State of the Nation ...

From: ThinkFast: May 13, 2011

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee killed an amendment by Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) that would have closed the so-called “terror gap” — preventing firearm sales to suspected terrorists. GOP members want to protect the right of people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list to purchase firearms, arguing that preventing sales would “steal the Second Amendment rights of those placed on the list by mistake.”

All Republicans as far as I can tell, and way too many Democrats, appear to have no real problem with the no-fly list.

No problem that is until it's a question of prohibiting someone on the list from buying guns. To a Republican, and apparently to some Democrats, that is just absurd. Prohibit a terrorist from obtaining firearms? That just won't do! It's their Constitutional Right, after all to have weapons. Like many people on this freedom-protecting list, they might not be terrorists anyway, as there's no control of who gets on the list nor any mechanism to get the innocent off the list. In general, the no-fly list appears to be a generalized US Government I-don't-like-you list. The Republicans, of course, highly approve of this means of government control and punishment. Just think of the fun they had putting Senator Kennedy on the list.

Am I giving Republicans too much credit when I assume that they don't think most of the people on the list are terrorists? And that's the reason they don't want the ability to purchase guns to be tied to such an embarrassing fiasco as the US No Fly list?

Until further proof of their perfidy I will assume that the inaccuracy of the list is the reason they don't wish to tie gun purchasing ability to the list and not that they actually want terrorists to have guns.

9/11 First Responders To Be Run Through FBI Terrorism Watch List Before Getting Health Care Benefits

Definitely, let us keep the sick from benefits because the US Government has decided to target them. Who cares what beneficial service they may have provided in the past that earned them such a benefit. They are now on THE list. That's all that matters. No health care but they can still get a gun.

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About the state of our nation: What can I say that I haven't said before? Just notice that all the wrangling is about what membership on this list will effect. Nothing that I've seen addresses the use and abuse of this list. Nothing that I've seen attempts to put some control on how someone gets added to this list. Nothing that I've seen provides a mechanism to get off the list. The draconian nature of this list appears to concern no one in the political sphere nor the justice sphere.

What else can I say about the state of our nation that this example doesn't elucidate?

I wish we were 'a nation of laws' ...

Isn't this backwards?

"There was no indication" that Osama bin Laden wanted to surrender to U.S. forces who killed him on Sunday night, Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

No indication? What, do we now automatically shoot everyone in the head who doesn't indicate they wish capture over death? I don't personally know what bin Laden's preference might have been but unless he was armed and threatening his captors/killers I would think at that point it would not be his choice but the choice of those with the guns who were apparently in a position to capture him alive.

Why do politicians and the military, apparently always, lie first and then try to contain the fallout as the facts start to emerge?

I wish we were 'a nation of laws' and that we had captured bin Laden alive and had put him on trial (a real trial, not our current Kangaroo Courts for Islamic Peoples).

I certainly understand that a real effort to capture bin Laden alive might have failed and that they would kill him rather than allowing him to endager themselves but so far the information I've read seems to indicate that this was an execution squad.

I do think we, as a nation, have done somewhat better in the past. To have a self described 'Constitutional Law Professor' imitate an imitation Cowboy in lack of principle and outright criminality is devastating. Perhaps Obama isn't imitating Bush. Could he be competing with Bush to see who is the most despicable?

Just like Torturer Bush, Torturer Obama fires truth sayers ...

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley tells the truth (however reluctantly) about the ongoing torture of PFC Manning and Obama and his henchmen show him the door.

Just like Bush, Obama says we don't torture thus establishing himself as a liar in front of the world.

Everyone around Obama must pretend to be as stupid-blind as he is (or as he pretends to be).

State Department spokesman steps down amid flap

Of course, if Hilary Clinton had any integrity she would resign also. But who would expect her to have any more integrity than Obama as she's still working for a man who has step by step established himself as the current Torturer-in-Chief of the United States of America.

Obama is pathetic, pathetic, pathetic ...

... and, as an individual, must be as big a monster as George W. bush.

Obamas is reported as saying:

With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are. I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well.

Oh gee, Obama asked the Pentagon and they told him everything is just hunky-dory.

Pathetic.

Quantico becomes Guantanamo ...

Well, why not? After all Obama is Bush's successor in mind and perversity as well as in his place of residence. Instead of closing Guantanamo, as he promised, Obama is bringing Guantanamo to us all.

Glenn Greenwald writes about the latest disgraceful conduct by US authorities perpetuated on Manning.

UPDATE II: Lt. Col. David Coombs, Manning's counsel, just posted the following:

Last night, PFC Manning was inexplicably stripped of all clothing by the Quantico Brig. He remained in his cell, naked, for the next seven hours. At 5:00 a.m., the Brig sounded the wake-up call for the detainees. At this point, PFC Manning was forced to stand naked at the front of his cell.

The Duty Brig Supervisor (DBS) arrived shortly after 5:00 a.m. When he arrived, PFC Manning was called to attention. The DBS walked through the facility to conduct his detainee count. Afterwards, PFC Manning was told to sit on his bed. About ten minutes later, a guard came to his cell to return his clothing.

This type of degrading treatment is inexcusable and without justification. It is an embarrassment to our military justice system and should not be tolerated. PFC Manning has been told that the same thing will happen to him again tonight. No other detainee at the Brig is forced to endure this type of isolation and humiliation.

I'm already disgusted anticipating the Obama loyalists and right-wing fanatics who will jointly defend this.

I think I'll go vomit ...

This is what it felt like in the 60's when a plane stopped in the USSR ...

... Many Americans may not perceive it, but much of the world, as a result of such actions, sees the U.S. not as "Leaders of the Free World" but one of the greatest threats to privacy and other core liberties. Watching people afraid to fly through the U.S. -- including its own citizens -- is just remarkable. And the spectacle of Homeland Security agents detaining whomever they want, and then unilaterally stealing their laptops and cellphones and keeping them and digging through them for as long as they want -- all without a warrant -- is a powerful sign of how far things have fallen.

I remember sitting practically holding my breath when a plane I was on made an unplanned stop in Russia. Now it's us in the role of the big bad bully. How proud-making!

Exactly ...

Please Mr. President, don't spew any more nonsense about principles and the rule of law, OK? You are enabling torture, and have fallen so far down the chasm from your campaign rhetoric, that you'll soon be bumping into your predecessor as you hit bottom.

Class warfare? Who says ...

From health care to education to mass transit to Social Security, if a government program helps those in need, Republicans oppose it. They will support tax cuts targeted for the wealthy, while opposing tax cuts targeted for those that aren't wealthy. The Republicans clearly have an overall ideology, and it is reflected throughout their agenda. Which isn't class warfare. But calling them on it is.

[Turkana at The Left Coaster]

Barack Obama, The Unjust ...

... following in George Bush's shoes. The short-lived pied-piper of 'hope' emulating the poster boy of hate, stupidity and ugliness:

Obama era justice

Well, why would Obama care if Israel goes around killing Americans ...

The fact that a 19-year-old American citizen was one of the dead -- among those whom the report concluded was "summarily executed" by the Israelis -- makes the U.S. Government's silence here all the more appalling. One of the prime duties of a government is to safeguard the welfare of its own citizens. It's inconceivable for most governments in the world to remain silent in the face of formal findings that a foreign nation "summarily executed" one of its own citizens. ...

Why would Obama care if Israel goes around killing Americans ... or anyone else for that matter. Since Obama, himself, believes in killing Americans on his say so alone and definitely believes, as did George Bush, that killing around the world is what the US is entitled to do, then what can be the big deal about these violent, demented and illegal Israeli executions of civilians. Aren't the worst of the Israelis the people we've been emulating for decades now?

In his short time in office, Obama has shown that he cares about nothing except making nice with the rich, the powerful and the nuttiest of those calling themselves Christians.

--- ADDED ---
Oh, the irony!

This USA Today article, proudly touting the increased efforts of the U.S. Government to track down and punish war criminals (provided, of course, that they're not American) ...

I no longer expect anything approaching justice or even sense from Obama ...

... the Obama Administration, by and through the actions of their Department of Justice, have proven that their current rhetoric about being dedicated to ending DADT is as empty as their similar campaign promises were hollow. Yet day after day, the Administration wonders why those on the left are unhappy and chastises them for not clapping loudly enough heading into midterm elections where turnout of the base is critical. Tin ear does not begin to describe this arrogance.

A must read ...

Who We Are: Zeitoun and Camp Greyhound Five Years On

Obama, are you listening? ...

Even though I was not enthusiastic about Obama as the Democratic nominee for President, I NEVER thought he would take ahold of some of the worst of Bush and Cheney and make it the norm for both political parties.

... How ironic that Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, is persecuting a former child soldier, using him to validate his own version of the executive’s kangaroo court military commissions, while Omar Khadr himself looks for meaning and hope in the example of the great civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s.

Does Obama identify with the civil rights struggles of the '50s and '60s? I doubt it. I don't think concepts are more than words to Obama. Justice, rights, independence, humanity, health, welfare, fairness, law. To Obama words have no meaning except in their use to justify actions that please the powerful and the wealthy. Everyone else should believe that he 'understands' and 'sympathises' but that they should pull themselves up by their broken bootstraps and be grateful for the honor of handing over their country to the wealthy few.

Nothing good ...

... That's what is 'says' about us!

... the thesis of the article is that electric torture devices only become popular in democratic societies where police are constrained in how much cruelty they can inflict. What exactly does that say about us?

-- Shocking Reflections by digby

Teabagger redux? ...

" ... the rest were slaves in fact, but without the name; they imagined themselves men and freemen, and called themselves so. The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor."

-- A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT by MARK TWAIN (Samuel L. Clemens) Part 2., Chapter 8

Today's quote is, uh, "Money is not real." ...

... Money is not real. It is a conscious agreement on measuring abstract value. Unhealthy societies often become mesmerized by money and treat it as if it were something concrete. The effect is to destroy the currency’s practical value.

-- from The Doubter's Companion via digby.

It's been apparent for awhile that our society is not healthy and that money is the only value that is valued by the self-defined valuable-people. All else is 'on the table.'

Something to be hopeful about? ...

... the President [not Bush the Lesser but Obama the Hopeless] claims the power to order U.S. citizens killed anywhere in the world, while engaged even in the most benign activities carried out far away from any actual battlefield, based solely on his say-so and with no judicial oversight or other checks. ...

Saving us from Conservatism, yea!

So we're in Afghanistan to teach them about democracy, the rule of law, and basic precepts of Western justice. Meanwhile, Afghan officials vehemently object to the lawless, due-process-free assassination "hit list" of their citizens based on the unchecked say-so of the U.S. Government, and have to lecture us on the rule of law and Constitutional constraints. By stark contrast, our own Government, our media and our citizenry appear to find nothing wrong whatsoever with lawless assassinations aimed at our own citizens. And the most glaring question for those who critized Bush/Cheney detention policies but want to defend this: how could anyone possibly object to imprisoning foreign nationals without charges or due process at Guantanamo while approving of the assassination of U.S. citizens without any charges or due process?

So much to look forward to ...

Follow that dream

Or not ...

Today's quote ...

It's really remarkable that we've gotten to a point in American history where the Republican Party has managed to make fair trials for people who commit crimes "controversial." ...

-- It's Come To This by Adam Serwer, The group blog of The American Prospect

It's not just the Republicans. Obama is continuing to ensure that US Law has no meaning.

As Glenn Greenwald writes:

... the most significant consequence of his [Barack Obama's] first year in office, in the area of civil liberties, is that -- with a few exceptions (most notably torture) -- he has transformed what were once highly controversial Republican "assaults on the Constitution" into bipartisan consensus which both parties now embrace, thus ensuring -- as Baker put it -- "that much of the Bush security architecture is almost certain to remain part of the national fabric for some time to come, thanks to Obama." Thus, a President who imprisons people with military commissions or even no charges at all -- and constantly invokes secrecy claims to shield the Executive Branch from judicial review over allegations of lawbreaking -- is now hailed -- by progressives -- as a stalwart defender of "the rule of law."

Today's quote ...

Yes, we'll tie ourselves in knots to keep a taxpayer dollar from getting anywhere near an abortion, yet we continue to fund the slow starvation of the Palestinians.

--One Year Later, Palestinians Live in Rubble While Israel Blocks Aid by Susie Madrak, Crooks and Liars