1. “We Are Change Boston gives Thermite Paper to 4 Unresponsive Mass. Congressmen and Senator John Kerry
The Massachusetts Congressional recipients of the WTC Thermite Document were John Kerry, Barney Frank, James McGovern, John F. Tierney, and Edward Markey. Rhode Island Representative Patrick Kennedy also received the WTC Thermite document as well as a fliers from WeAreChange.org, and PatriotsQuestion911.com. These people will more than likely do nothing unless we all collectively get them to acknowledge the evidence they have received. Please call or email any or all of them to find out what they are doing with this evidence.”
2. “Terrorism Defined: Bill Clinton Lights Our Way to Truth
Indeed, some cynics have advanced the notion that the definition of terrorism has been left vague deliberately, in order to retain the degree of elasticity necessary for the term’s application where and when as needed to advance one’s particular political or ideological agenda. Of course, those who lack the phrenological bump of cynicism would ascribe this confusion to the artless, inherent difficulties of semantic expression all too common to our human kind. In any case, there has been, as the saying goes, much throwing about of brains on the subject, and to little effect.
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Cutting to the chase, as is ever his wont, Clinton nails the truth about terrorism:
Terror mean[s] killing and robbery and coercion by people who do not have state authority and go beyond national borders.
Like a bolt of sunlight breaking through a lowering cloud, Clinton’s formulation floods one’s brain with sudden illumination. “Killing and robbery and coercion by people who do not have state authority” – that’s terrorism. Killing and robbery and coercion by people who do have state authority is, obviously, something else altogether: humanitarian intervention, perhaps, or liberation, or preservation of national security, or maintaining great-power credibility, or restoring hope, or a pre-dawn vertical insertion.
In any case, and every case, if this border-transcending activity is done by people who have state authority, then it is legitimate, it is good, it is necessary, it is noble. And even if, sometimes, on rare occasions, mistakes are made during the killing, robbing and coercing done by people who have state authority, these mistakes are only ever the result of good intentions gone awry.
So there you have it: what terrorism is depends on who does it. Naturally, there are nuances and complexities that Mr. Clinton did not go into here; it was an interview, after all, not a scholarly monograph. Obviously, the legitimacy of killing, robbing and coercing by people who have state authority is entirely dependent on the state from which that authority derives. Only those states which by their cheerful acceptance of America’s benevolent guidance and abiding friendship have proven themselves worthy can legitimately exercise their authority to kill, rob and coerce. All others must forbear – or else be branded “rogue states,” purveyors of “state terror,” which in turn makes them eligible for “the path of action.”
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1908-terrorism-defined-bill-clinton-lights-our-way-to-truth.html
3. Ugh – though not surprising:
“The Return of the Neocons
Neoconservatism was once deemed dead—’Buried in the sands of Iraq.’ But it persists, not just as the de facto foreign-policy plank of the Republican Party but, its proponents assert, in Obama’s unapologetic embrace of American military might.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/232053
4. Thank you for stating the obvious – so why are we at war with them? Because we know better? What a joke:
“Gates: Taliban Part of ‘Political Fabric’ of Afghanistan”
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/22/gates-taliban-part-of-political-fabric-of-afghanistan/
5. Unfortunately, everything prompts an escalation:
“CIA Khost Bombing Sparking Drone Escalation in Pakistan”
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/22/cia-khost-bombing-sparking-drone-escalation-in-pakistan/
6. Of course they’re lying:
“Pentagon’s Gitmo Recidivism Claims Don’t Add Up
Researchers at Seton Hall and New America Foundation track the Pentagon’s claims that released Guantanamo detainees ‘returned to battle.’
7. “The age of the killer robot is no longer a sci-fi fantasy
Robots find it almost impossible to distinguish an apple from a tomato: how will they distinguish a combatant from a civilian? You can’t appeal to a robot for mercy; you can’t activate its empathy. And afterwards, who do you punish? Marc Garlasco, of Human Rights Watch, says: “War crimes need a violation and an intent. A machine has no capacity to want to kill civilians…. If they are incapable of intent, are they incapable of war crimes?”
Robots do make war much easier – for the aggressor. You are taking much less physical risk with your people, even as you kill more of theirs. One US report recently claimed they will turn war into “an essentially frictionless engineering exercise”. As Larry Korb, Ronald Reagan’s assistant secretary of defence, put it: “It will make people think, ‘Gee, warfare is easy.'”
If virtually no American forces had died in Vietnam, would the war have stopped when it did – or would the systematic slaughter of the Vietnamese people have continued for many more years? If “we” weren’t losing anyone in Afghanistan or Iraq, would the call for an end to the killing be as loud? I’d like to think we are motivated primarily by compassion for civilians on the other side, but I doubt it. Take “us” safely out of the picture and we will be more willing to kill “them”.
There is some evidence that warbots will also make us less inhibited in our killing. When another human being is standing in front of you, when you can stare into their eyes, it’s hard to kill them. When they are half the world away and little more than an avatar, it’s easy. A young air force lieutenant who fought through a warbot told Singer: “It’s like a video game [with] the ability to kill. It’s like … freaking cool.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-age-of-the-killer-robot-is-no-longer-a-scifi-fantasy-1875220.html
8. “Yesterday, I had a chance to question General David Petraeus about President Obama’s Afghan timetable. From the transcript that follows, you’ll note that Petraeus, who repeatedly interrupted my questioning to preempt where I was trying to go, doesn’t even acknowledge that the president’s deadline for beginning the withdrawal of US forces is July, 2011. It leads one to suspect that if Petraeus, McChrystal, and Co. are ever going to leave Afghanistan, they’ll have to be dragged out kicking and screaming.”
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/520026/petraeus_gets_it_wrong
9. They all do this:
“New documents show longtime friendship between J. Edgar Hoover and Paul Harvey
Previously confidential files show that Harvey, who died last February at 90, enjoyed a 20-year friendship with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, often submitting advance copies of his radio script for comment and approval. Harvey wrote Hoover and his deputies regularly. Hoover, in turn, helped Harvey with research, suggested changes in scripts and showered the broadcaster with effusive praise. ”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012202602_pf.html
10. “Doctors study link between combat and brain disease
A person’s mood, Omalu explained, is maintained by a delicate balance of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine.
“Tau kills the brain cells that synthesize these neurotransmitters and you lose your ability to maintain your mood,” he said. “No matter how much Prozac you give them, you are not going to stop that destruction.”
When the athletes diagnosed with CTE reached their 40s, some even earlier, they began to suffer depression, memory loss, severe mood swings and dementia. The football players were also prone to suicide. Long drank anti-freeze, Waters shot himself in his home, and Strzelczyk slammed his car into an oncoming tractor-trailer.”
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=67421
11. “John Yoo Again Defends Torture and an All-powerful Presidency”
12. There’s a surprise:
“US Says it Will Stay in Haiti for Long Term”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17158
13. “Follow-up on the Citizens United case
Most commenters (though not all) grounded their opposition to the Supreme Court’s ruling in two rather absolute principles: (1) corporations are not “persons” and thus have no First Amendment/free speech rights and/or (2) money is not speech, and therefore restrictions on how money is spent cannot violate the First Amendment’s free speech clause. What makes those arguments so bizarre is that none of the 9 Justices — including the 4 dissenting Justices — argued either of those propositions or believe them.
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As Justice Stevens says: “of course . . . speech does not fall entirely outside the protection of the First Amendment merely because it comes from a corporation,” and “no one suggests the contrary.” The fact that all nine Justices reject a certain proposition does not, of course, prove that it’s wrong. But those who argue that (1) corporations have no First Amendment rights and/or (2) restrictions on money cannot violate the free speech clause should stop pretending that the 4 dissenting Justices agreed with you. They didn’t. None of the 9 Justices made those arguments.
To the contrary, the entire dissent — while arguing that corporations have fewer First Amendment protections than individuals — is grounded in the premise that corporations do have First Amendment free speech rights and that restrictions on the expenditure of money do burden those rights, but those free speech rights can be restricted when there’s a “compelling state interest.”
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The “rule of law,” however, means that if the Constitution or other laws bar X, then X is not allowed regardless of how many good outcomes can be achieved by X. That was true for the “crisis” of Terrorism, and it’s just as true for the crisis of corporate influence over our political process. Whatever solutions are to be found for either problem, they cannot be ones that the Constitution explicitly prohibits. That’s what “the rule of law” means.
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There are few features that are still extremely healthy and vibrant in the American political system; the First Amendment is one of them, and the last thing we should want is Congress trying to limit it through amendments or otherwise circumvent it in the name of elevating our elections. Meaningful public financing of campaigns would far more effectively achieve the ostensible objectives of campaign finance restrictions without any of the dangers or constitutional infirmities. If yesterday’s decision provides the impetus for that to be done, then it will have, on balance, achieved a very positive outcome, even though that was plainly not its intent.
I want to add one other point just to underscore how irrational, discriminatory and ineffective these political speech restrictions are. The invalidated statute at issue here exempted media corporations — such as Fox and MSNBC — from these restrictions, since the Government obviously can’t ban media figures from going on television and opining on elections (the way they do all other corporations). But as Eliot Spitzer noted when urging the Supreme Court to strike down this law (h/t David Sirota), what possible justification is there for allowing News Corp. and GE to say whatever they want about our elections while banning all other corporations (including non-profit advocacy groups) from doing so?
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That’s what restrictions on political speech almost always do: whether intended or not, they favor the views of certain factions while suppressing others. In this case, it allowed the views of News Corp., GE, and Viacom to flourish (through their ownership of media outlets) while preventing the ACLU and Planned Parenthood from speaking out. As Spitzer said: that is precisely why the First Amendment bars such government efforts to restrict political speech. It is virtually always best — and Constitutionally mandated — for the Government to stay out of the business of trying to restrict and regulate political advocacy.”
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
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