You Have the Right to Be Assassinated

March 6, 2013

This is a public service announcement:

You have the right to be assassinated.

In response to an inquiry by Senator Rand Paul, mafia lawyer Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed that American citizens have a Constitutional right to be assassinated on U.S. soil by the President whenever he wishes. This right had formerly been extended only to U.S. citizens on foreign soil, like Anwar al-Awlaki, who was guilty of being suspected of aiding terrorists, or al-Awlaki’s 16 year-old son, Abdul, who was guilty of being al-Awlaki’s 16 year-old son.

Paul had asked drone-murder aficionado John Brennan whether “the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.” Brennan, noting that the CIA only assassinates abroad, passed the question to the Justice Department. In a letter, Holder reassured Paul that the right to death by presidential decree does exist:

“It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”

As examples of such “extraordinary circumstances” Holder mentioned 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. Silly FDR shipped Japanese-Americans to internment camps, when under the Constitution, he could have just killed them! But there’s no need to worry that this power would ever be misused. Holder promises that “were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the president of the scope of his authority.” We’re in good hands.

In a recent white paper, Holder detailed the constitutional process under which you will be assassinated: when “[an] informed, high-level official of the U.S. government has determined that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States.” This is entirely in keeping with Amendment VI, which states:

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury …; and 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.”

Because Amendment V stipulates that “[n]o person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”, some foolishly “have argued that the President is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen.” Holder cleared up this common misunderstanding in a speech last year. “‘Due process’ and ‘judicial process’ are not one and the same” — a definition Holder made up himself, cutting through red tape to expedite the airmail delivery of your Constitutional Rights package.

Despite whining from ignorant people that “a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury” is required before a person can “be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime,” it’s perfectly OK for the president to play judge, jury and executioner. That’s because: 1) Congress is “regularly informed” whenever “lethal force is used against United States citizens”; 2) We’re at war, pal, and the president can off anybody he likes in a war. But rest assured, for only The Godfather President obama can make the final decision whether you will be assassinated. It’s obama who keeps the Secret Kill List, obama’s finger that points to the face of the one to die next. We’re in good hands.

So, if you ever hear a strange buzzing overhead, or get a rude knock on the door in the middle of the night, it means your Constitutional Rights are about to be exercised.

(c) 2013 by True Liberal Nexus. All Rights Reserved.

7 Comments | barack obama the deceiver, Constitutional Law, Fascist America | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt

How obama Turned Liberals into Zombies

October 26, 2012

The Neo-Con Democrat
The spectacle of the presidential foreign policy debate, with the republican and democratic candidates stumbling over each other to agree on the use of drones, staying for another decade in Afghanistan, Gitmo and such, was proof once again that barack obama is no liberal.

In fact, obama’s policies of endless war, nation-building, and disregard for international law mark him as a neo-con. With his predilection for assassinations and indiscriminate bombings with mounting ‘collateral damage,’ obama has turned the United States into one of those ‘rogue nations’ our rhetoric execrates.

On the home front, obama has also proven himself no liberal. He readily signed extensions of the Patriot Act and FISA, thus denying us our Fourth Amendment rights and strengthening the surveillance state established by his mentor predecessor, Bush.  obama next took away our right to free assembly by signing the Trespass Law, then negated the Constitutional right of habeas corpus by signing into law the indefinite detention provision of the NDAA.  obama routinely ignores the Constitutional separation of powers, issuing executive orders that contravene the will of Congress, while brazenly ignoring the War Powers Act by starting wars at his fancy.  The obama administration has been the worst in history for punishing whistle-blowers.
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The Corporatist Lapdog
Many on the Right label obama a ‘socialist’, which is slanderous, considering obama’s domestic policy reveals him to be a corporatist lapdog. His greatest achievement, healthcare reform (sic), was in actuality a restructuring of the health insurance market, written by the insurance lobby to benefit the insurance lobby. Forty million Americans are still left without healthcare.

When the big banks were caught in a trillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme, obama railed loudly against the bankers, then slapped them across the wrist with a $12 million token fine. The much-heralded Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, established by obama crony Elizabeth Warren, has yet to indict a single malfeasor.

Candidate obama promised to ban lobbyists from working in his administration.  President obama has more lobbyists in his White House than any previous administration.

Large campaign bundlers found obama amenable to pulling strings to aid their businesses — for example: an FCC waiver allowing LightSquared to encroach on vital military GPS bandwidths; a billion dollar HHS contract to Siga for a useless vaccine.
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The Sham Green Economy
Vaingloriously, obama predicted his inauguration would be remembered as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”  Yet under obama, the environment has suffered greatly.

Following the disastrous BP oil spill, obama promised to place his “boot on the throat” of that reckless conglomerate, then allowed BP to get away nearly scot free.  Later, obama gave BP the go-ahead to drill in Alaska.

Since 2008, obama has breathlessly told us how he wants to expand “solar, and wind, and bio-diesel”,  and now brags about having doubled the electricity produced by renewables.  That sounds impressive, until you learn that solar and wind still provide a mere 3% our total energy. Four years on, and the US is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

obama’s grand(iose) “Green Energy Economy” turned out to be a boondoggle, a false front to hide kickbacks to obama’s biggest campaign donors. Real renewable solutions do exist to meet a majority of our energy needs, yet obama wasted billions of taxpayer money on Solyndra, Beacon, A123, and a dozen other sham companies that went bankrupt.

At the international climate conferences in Copenhagen and Rio, obama personally intervened to side with China and other major greenhouse gas producers to thwart efforts to curtail global warming, thus ensuring that the oceans will indeed keep rising.

At home, obama refused to implement EPA regulations on air quality.  To his credit, obama was against the XL pipeline before he was for it. To keep up with fellow republican, Mitt Romney, obama is now calling for rapid expansion of offshore drilling, mining of coal, and frakking.
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Letting Down the Common People
On the bread & butter economic positions that for a century defined liberalism in America, obama has let down working families time and time again.

His buyout of GM may have provided temporary relief, but it did nothing to address the endemic flaws in our auto industry. His continuation of TARP was nothing more than a cash bonus to bankers for losing risky bets.

As a candidate, obama promised to end the Bush tax cuts on the rich in his first hundred days. He stalled for two years, then promised to end them in 2011. He now promises to end them sometime in his second term. obama promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. Instead, he added another $5 trillion.

Other than endlessly repeating the words “roads and bridges and schools”, obama has offered no real plan to jump-start a stagnant economy. He amused himself by joking that all those “shovel-ready” projects he was going to fund “weren’t all that shovel-ready, after all.”

Only by heavy manipulation of workforce statistics has obama been able to claim he is finally a “net job creator.”  Two-third of those new jobs are low-wage. Household wealth has sunk 39%. Sixty percent of mortgages are under water.  One in five Americans still can’t find a job they can live on.  While unemployment soared, obama fiddled and diddled. His insipid “jobs bill” was a pastiche of hiring incentives and retraining programs already long proven ineffective. At best, it would have created a million jobs; independent analysts calculated it would have created practically none.

While ordinary Americans suffer, obama has been content to blame his inability to do more on the intransigence of Congress. Yet obama had no trouble working with both Dems and Gops to sign a slew of so-called “free trade” treaties that in truth expedite the off-shoring of hundreds of thousands of American jobs. obama has spent 50% more time on the golf links than in economic briefings.

obama promises to protect Social Security and Medicare.  Yet his “payroll tax cut” robbed S.S. of 16% of its funding. Had his putrid “jobs bill” passed, it would have cut S.S. funding by half, and gut Medicare with half a billion dollars in reckless cuts. To underwrite obamacare, $700 million will be taken from Medicare.
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The Zombie Left
Among the Left, all but the most severe kool-aid addicts admit that obama has been a major disappointment. Still, they plan on voting for him as the ‘lesser of two evils.’  ‘We must protect women’s rights’, they implore.  Are not the right to a speedy trial, to protection from illegal search and seizure, to due process, the rights of women as well?  So long as obama remains president, the Left condone unliberal affronts they would never tolerate from a republican president.

To assume that in a second term obama will suddenly ‘get it’, or miraculously change his nature, is folly. Things would get even worse. True, Romney’s plan to fix the economy will also fail. But obama’s bolloxes have ensured that the country will give the GOP a shot, if not now, then in 2016. Massachusetts survived one term of Romney; America can, too.

The Left, however, cannot survive four more years of obama. In service to obama, the Left now advocate jingoism in foreign policy, and a surveillance state at home. The Left now accept zero progress on jobs or economic fairness, and mutely watch as corporate criminals go unpunished. Thanks to obama, liberals and progressives have abandoned protecting the environment and the fight for universal healthcare. The Left are nothing but mindless zombies, so long as they remain under the sway of obama’s false promises and lies.
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Vote Like a True Liberal
 Now is the time for all true liberals to do their duty. To stand up for liberal values by voting for a candidate that also stands up for liberal values. barack obama is not that candidate.

Jill Stein is a true liberal. Her New Green Deal is a comprehensive plan to revitalize the American economy and restore American liberties. Patterned on FDR’s successful programs, Stein’s New Green Deal is a bold yet eminently feasible solution to our pressing problems, a solution that relies on the best liberal principles.

On November 6th, vote as a true liberal. Say ‘enough!’ with the lesser-of-two-evils crap. Vote for Jill Stein.
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(c) 2012 by True Liberal Nexus. All rights reserved.

5 Comments | barack obama the deceiver, BP Oil Spill, Constitutional Law, Corruption, Democratic ineptitude, Economy, Elections, Environment, Kool-Aid drinkers, Proglodytes | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt

Constitutional Refresher Course

October 21, 2010

In yet another bizarre, embarrassing moment, Tea Party poster child, Chrissie O’Donnell, brought gasps and chuckles to the audience during a debate at a law school by claiming the First Amendment says nothing about separation of church and state.  But don’t pile on Chrissie, folks — every TP candidate thinks this is so.

The TP is a strange fusing of christian fundamentalists and libertarian anarchists, followed meekly by a host of criminally uninformed voters. One of its key planks is a pledge to adhere closely to the US Constitution — an odd desire for people whose views and aims conflict so fundamentally with that document.  They have a work-around to that conflict — wildly misinterpret certain sections, then pretend the rest doesn’t even exist.

For the christian fundamentalist, that literal believer in a bible chock full of glaring contradictions and falsehoods, ‘creative reading’ is second nature.  For the libertarian, living in a delusional world where the US economy was humming along perfectly until wrecked by the New Deal, ignoring facts is child’s play.  The TP version is less a competing interpretation of our nation’s highest law, than a Hollywood-esque “re-imagining” bearing scant resemblance to the original.

Even were their comprehension of the Constitution accurate, the TPers’ call for a “traditional, strict interpretation” has not been seriously considered for over two centuries. The immensely influential chief justice, John Marshall, deemed that the Constitution was “intended to endure for ages to come, to be adapted to various crises of human affairs.”  It was Marshall (in Marbury v. Madison, 1803) who codified the Founding Fathers’ intention to provide for judicial review.  To the Judiciary has been given the exclusive role of interpreting the Constitution.  And for two centuries, the plethora of decisions handed down by Supreme Courts have yielded remarkably consistent interpretations, none of which look anything at all like those TP re-imaginings.  (That hackneyed right-wing complaint over “activist judges” is nothing but frustration at the proper role of the judiciary as established in Marbury.)

While it’s a waste of time to talk reason to the O’Donnell and her fellow delusionals, for the benefit of those confused by the TP’s fanciful re-imagining of the Constitution, here’s a little refresher course.


Separation of Church and State

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” — Amendment I

O’Donnell is technically correct: the actual words “separation of church and state” never appear in the first amendment, nor anywhere, in the Constitution.  That phrase came from contemporary statements by Jefferson and Madison, who both rejoiced that the Bill of Rights firmly established “a permanent wall of separation,” reflecting the universal desire of the Founding Fathers and the American people. They were intensely concerned that their new nation avoid the fights over state religion and consequent persecutions, tyranny, and civil wars that had devastated England and Europe for centuries.

As confirmation of this well-documented intent, over twenty major Supreme Court decisions have resoundedly confirmed the Constitution’s separation of church and state.  In response, O’Donnell and friends can offer but a flimsy, grammarian sophistry.  (TPM to Chrissie: the words “Bill of Rights” aren’t even in the The Bill of Rights.)  Interestingly, while TPers are quick to claim the First Amendment does not say church & state should be separate, they never explain what it supposedly does say.


The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  — Amendment II

If sheer volume of words is a guide, the Second Amendment is by far the TP’s favorite section of the Constitution.  They should be glad that a truly strict interpretation has not not been applied.  Per 18th century syntax, that opening clause grants one the right to keep and bear arms only as a member of a well regulated militia — and a dozen skinheads shooting cans in Idaho is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

Written by some former minutemen, the Second Amendment has not aged well.  Our present day militia is called the National Guard.  Forced to adapt this amendment to modern times, the courts have chosen an exceedingly broad interpretation, granting the government powers based on the “well-regulated” part (shotgun? yes; flamethrower? no), while generously ignoring the militia membership requirement for citizens.  The interpretive pedant could also point out that, strictly, there’s nothing about protecting one’s right to keep and wear armor.


Unconstitutionality of The Federal income Tax

TPers’ aversion to taxation exceeds that of the Wicked Witch of the West to water buckets.  With increasing brazenness, they matter-of-factly state that the federal income tax is unconstitutional.

Now, considering its import and broad scope, the Constitution is a surprisingly short document.  So it seems a bit sloppy for the TPers to have missed Article 1, Section 8, which states:

“The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States…. “

and then goes on to give a long list, known as the enumerated powers, of all the things Congress can do, then finishes by further granting Congress power “to make all Laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing Powers….” Stricties claim this is a narrow permission list.  But beginning with Marshall, every Supreme Court has confirmed that the seventeen clauses of wide-ranging enumerated powers permit Congress considerable “discretion with respect to means … to enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it in the manner most beneficial to the people.”

If Art I, Sec 8 was not convincing enough, Amendment XVI, passed in 1913, puts the taxation question to rest:

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived….”

There are even those who insist the USPS is unconstitutional, perhaps based on the obscure wording of this Art 1, Sec 8 clause:

“The Congress shall have Power … [t]o establish Post Offices and post Roads….”

Ah!  But the TP has found a way to get around the enumerated powers, with a trick last employed by the Confederacy.


State’s Rights

TPers are gaga for States’ Rights — the concept that ultimate sovereignty lies not with the United States, but rather with each individual state.  As proof, they cite Amendment X:

“The Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People.”

The Tenth Amendment, they (O’Donnell, apparently, excepted) argue, negates Art 1 Sec 8, leaving the Federal Government with almost no enumerated powers, meaning nearly every federal law ever passed can be ignored.  But the Supreme Court ( United States v. Sprague, 1931) found that the Tenth amendment “added nothing to the instrument as originally ratified.”

It defies credulity to imagine the Founding Fathers carefully codifying their highest ideals into federal law, only to immediately add an amendment that permitted lesser jurisdictions to ignore those ideals —  thus undermining majority rule and rendering the federal democracy non-functional.


The Party of Nullify

Also known as Nullification, this principle was first proposed during the late 1820’s, when Georgia wished to circumvent Federal Indian treaties so they could to drive the remaining Indians off their land.  The Supreme Court ruled (albeit too late for the Indians) against Georgia.

In 1832, South Carolina’s legislature, claiming State’s Rights to ignore federal tariffs designed to help (largely Northern) industry, passed a resolution to secede if the tariffs were not abolished. In response, President Jackson sternly declared

“the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”

The Palmetto state claimed the right to Nullify again in 1860 over another issue.

Today, TPers turn to Nullification as cover to reject any federal statute they don’t care for.  Not just “obamacare”, but also women’s choice, gay equality, social security numbers, and, as always, those evil taxes.  When a TP candidate mentions the Tenth Amendment, it’s nothing less than a coded threat to secede.


“Read Carefully Before Operating”

In retrospect, TPers should rethink their professed love for the Constitution.  Their vision of America is clearly at odds with that of its authors.  Still, had the TPers bothered to either read the Constitution online, download it, or ask their buddies at the Heritage Foundation to send them a free copy, they’d have discovered a nifty way to rewrite the Constitution to their liking — the simple how-to instructions are laid out right there in Article V.  Maybe getting two-thirds of fellow Americans to agree with their crack-pot vision seemed a little daunting. So instead, TPers have chosen to simply ignore the law of the land.

For a centuries-old, hashed-out compromise, the US Constitution was written with prodigious clarity and amazing foresight.  It was never perfect, but frequent revision and reasoned interpretation has allowed it to keep up fairly well with developments. It’s the user’s manual thoughtfully left by the Founding Fathers in the glove compartment of our nation.  Anyone seeking to operate the machinery of government should first thoroughly familiarize themselves with it.


(c) 2010 by ‘tamerlane.’  All Rights reserved.


26 Comments | Elections, tea party | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt

A Thin and Weak Brew

March 29, 2010

– by ‘tamerlane’

In one scene in the 1963 film, THE GREAT ESCAPE, a prisoner of war, played by Donald Pleasence, fixes a pot of tea for his fellow POW.  As he robotically fetches the leaves, boils the water, and fills the pot, Pleasence apologizes for reusing very old and weak tea.  What Pleasence tries to hide is that he is virtually blind, and has carefully rehearsed the steps involved in brewing the tea to fool his comrade.

The present day “Tea Party” movement (“TP”) is reminiscent of Pleasence and his stalag tea.  Theirs is a thin and weak substitute for that first, potent brew.  Today’s protesters hope that by blindly aping the motions of an earlier era, they can can create a brew as potent as the original.


No Sons of Liberty, These

The current TP gang thoroughly misinterprets and perverts the objectives and principles of the 1773 Boston crew.  The Sons of Liberty were not protesting taxation per se, only who had the right to tax  — a distant parliament, or their own representative bodies.

The Patriots certainly didn’t seek to abolish, or even limit, government.  The colonies all had robust legislatures, enacting broad regulations and imposing numerous taxes, which the Boston Tea Party and other protests, and the ensuing rebellion, sought to preserve.   Most tellingly, immediately after securing their right to self-rule, the Americans sat down and created a very complex and overarching system of national government, with the Constitution as its operating manual.

Modern TP activists routinely call for the elimination of that system created by our Founding Fathers, with the repeal of much or all of the Constitution they wrote.   The original tea party was a question of the form of government, the modern movement questions the very existence of government.


Ersatz Tea

The TP was unquestionably astroturfed by libertarian/anarchist agitators who for decades have harbored a master plan to kill the government that interferes with their rapacious greed.  But the masses of average Joes and Jolines now filling the TP ranks are motivated by inchoate sentiments of anger, resentment, and powerlessness.   Still unformed in their minds — or their movement —  is a set of concrete objectives or even fundamental principles.  The various TP splinter groups are just now getting around to holding rancorous debates over a platform.

Only slightly more in focus is a target for their bile:  the ‘undeserving’ ne’er-do-wells (not exclusively, but often coincidentally, minorities), and the government that allows them to free-load off hand-outs paid for by TPer’s tax dollars.  In directing their anger at those a rung or two below them on the socioeconomic ladder, instead of at the corporate oligarchs who thieved and cheated their way far up that ladder, the TP masses have allowed themselves to be mightily duped.  For there is no greater recipient of federal largesse than the big corporations — cash handouts to airlines following 9/11, token lease payments for federal land to ranchers and drillers, bailouts of AIG, GM & Goldman Sachs.  If this corporate welfare elicits any ire at all in the TP luddites, it is always directed at the feds issuing the checks, not at the corporations themselves who lobby and bribe.

There’s no denying that the leaders of the American revolution were nearly all affluent planters and merchants partly concerned that Parliament’s sundry excises might crimp their trade.  To their credit, the Founding Fathers were also motivated by firmly-held principles derived from their egalitarian, commonwealth heritage.  In contrast, the unspoken goal of the TP leadership is nothing less than a return to a pre-Magna Carta feudal society, with impoverished vassals bound in servitude to wealthy and omnipotent lords.  That the prospective vassals are actively working to bring about their loss of liberty indicates that, intellectually, they are the functional equivalents of medieval peasants.


When The Sheep Empower the Wolves

The real oppressor of the people is not the government.  It is the unregulated free market, with its sociopathic corporations and robber barons who  habitually act in their own self-interest and against the interests of society.   When they cannot sufficiently exploit their American workers to meet their insatiable avarice, they simply fire them and find new workers in foreign countries that permit unbridled exploitation.

A major role of any government is to protect its people from the selfish acts of anti-social individuals.  Before our federal & state governments began “meddling” with the free market, America was home to virtual slave labor camps, known as mining towns.  Before the government saddled business with “onerous” regulations, factories routinely used child laborers, paying them a pittance for 10 –12 hours’ daily work.  Before the government “stifled productivity” with environmental protection, industrialists and mining magnates cut costs by dumping pollution, poisons, even radioactive waste, thereby forcing society as a whole to subsidize their obscene personal wealth.

The benefit each of us derives from our government’s intercession on our behalf far outweighs any minor burdens from 1040s and the DMV.  The ignorant fools who comprise the bulk of the TP have no idea of the ruin and suffering they are working to bring down upon their own heads.  They are like sheep, who, resentful at being herded by the dog, kill the dog, unwittingly exposing themselves to the predation of the wolves.

(c) 2010 by ‘tamerlane.’  All rights reserved.

8 Comments | Elections, libertarians, tea party | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt