1. “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?” – Mohandas Gandhi
2. “Obama’s Embrace of a Bush Tactic Riles Congress
President Obama has issued signing statements claiming the authority to bypass dozens of provisions of bills enacted into law since he took office, provoking mounting criticism by lawmakers from both parties.
President George W. Bush, citing expansive theories about his constitutional powers, set off a national debate in 2006 over the propriety of signing statements — instructions to executive officials about how to interpret and put in place new laws — after he used them to assert that he could authorize officials to bypass laws like a torture ban and oversight provisions of the USA Patriot Act.
In the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama called Mr. Bush’s use of signing statements an “abuse,” and said he would issue them with greater restraint.
…
“During the previous administration, all of us were critical of the president’s assertion that he could pick and choose which aspects of Congressional statutes he was required to enforce,” they wrote. “We were therefore chagrined to see you appear to express a similar attitude.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/us/politics/09signing.html?_r=1&hp
3. This is a major local triumph for us here in Decatur!
“The U.S. Marine Corps and the DeKalb County school board have postponed their plans to establish a military-themed high school after more than 100 parents, students, peace activists and veterans in the Atlanta-area community waged a two-month campaign against it.”
“No one had successfully opposed one of these schools before,” said Tim Franzen, the American Friends Service Committee staffer who helped lead the campaign. “We had to go up against the board of education and possibly the most powerful entity in the world, the American military-industrial complex.”
http://www.indypendent.org/2009/07/23/georgia-parents/
4. You sure could – just stop doing it:
“It is impossible to guarantee that information used by the security services has not been obtained through torture
However, the Foreign and Home Secretaries say Britain’s security and intelligence services (MI5 and MI6) face “hard choices” and the overriding aim is to “defend both our citizens’ rights and their security”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5995309/We-cannot-eliminate-all-risk-of-torture-ministers-admit.html
5. “California Raids City Funds
The mayor and city manager of Lafayette, California, have spilled the beans about how California balanced its budget.
It was not done through aggressive cost-cutting alone, but by raiding city funds:
Last week, the state Legislature passed a devastating take of $2.05 billion from local redevelopment agencies as part of a 30- bill package that purports to
close most of the state’s current budget deficit. Because the state is too broke to meet its Prop. 98 obligations to schools, the Legislature chose to hijack redevelopment funds from cities and use them to pay the state’s bills instead.
The Legislature also voted to “borrow” $1.9 billion from cities’ property
tax revenues…We don’t recall being asked by the state to borrow our money, and we’ve yet to meet another mayor or city manager who believes the state will make good on their debt within three years.In total, the budget deal amounts to nothing less than an unwanted and aggressive molestation of California’s already- suffering cities…
In 2004, 84 percent of California’s voters passed Proposition 1A, which sought to prohibit the Legislature from raiding local funds. Since 84 percent of Californian’s can’t typically agree on the color of an orange, that passage should have sent a crystal clear message to the state that local governments should be left untouched. Yet, not even five years later, state lawmakers are at it again, disregarding the clear direction of voters while picking local pockets to bail themselves out from their own irresponsible actions. Democrat and Republican lawmakers are equally guilty. It’s no wonder that legislators are held in such low esteem…
Local officials now believe that cities, counties, school districts and special districts must chart a radical path that makes them fiscally independent from state government. There have been too many raids for too many years by the too-dysfunctional state Legislature.Total and complete fiscal independence appears to be the only way to avoid future molestations by an unfettered and irresponsible state government.
Given that California is a bellweather state, and the richest state in the nation, I predict that other states will follow suit by raiding city funds.
And note that Lafayette’s mayor and city manager seem to almost be talking about cessation when they mention “a radical path that makes [cities] fiscally independent from state government” and “total and complete fiscal independence”.
As I wrote in December:
One precipitating factor in the [potential] break up of the U.S. may be the bankruptcy of the states. California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio and Wisconsin are all in really big trouble, and on the verge of defaulting. The rest of the states won’t be that far behind as the financial crisis intensifies. If the federal government isn’t helping them in their most dire crises since the founding of the country, and if the feds impose the heavy hand of martial law without any benefit to the states, they will have less incentive to remain a part of the union.
I was discussing the Federal government failing to help the states, but California’s raiding of city funds – is the same idea, and the town of Lafayette does not seem to be taking it lying down.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/08/states-raiding-cities.html
6. ““I work at the National Institutes of Health and we received an email about the upcoming International Swine Flu Conference that will be occurring in Washington, D.C. Aug 19 – Aug 21, 2009,” the listener writes. “They’re talking about mass fatality management and continuity of government. They’re going to hit us with a massive biological false flag attack.”
The email contains a PDF attachment of a brochure for the Swine Flu Conference. Breakout sessions detailed on the brochure include discussions on mass fatality planning, business continuity planning, and COOP or Continuity of Operations and Continuity of Government Planning. Additional sessions cover enforced quarantines, mass vaccinations, and how to “control and diffuse social unrest and public disorder.”
The “hidden agenda consists in using the threat of a pandemic and/or the plight of a natural disaster as a pretext to establish military rule” and “suspend Constitutional government and allow the Military to intervene in civilian affairs in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act,” author Michel Chossudovsky wrote in 2005.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14705
7. “ Those of us who proposed the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney for violating his oath of office and engaging in a Nixon-on-steroids spree of high crimes and misdemeanors began to recognize the abusive nature of the previous administration when Cheney refused to release details of the industry insiders with whom he met to craft energy policies.
…
So what should we make of the news that the Obama administration is now refusing to release White House visitor logs that detail meetings between members of the new administration and health-care industry insiders?
…
Official secrecy, especially when it involves meetings by White House aides and representatives of corporate interests that face government regulation, is corrosive. It warps the official agenda and undermines the system of checks and balances — making the legislative branch a weak second to a unitary executive.
Barack Obama promised when he sought the presidency to usher in a new era of openness and transparency. “We’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies,” candidate Obama declared at a Pennsylvania campaign stop two months before the 2008 election.
Now, he is doing the opposite.”
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23227.htm
