reflecting on a really bad nightmare I might have had last night . . . .” Have you not seen the legislation, now law? Are you so foolish as to think that “it will only be used against bad people . . . terrorists . . . . It’s just to keep us safe”? To those who believe this childishness, to those frightened sheep who do not wish to rock the boat, or who either misguidedly or in brown-shirt fashion support this travesty against humanity, I say, “Beware the father who fears for his children’s future.” I offer you, in closing, the following quote from Samuel Adams: "Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, 'What should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!" Bill Losapio is an austro-libertarian living in Melbourne , FL. You can email Bill, at least if he hasn’t been dragged to a KBR Camp, at bill_losapio@hotmail.com. Visit his website, at least until Internet2 makes such alternative opinion sources outlawed, at www.lwilliamlosapio.com.SOURCE: www.strike-theroot.com/62/losapio/losapio2.html----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Wake up America!" A Must Listen - INN Interview: Congressman Dennis Kucinich on the Military Commissions Actwww.innworldreport.net/video_launcher.php?2006-09-29iALSO:Let's Stand Up for the ConstitutionDennis Kucinich speaking from the Floor of the House Sept 29, 2006 Speaking during debate on S. 3930, Military Commissions Act of 2006, Congressman Kucinich said: "Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. SKELTON] for his defense of basic constitutional principles. I would say that the basic premise of military commissions, that the US military should try unlawful enemy combatants using draconian rules, that basic premise is false. "The jury of commissioned military officers are not peers of these detainees. The detainees are accused of crimes against humanity and should be tried like all other such persons. The US should hand over these detainees to the International Criminal Court. The US should offer evidence that would be legal under our Constitution and the Geneva Conventions. This model of justice would set a precedent for other nations where the rule of law remains unfair, unjust, and inhumane. "The wrong approach is to create a court system that has more in common with the nations that torture, jail, and hold indefinitely anyone without legitimate evidence. "The second point: H.R. 6166 and S. 3930 cast a wide net, in defining unlawful enemy combatants, that would include any American supporter of a national liberation movement which is seeking to overthrow a US Government-supported despot. "For instance, with such a loose definition, the thousands of Americans, many of whom are church clergy, who provided support to the armed and unarmed opposition to the deposed dictatorships of El Salvador and Nicaragua, could have been designated as unlawful enemy combatants. "This hypothetical could occur, since 1) it would only take a determination by the President or Secretary of Defense that the opposition to a US-favored dictator was engaged in hostilities against the US, and 2) the act of solidarity by the American clergymen supported the opposition group. "This is very dangerous. It is widely known that the US conducted a dirty war throughout Central and South America to uphold repressive regimes there. "The third point I would like to make is that H.R. 6166 and S. 3930 could make similar solidarity actions in the future a crime. Those crimes should not be triable by military commissions. They would be new crimes and expose Americans to prosecution simply for supporting unfortunate people in other countries who are struggling for their freedom. "The other point is that H.R. 6166 and S. 3930 create a large loophole to keep Administration officials out of jail for violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. Section 4 amends the War Crimes Act to immunize from prosecution civilians who subject people to horrific abuse that may fall short of the definition of torture. "It is clear that senior administrative officials signed off on aggressive and illegal techniques and are potentially liable under the War Crimes Act of 1996. Instead, Congress is going to gut the War Crimes Act to protect those who permitted torture of detainees. "If those who think the so-called war on terror is about ideas such as good versus evil and democracy versus thuggery, then H.R. 6166 sends the wrong message about the true values of Americans. Let's stand up for the principles that this country was founded upon. Let's stand up for the Constitution, for the land of the free, for the home of the brave." SOURCE: clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2006&rollnumber=508[Ed. note: S.3930 was agreed to by recorded vote: 250 ‑ 170 in Roll No. 508.] clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll508.xml----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 109th U.S. Congress (2005-2006) H.R. 6166: Military Commissions Act of 2006Introduced: Sep 25, 2006 Sponsor: Rep. Duncan Hunter [R-CA] Status: Passed House (96% of Republicans supporting, 83% of Democrats opposing.) READ IT:www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-6166------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ By Keith Olbermann - Anchor, 'Countdown'Oct. 17: "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann talks to Jonathan Turley, law professor at George Washington University, about the implications of the Military Commissions Acts video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=ada83aa5-cf26-4f89-a8e5-dece6da8a7e1&f=00&fg=email It takes a little over 8 minutes to watch this but I bet you'll want to watch this twice once you've become aware of the terribly important nature of what this is. No kidding! May God help us all! (See also the full transcript below) Go at www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15342.htm to view this video TRANSCRIPT:History does not play well at this White House. Expressionless faces would probably greet references to how John Adams ended his political career by insisting he needed the Alien and Sedition Acts to silence his critics in the newspapers, or how Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order to seize Japanese-Americans during World War II necessitated a formal presidential apology eight presidents later. But even so, somebody probably should have told President Bush that today was the exact 135th anniversary, to the day, that President Grant suspended habeas corpus in much of South Carolina for the noble and urgent purpose of dispersing the Ku Klux Klan and making sure the freed slaves had all their voting rights, neither of which has yet truly occurred. It is your principal defense against imprisonment without charge and trial without defense thrown away for no good reason, then and now. Our fifth story on "Countdown": President Bush, happy Habeas Corpus Day. First thing this morning, the president signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which does away with habeas corpus, the right of suspected terrorists or anybody else to know why they have been imprisoned, provided the president does not think it should apply to you and declares you an enemy combatant. Further, the bill allows the CIA to continue using interrogation techniques so long as they do not cause what is deemed, quote, “serious physical or mental pain.” And it lets the president to ostensibly pick and choose which parts of the Geneva Convention to obey, though to hear him describe this, this repudiation of the freedoms for which all our soldiers have died is a good thing. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PRESIDENT BUSH: This bill spells out specific, recognizable offenses that would be considered crimes in the handling of detainees, so that our men and women who question captured terrorists can perform their duties to the fullest extent of the law. And this bill complies with both the spirit and the letter of our international obligations. (END VIDEO CLIP) OLBERMANN: Leading Democrats view it differently, Senator Ted Kennedy calling this “seriously flawed,” Senator Patrick Leahey saying it’s, quote, “a sad day when the rubber-stamp Congress undercuts our freedoms,” and Senator Russ Feingold adding that “We will look back on this day as a stain on our nation’s history.” Outside the White House, a handful of individuals protested the law by dressing up as Abu Ghraib abuse victims and terror detainees. Several of them got themselves arrested, but they were apparently quickly released, despite being already dressed for Gitmo. To assess what this law will truly mean for us all, I’m joined by Jonathan Turley, professor of constitutional law at George Washington University. I want to start by asking you about a specific part of this act that lists one of the definitions of an unlawful enemy combatant as, quote, “a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a combatant status review tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the president or the secretary of defense.” Does that not basically mean that if Mr. Bush or Mr. Rumsfeld say so, anybody in this country, citizen or not, innocent or not, can end up being an unlawful enemy combatant? JONATHAN TURLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR: It certainly does. In fact, later on, it says that if you even give material support to an organization that the president deems connected to one of these groups, you too can be an enemy combatant. And the fact that he appoints this tribunal is meaningless. You know, standing behind him at the signing ceremony was his attorney general, who signed a memo that said that you could torture people, that you could do harm to them to the point of organ failure or death. So if he appoints someone like that to be attorney general, you can imagine who he’s going be putting on this board. OLBERMANN: Does this mean that under this law, ultimately the only thing keeping you, I, or the viewer out of Gitmo is the sanity and honesty of the president of the United States? TURLEY: It does. And it’s a huge sea change for our democracy. The framers created a system where we did not have to rely on the good graces or good mood of the president. In fact, Madison said that he created a system essentially to be run by devils, where they could not do harm, because we didn’t rely on their good motivations. Now we must. And people have no idea how significant this is. What, really, a time of shame this is for the American system. What the Congress did and what the president signed today essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values. It couldn’t be more significant. And the strange thing is, we’ve become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. I mean, the Congress just gave the president despotic powers, and you could hear the yawn across the country as people turned to, you know, “Dancing with the Stars.” I mean, it’s otherworldly. OLBERMANN: Is there one defense against this, the legal challenges against particularly the suspension or elimination of habeas corpus from the equation? And where do they stand, and how likely are they to overturn this action today? TURLEY: Well, you know what? I think people are fooling themselves if they believe that the courts will once again stop this president from taking over—taking almost absolute power. It basically comes down to a single vote on the Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy. And he indicated that if Congress gave the president these types of powers, that he might go along. And so we may have, in this country, some type of uber-president, some absolute ruler, and it’ll be up to him who gets put away as an enemy combatant, held without trial. It’s something that no one thought—certainly I didn’t think—was possible in the United States. And I am not too sure how we got to this point. But people clearly don’t realize what a fundamental change it is about who we are as a country. What happened today changed us. And I’m not too sure we’re going to change back anytime soon. OLBERMANN: And if Justice Kennedy tries to change us back, we can always call him an enemy combatant. The president reiterated today the United States does not torture. Does this law actually guarantee anything like that? TURLEY: That’s actually when I turned off my TV set, because I couldn’t believe it. You know, the United States has engaged in torture. And the whole world community has denounced the views of this administration, its early views that the president could order torture, could cause injury up to organ failure or death. The administration has already established that it has engaged in things like waterboarding, which is not just torture. We prosecuted people after World War II for waterboarding prisoners. We treated it as a war crime. And my God, what a change of fate, where we are now embracing the very thing that we once prosecuted people for. Who are we now? I know who we were then. But when the president said that we don’t torture, that was, frankly, when I had to turn off my TV set. OLBERMANN: That same individual fell back on the same argument that he’d used about the war in Iraq to sanction this law. Let me play what he said and then ask you a question about it. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PRESIDENT BUSH: Yet with the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few. Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously? And did we do what it takes to defeat that threat? (END VIDEO CLIP) OLBERMANN: Does he understand the irony of those words when taken out of the context of this particular passage or of what he perceives as the war against terror, and that, in fact, the threat we may be facing is the threat of President George W. Bush? TURLEY: Well, this is going to go down in history as one of our greatest self-inflicted wounds. And I think you can feel the judgment of history. It won’t be kind to President Bush. But frankly, I don’t think that it will be kind to the rest of us. I think that history will ask, Where were you? What did you do when this thing was signed into law? There were people that protested the Japanese concentration camps, there were people that protested these other acts. But we are strangely silent in this national yawn as our rights evaporate. OLBERMANN: Well, not to pat ourselves on the back too much, but I think we’ve done a little bit of what we could have done. I’ll see you at Gitmo. As always, greatest thanks for your time, Jon. TURLEY: Thanks, Keith. From: www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15342.htm
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DT1
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You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
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Post by DT1 on Oct 30, 2006 7:54:35 GMT 4
Bush Moves Toward Martial Law Written by Frank Morales towardfreedom.org Thursday, 26 October 2006 In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions. Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder." President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law." Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is entitled, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies." Section 333, "Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law" states that "the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of ("refuse" or "fail" in) maintaining public order, "in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy." For the current President, "enforcement of the laws to restore public order" means to commandeer guardsmen from any state, over the objections of local governmental, military and local police entities; ship them off to another state; conscript them in a law enforcement mode; and set them loose against "disorderly" citizenry - protesters, possibly, or those who object to forced vaccinations and quarantines in the event of a bio-terror event. The law also facilitates militarized police round-ups and detention of protesters, so called "illegal aliens," "potential terrorists" and other "undesirables" for detention in facilities already contracted for and under construction by Halliburton. That's right. Under the cover of a trumped-up "immigration emergency" and the frenzied militarization of the southern border, detention camps are being constructed right under our noses, camps designed for anyone who resists the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush administration. An article on "recent contract awards" in a recent issue of the slick, insider "Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International" reported that "global engineering and technical services powerhouse KBR [Kellog, Brown & Root] announced in January 2006 that its Government and Infrastructure division was awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the event of an emergency." "With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five year term," the report notes, "the contract is to be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers," "for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) - in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs." The report points out that "KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton." (3) So, in addition to authorizing another $532.8 billion for the Pentagon, including a $70-billion "supplemental provision" which covers the cost of the ongoing, mad military maneuvers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places, the new law, signed by the president in a private White House ceremony, further collapses the historic divide between the police and the military: a tell-tale sign of a rapidly consolidating police state in America, all accomplished amidst ongoing U.S. imperial pretensions of global domination, sold to an "emergency managed" and seemingly willfully gullible public as a "global war on terrorism." Make no mistake about it: the de-facto repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) is an ominous assault on American democratic tradition and jurisprudence. The 1878 Act, which reads, "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both," is the only U.S. criminal statute that outlaws military operations directed against the American people under the cover of 'law enforcement.' As such, it has been the best protection we've had against the power-hungry intentions of an unscrupulous and reckless executive, an executive intent on using force to enforce its will. Unfortunately, this past week, the president dealt posse comitatus, along with American democracy, a near fatal blow. Consequently, it will take an aroused citizenry to undo the damage wrought by this horrendous act, part and parcel, as we have seen, of a long train of abuses and outrages perpetrated by this authoritarian administration. Despite the unprecedented and shocking nature of this act, there has been no outcry in the American media, and little reaction from our elected officials in Congress. On September 19th, a lone Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) noted that 2007's Defense Authorization Act contained a "widely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection Act, which will make it easier for this or any future President to use the military to restore domestic order WITHOUT the consent of the nation's governors." Senator Leahy went on to stress that, "we certainly do not need to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law. Invoking the Insurrection Act and using the military for law enforcement activities goes against some of the central tenets of our democracy. One can easily envision governors and mayors in charge of an emergency having to constantly look over their shoulders while someone who has never visited their communities gives the orders." A few weeks later, on the 29th of September, Leahy entered into the Congressional Record that he had "grave reservations about certain provisions of the fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill Conference Report," the language of which, he said, "subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military's involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law." This had been "slipped in," Leahy said, "as a rider with little study," while "other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals." In a telling bit of understatement, the Senator from Vermont noted that "the implications of changing the (Posse Comitatus) Act are enormous". "There is good reason," he said, "for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy. We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the States, when we make it easier for the President to declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty." Senator Leahy's final ruminations: "Since hearing word a couple of weeks ago that this outcome was likely, I have wondered how Congress could have gotten to this point. It seems the changes to the Insurrection Act have survived the Conference because the Pentagon and the White House want it." The historic and ominous re-writing of the Insurrection Act, accomplished in the dead of night, which gives Bush the legal authority to declare martial law, is now an accomplished fact. The Pentagon, as one might expect, plays an even more direct role in martial law operations. Title XIV of the new law, entitled, "Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Legislative Provisions," authorizes "the Secretary of Defense to create a Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Consortium to improve the effectiveness of the Department of Defense (DOD) processes for identifying and deploying relevant DOD technology to federal, State, and local first responders." In other words, the law facilitates the "transfer" of the newest in so-called "crowd control" technology and other weaponry designed to suppress dissent from the Pentagon to local militarized police units. The new law builds on and further codifies earlier "technology transfer" agreements, specifically the 1995 DOD-Justice Department memorandum of agreement achieved back during the Clinton-Reno regime.(4) It has become clear in recent months that a critical mass of the American people have seen through the lies of the Bush administration; with the president's polls at an historic low, growing resistance to the war Iraq, and the Democrats likely to take back the Congress in mid-term elections, the Bush administration is on the ropes. And so it is particularly worrying that President Bush has seen fit, at this juncture to, in effect, declare himself dictator. Source: (1) leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/091906a.html and leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/092906b.html See also, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, "The Use of Federal Troops for Disaster Assistance: Legal Issues," by Jennifer K. Elsea, Legislative Attorney, August 14, 2006
(2) www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill+h109-5122
(3) Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International, "Recent Contract Awards", Summer 2006, Vol.12, No.2, pg.8; See also, Peter Dale Scott, "Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps," New American Media, January 31, 2006.
(4) "Technology Transfer from defense: Concealed Weapons Detection", National Institute of Justice Journal, No 229, August, 1995, pp.42-43.
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DT1
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You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
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Post by DT1 on Nov 21, 2006 2:56:20 GMT 4
This Is Martial Law. This is what what that grinning imbecile Bush has braught us to. Please be advised; The link below ,while bloodless,is disturbing in the EXTREME. www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3CdNgoC0cE&eurl=In it,a student at UCLA was tasered repeatedly for failing to show his student I.D. The police(?) then demand that he get up,even though he is incapable of doing so.Students demand that these jack-booted thugs identify themselves,and are threatened with tasering themselves. Again,I warn you that you wlill be revolted by this... Unless you are a Neocon,in which case you will think it's pretty cool.
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Dec 17, 2006 18:16:42 GMT 4
Wake up Americans or you lose ALL your rights overnight !!!...VideoGo to: tinyurl.com/yl2rd4Forced vaccines and quarantines are being signed into law as we 'debate' the solution to Bush's war in Iraq: The Senate approved Burr's bioterrorism bill. I'll have to check and see if it was passed in the House and will update. After you watch this short video, go to the following here at the FH Forum and call the capital switchboard, plus contact your congressmen and adamantly voice your concern about this! As stated in the video, "Better become a political activist damn fast!!" See: Current Legislation/Action tinyurl.com/ylrj4g « Reply #57 on 12/17/06 USA: Forced vaccines and quarantines are being signed into law .....Michelle
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Mar 28, 2007 12:25:14 GMT 4
What can I say about Monica Goodling and the Justice Department she works for? Let me think........oh yes, "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword"....MTorture Her!Greetings, Good People - I hope this message finds you well, happy and productive! Have you heard the latest on the US Attorneys firing scandal? The top Justice Department official who is responsile for relations with the White House is refusing to answer Congressional questions. She is pleading the Fifth, even though she claims she's done nothing wrong. The Fifth?! Now there's a laugh! Doesn't she know who she works for?. There is no more Fifth! Or any others, for that matter! (Well, maybe the Second.) Check out the latest installment of the Regressive Antidote to see what her boss is going to do about this:Torture Her!So Monica Goodling doesn’t want to answer questions on Capitol Hill, eh? This top official in the Justice Department, who serves as its liaison to the White House, is now refusing to answer any congressional questions about the US attorneys scandal. You know, the one in which George and Dick and Karl and Alberto have been hiring and firing federal prosecutors based on their willingness to politicize the legal system. That scandal (it’s so hard to keep track of them these days). Her lawyer says that Goodling doesn’t actually have anything to hide, but rather that – just like the judicial travesty that recently took down Scooter Libby – a “hostile and questionable environment” has surrounded the case. As opposed to the good kind of investigations, you see, where the White House doesn’t bother to answer the friendly questions that Congress and the press don’t bother to ask. You know, like the last six years or so. So Goodling’s lawyer has just announced that his client will be invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination – even though, mind you, she didn’t do anything wrong! – rather than testifying to Congress. Fifth Amendment? Fifth Amendment? You mean like, the Bill of Rights? That Fifth Amendment? Doesn’t she know that the Fifth Amendment has been suspended? Doesn’t she know that all those amendments have been suspended? Doesn’t she know that the president considers that whole document that these amendments amend to be “just a goddamed piece of paper”? She’s joking here, right? I thought she worked for the Justice Department in the Bush administration? Hasn’t she heard? Or maybe she’s still waiting for her interoffice mail from the last five years to clear NSA. Boy, is she gonna be surprised. We all know how committed the Bush people are to protecting the country from evildoers. Next thing you know, little Miss Monica Goodling is going to find herself bound and gagged, and on a short but very uncomfortable flight to Guantánamo. And that’s if she’s lucky. If not, she’ll be getting a wee taste of extraordinary rendition to some place like Egypt or Syria. Those fellas know how to make a gal sing! Lemme tell ya, brother, there aren’t any pesky amendments in Syria, and there never were. I hope Ms. Goodling doesn’t think that her attorney will get the charges dropped for her. In fact, she won’t be having an attorney. I hope she doesn’t think that the evidence she presents will exonerate her. In fact, she won’t be presenting any. I hope she doesn’t think there will be a fair trial before a jury of her peers. In fact, she’s gonna be rotting away in a dank cell somewhere, never even charged with any actual offense. And she can forget about making a habeas corpus appeal, too. Even though it was considered for centuries to be one of the great traditions of Western jurisprudence, Dear Leader knew better than that and had the foresight to eliminate it, so that evildoers couldn’t get away on some minor legal technicality like unlawful imprisonment. Habeas corpus? Ancient history. Just like all the rest of that Latin mumbo-jumbo. Bag ‘em and tag ‘em are the legal lyrics we sing these days. This president’s a (nearly real) Texan! Don’t mess with Texas! Squeamish lily-livered liberals and their bleeding-heart fellow travelers might not like it, but I’m sure the president wants to get to the bottom of this just as much as he’s wanted to solve the puzzle of who outed Valerie Plame (which he will, I assure you, as soon as he can locate that scrap of paper with Dick Cheney’s phone number on it). That’s bad news for Ms. Goodling, because that whole annoying Geneva Protocol thing has now been determined to be both “quaint” and “obsolete” (didn’t Alberto tell you?). Uh-Oh. That means the t-word, I’m afraid. But, look, you gotta do what you gotta do to win the war on evildoers. So I say, torture her! Hell yes. If I know anything about this president, I know he won’t be afraid to attach electrodes to her genitals and make her scream a little. I know that he’ll waterboard her until she gives up the guilty parties (though certain names may have to be redacted, of course, but we have people for that). I know that nothing so quaint and obsolete as mere international treaties or constitutional provisions will stop our unfaltering crusader for justice from getting to the bottom of this obvious threat to our way of life. And I know that once he has everything he needs from her forced confession, he’ll have just the people in place as US attorneys to prosecute this evildoer. (But, of course, why bother at that point?) Fifth Amendment rights. That’s rich. We haven’t had that around these parts since nigh about the twentieth century. Next I suppose she’ll be claiming that her preordained death sentence is cruel and unusual punishment! Talk about quaint and obsolete. Fifth Amendment rights. Hah. What does she think this is, the old United States of America? Source:www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/Torture_Her.html
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