January 19, 2010 archive

Jan 19 2010

The US Declares War… on Us.

Crossposted from my Blog,The Wild Wild Left

Posse Comitatus: The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services (today the Army, Air Force, and State National Guard forces when such are called into federal service) from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property (states and their counties and municipal divisions) within the United States.

The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress.

When Herr Bush tried to force Louisiana to hand control of their National Guard as hostage for Federal assistance and they said “No,” the PTB were enraged at being thwarted. Another way needed to be found. You see, legally, nowhere does it say “except where expressly authorized by the President.”

So, Herr Change, continuing the non-change of the Unitary Executive created a loophole. Having the brightest mind at the helm backfires, when that mind is in service for the very forces that oppress us.

Enter Executive Order 13528.

If the President cannot command the use of State Guards, he could always create a body of Governors to do so for him.  

Jan 19 2010

Docudharma Times Tuesday January 19




Tuesday’s Headlines:

Haiti has a leader in charge, but not in control

Persistence of Exxon Valdez oil may be explained by study

Democrats May Seek to Push Health Bill Through House

FBI broke law for years in phone record searches

A new start for India and Bangladesh?

Funeral of Indian communist leader Jyoti Basu begins

Pope’s attacker says: I want Dan Brown to tell my story

‘Criminal’ manipulation of Nietzsche by sister to make him look anti-Semitic

Israel in historic meeting to mark Holocaust

Sunni Iraqis fear disenfranchisement after hundreds of candidates banned

Battle rages in pirate hub over $7 million ransom

Colombian blacks’ gold-dredging victory comes at a price

Jan 19 2010

Haiti: Six Days Without Sunlight……..

Below are a series of reports from the PBS NewsHour on Jan. 18th 2010 show, the first is of a very heartwarming rescue when all hope should have been gone especially in that pile of rumble once a building. For many the interview with the American Ambassador should be paid close attention to. While everyone would like to see much more rapid rescues and aid supplies to reach those tens of thousands of Haitians who need it so desperately Haiti is one of the many poor countries, not a resort island, where what is needed, like a larger airport or seaport and warehouses, where when extreme devastating natural occurrences aren’t available for such a massive undertaking. Those thousands there as volunteers and more as well as the Haitians understand that.  

Jan 19 2010

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning


Cartoonish

(Click on image for larger view)

Another graphic inside…

Jan 19 2010

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

Jan 19 2010

EcoJustice: How is the dream?

KuangSi2

Forty six years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered I Have a Dream. In that speech, even one hundered years after emancipation, he spoke of black communities crippled by segregation and discrimination. They lived, ‘on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.’

Today, blacks participate in all levels of professional society and leadership. We have a beautiful first family, former Secretaries of State, and even Supreme Court judges. It is common to see black lawmakers, doctors, lawyers, business professionals, and professors. Perhaps that ocean is embracing the island. One might think that discrimination is a thing of the past — that America is a place that tends toward racial equality…

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them. –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If Dr. King could return and look at America, would he say the same thing today?

Jan 19 2010

The Explanation of My Recent Escapades

Yes I have been making the most disparaging of comments in this current wake of Scott Brown vs Martha Coakley.  I do such things in the attempt, however futile that may be, to wake people up.  My name is on three US patents.  I have attended conferences with scientists of world reknown, had a conversation with a NASA AI robot, have flown small planes, learned to savor the wine like a European can and my ears perk up when I hear an accent.  We, America should have been the hope of the world.  Give me your tired, your poor and all that jazz became Vietnam is the future investment opportunity.  What did go wrong in the very short timespan of me, only the second generation “off the farm”.

Jan 19 2010

This is my computer.

There are many like it…

BUT THIS ONE IS MINE!

Jan 19 2010

New Orleans is not Haiti

Ever since the Haiti earthquake happened, it has invited quite a few comparisons to the disaster brought about in New Orleans by the federal flood. There are even those in the mainstream media who have asked if this quake is going to turn out to be Obama’s “Katrina.”

This is not surprising because there are some similarities in the situations–for example, the slowness in rescuing and getting aid to the survivors–which reminds casual observers of the way New Orleanians had to wait a week for food, water and rescue after her levees failed. Also, these catastrophes are manmade–Haiti’s because of shoddily-constructed buildings, New Orleans’ because of poorly-built and maintained levees–both of which had been disasters waiting to happen.

Jan 19 2010

Smashing The Machine


“There’s been a coup – have you heard? It’s the CIA coup.

The CIA runs everything! They run the military .. They’re the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on these Countries…It’s not even the Military that does it. The CIA runs this. …And, of course, the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve.

And yet, think of the harm they have done since they were established since World War II.  They are a government unto themselves. They’re in businesses, they’re in drug businesses, and they take out dictators……We need to take out the CIA!”

         -Congressman Ron Paul

Jan 19 2010

So No One Will Be Left Behind

A year ago, when Obama was inaugurated, when the new Congress began with huge Democratic majorities, I thought the Bush/Cheney years were finally over.  But they’re not over.  Nothing has changed.  

I’ve supported Democrats for 40 years. Despite all their betrayals, I felt I had no choice.  I told myself they were the lesser of two evils.  I told myself incremental change is better than no change at all.  But nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change if progressives keep supporting the Democratic branch of the Corporate Fascist Party.

During the Great Depression, Woody Guthrie traveled across America and saw the injustice, poverty, and despair of a nation suffering the consequences of economic and social injustice. In the city square, in the shadow of the steeple, by the relief office he saw his people.  They were hungry, they were out of work, they were out of hope.  As he was walking that ribbon of highway, he saw what America is, but he also saw what America can be.   He never stopped hoping that someday, America would become a land of economic and social justice. So he wrote This Land Is Your Land, as an anthem of what America can be.

His story is our story, his anthem is our anthem, his land is our land, his cause is our cause. Woody Guthrie told the truth about America because someone had to.  He told it across this country, as he walked through the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling, with a guitar on his back and the truth in his soul . . .

Jan 19 2010

C’mon, Joe, Take the Neutron Bomb to this Filibuster

Now in Orange

Kossack slinkerwink tells us that Vice President “Amtrak Joe” Biden has spoken out against the filibuster:

Vice President Joe Biden said at a Florida fundraiser Sunday that the 60-seat threshold for passing legislation in the Senate put a dangerous new roadblock in the way of American government.

“As long as I have served … I’ve never seen, as my uncle once said, the constitution stood on its head as they’ve done. This is the first time every single solitary decisions has required 60 senators,” Biden said. “No democracy has survived needing a supermajority.”

Well, if this is about the survival of our Democracy, I say it may be time to recall the parliamentary maneuver threatened by the Republicans in 2005, dubbed the “nuclear option”. Since this is a more precisely targeted version of that parliamentary maneuver, I refer to it as the “Neutron Bomb”.

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