Tainted Saints

“…the Obama administration has sought to conceal information in several high-profile court cases, in an effort that civil libertarians say amounts to covering up crimes committed by the Bush administration.

    Last week, in a federal courthouse in New York, Obama’s Justice Department attorneys again argued in favor of secrecy. The case involved 23 lawyers representing detainees at Guantánamo Bay who alleged in court papers that they were targets of the Bush administration’s so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program(TSP), an initiative operated by the National Security Agency (NSA) that Obama called “unlawful and unconstitutional” during his presidential campaign in 2007.”

I would just argue that it’s incumbent on not just the gay community, but all Americans, to demand repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

“…I have two brothers serving in the military and as far as I’m concerned, when an Arabic translator is kicked out of the military for being gay, it quite literally makes my brothers and our troops less safe. For me, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell isn’t just an equality issue. It is also a national-security issue…”

“Thousands of Americans marched in Washington yesterday to demand a fulfillment of Obama’s long-stated and oft-repeated commitments on issues of gay equality, in what the NYT calls ”the largest demonstration for gay rights here in nearly a decade.”  That protest was preceded the day before by a virtual consensus 0f gay rights activists expressing extreme disappointment  and frustration with Obama’s speech to the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday night, where he merely repeated the same pledges he’s been making for two years with no added specificity or time commitment…”

Read more…

The Senate Judiciary Committee rejected  most “proposed changes to surveillance laws sought by civil liberties and privacy advocates,” and sent the bill to the Senate yesterday.

“The first provision that would be renewed under the bill allows investigators to get “roving wiretap” court orders authorizing them to follow a target who switches phone numbers or phone companies, rather than having to apply for a new warrant each time.

The second such provision allows the F.B.I. to get a court order to seize “any tangible things” deemed relevant to a terrorism investigation — like a business’s records of what kinds of products various customers have purchased.

The final provision set to expire is called the “lone wolf” provision. It allows the F.B.I. to get a court order to wiretap a terrorism suspect who is not connected to any foreign terrorist group or foreign government.”

Frankly, I’d rather have an openly lawless President who makes little attempt to hide blatant violations of the Consititution, than a faux liberal President who gets away with the exact same shit and worse just because he’s more subtle about it, and he’s a Democrat (Bill Clinton flashback, anyone?)

“…the Obama administration has aggressively defended, justified and embraced the overwhelming bulk of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies — the exact ones that caused liberals and Democrats to object so vehemently over the last eight years:  imprisonment with no trials, maintaining a legal black hole at Bagram, military commissions, renditions, warrantless eavesdropping, claims of state secrets to prevent judicial review of presidential lawbreaking, legal immunity for all but the lowest-level war criminals, abuse-guaranteeing Patriot Act powers, impenetrable walls of secrecy in the national security context.”

The fact that the Washington Post is aiding and abetting Obama is no different than what Judy Miller did for Bush at the New York Times.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/06/obama/

So why would local police agencies need a hand-held heat weapon being developed by the Pentagon so powerful that “contact lenses could become fused to the eyeballs”? For that matter, why is the Pentagon even developing a weapon at all that “could disperse crowds or incapacitate individuals by causing them to experience burning sensations in their skin”?

Dispersing crowds? Is somebody expecting unrest on the horizon? Due to shortages of gas, food, or water, perhaps?

 [See also Pittsburgh Welcomes The World (with Robocops...) from 9/29/2009]

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/military-heat-weapon-being-developed

The first thing we should be asking is: “What are they so afraid of…?”

The second thing we should be asking is: “What are they preparing for…?”

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/46455