Hedges writes: "It will mean, in short, obliteration of our last remaining legal protections, especially now that we have lost the right to privacy, and the ascent of a crude, militarized state."
Chris Hedges. (photo: Truthdig)
The Last Chance to Stop the NDAA
02 September 13
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and my fellow plaintiffs have begun the third and final round of our battle to get the courts to strike down a section of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that permits the military to seize U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military facilities. Carl Mayer and Bruce Afran, the lawyers who with me in January 2012 brought a lawsuit against President Barack Obama (Hedges v. Obama), are about to file papers asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear our appeal of a 2013 ruling on the act's Section 1021.(Truthdig / Mr. Fish)
"First the terrorism-industrial complex assured Americans that they were only spying on foreigners, not U.S. citizens," Mayer said to me recently. "Then they assured us that they were only spying on phone calls, not electronic communications. Then they assured us that they were not spying on American journalists. And now both [major political] parties and the Obama administration have assured us that they will not detain journalists, citizens and activists. Well, they detained journalist Chris Hedges without a lawyer, they detained journalist Laura Poitras without due process and if allowed to stand this law will permit the military to target activists, journalists and citizens in an unprecedented assault on freedom in America."
Last year we won round one: U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the Southern District of New York declared Section 1021 unconstitutional. The Obama administration immediately appealed her ruling and asked a higher court to put the law back into effect until Obama's petition was heard. The appellate court agreed. The law went back on the books. I suspect it went back on the books because the administration is already using it, most likely holding U.S. citizens who are dual nationals in black sites in Afghanistan and the Middle East. If Judge Forrest's ruling were allowed to stand, the administration, if it is indeed holding U.S. citizens in military detention centers, would be in contempt of court.
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Russian phishing in US elections.
But by then, choking was a pattern and the way around
it was to have a Daniel Ellsburg equivalent to reveal the truth,
and there was no such person in government in 2016.
The Obama choking pattern became apparent in 2009:
with healthcare, taking single payer off the table without
a struggle, and
with Honduras, pretending a vicious military coup wasn't
a vicious military coup.
We're all still paying for both those chokes and so many more.
It's hard to know which is sadder and more damaging to
the country: people who believe in Obama or people who
believe in Trump.
Why is there not a single word about cross check in this article, which did swing many elections?
Why not a single word about riggin the Democrat primaries, which left us with two contemptible choices?
2. Because that's not what this article is about.
3. Because that's not what this article is about.
it was to have a Daniel Ellsburg equivalent to reveal the truth,
and there was no such person in government in 2016. "
Snowden was on the scene and so were very many other very significant leakers -- Manning, Kiriakou, etc. Obama chose to prosecute the hell out of these rather than listen to the truth they exposed and make changes in government.
I think the CIA pretty much ran Obama. He was a willing tool or as I've often called him "house negro" for the CIA. That he failed to do anything about this memo we are now just learning about is probably because:
1. the memo did not exist until now or was just more trivial chatter.
2. the CIA did not really care about the story back then when it was 99.9% certain Hillary would win.
3. the CIA did not tell him exactly what to do.
Nonetheless, Obama's administration is the origin of the New Cold War against Russia and China. He's responsible for the pivot to Asia, the coup in Ukraine, the continued encirclement of Russia, the creation of ISIS as a proxy army, the renovation of the US nuclear arsenal as a preparation for war with Russia and China. All of these were CIA instructions he did act on. He was doing a lot. And this minor story was way down on the list of importance -- back then. Now it is high up for the mass media, which is taking CIA orders.
There is a difference between spying and cyber-warfare. There is ample evidence Russia spied on our election process. We spy on theirs. That's normal. There is, to date, no public evidence that they acted on the intelligence they gained. Russian interference in the election is still mere supposition and accusation.
The only reason we survived the Great Depression was that FDR became a benevolent dictator. He just did what was necessary, whether Congress or the Supreme Court liked it or not.
Sadly, there is no new FDR on the horizon.
Could it have been "fake intelligence", like Tony Blair's intel of Saddam's WMDs? Could it have been a Russian plant, given to a blown source, to discredit U.S. intelligence? Many people around the world are shocked that this "investigation" is continuing, with no end in sight, while real, significant problems are NOT being addressed! Could it have just been made up by John Brennan, who along with Obama, is deeply suspicious of Putin, but not of "our" Saudi allies who have been arming and funding Al Qaeda and ISIS?
This latest WaPo story, like all of its coverage of the "Russia-Putin elected Trump" story stinks to high heaven. Many RSN readers are rightly suspicious of it, but we keep getting more of it on RSN.
I'm not sure why!
Maybe even Obama smelled a rat and he ignored it.
RSN keeps posting this disinormation or fake news from the Wapo or NYT because it wants us to see first hand how bad mainstream news has become. The total dishonesty of the Wapo -- which is a CIA house organ -- and the rest of the MSM is a much bigger crisis in democracy than the silly story about Russian meddling in the US election.
Now these totally dishonest news organizations are creating "algorithms" in order to police all news. Here's a very good article on Consortium -
"Policing Truth Rebuild Trust"
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/24/policing-truth-to-restore-trust/
The Wapo's credibility is almost totally gone. Only the "true believers" still even read the Wapo. We should be grateful to Marc for sending to us these "smoking guns" of how the intelligence community has taken over the mainstream media, the Wapo most of all
Oh, it's a very tight race between WaPo and the NYT.
Republicans no longer work for Americans, instead for the Dirty Energy Koch Brothers, the Mercers, Sheldon Adelson et al.
What a tragic commentary on a Party that has had such eloquent statesmen in the past.
Let's work together as we move forward to restore Democracy...wit h a BIG 'D.'
When Ben Franklin said 'A Republic if you can keep it...' will we surrender?
Keep in mind that Deep State and their voices, CIA and Hillary, were scared to death of a renegade like Trump or Sanders becoming President. Sanders they took care of, but when they decided to abandon the Republicans in 2007 as unelectable, they failed to gain control of it last year and assumed their Hillary would win hands down. So what this article sounds like is a carefully worked out justification of their incompetence. That's what the CIA always does with their failures. They still think they won in Iraq & Libya.
It all boils down to he says, she says. For all of the citations, there's still not anything that's clear and factual except that the parties involved don't like Putin - as if that's news.
But those of us who would like to see some actual evidence, this smells. Is Obama stupid? I really really doubt it. So maybe when you are basically a neoliberal, appealing to bipartisanship when you know there isn't any to be had is the perfect cover for getting just what you (or your backers) want: not much social progress, carte blanche on the military front, and a lot of regressive social stuff you can blame on the GOP in your tearful memoirs.
No sale here, Charles. Still inclined to think we are being misdirected from the provable election fraud: the 2016 Democratic primaries.
The kind of "evidence" that reputable skeptics acknowledge as "evidence" from non-anonymous experts in the field, such as, William Binney, for instance; Ray McGovern is a good source for perspective; reporting from actual journalists like Robert Parry, Seymour Hersh who do not blur the line between evidence and speculation and whose "facts" are honestly vetted, corroborated, and reliable.
If the FBI, etc., subpoenas the DNC servers that the DNC alleges were hacked and those servers are investigated for actual evidence of "hacking"; while at the same time speaking to the Wikileaks disclosures that the US government has developed technology to mask or disguise evidence of their own hacking and misdirection capabilities.
If "evidence" of "collusion" between Donald Trump and Putin are presented, as "collusion" is the supposed basis for the Russia hysteria.
Maybe if solutions to the crisis -- such as, return to paper balloting, same-day registration, voting holiday, etc. -- are championed, along with responsible investigations.
How about, if, rather than blaming Russians, evidence free, US institutions and agencies consider and investigate the usual suspects in election fraud, American neo-cons and liberal interventionist s, and get to the bottom of our own home grown and institutional interferences?
This would be a good start.
.
The information that the American people have the absolute right to know is the massive voter fraud of electronic voting machines and voting tabulation manipulation, striping and flipping voters - - look it up - - and media minuplation and propaganda and horse race election coverage while refusing to cover issues and anything far from the center right, none of which has anything to do with Russia but is pure born and bred USA dulopathy party controlled.
Bad decisions have long term effects. This one might have cost us what remains of a republic. In the end it will not only be the ferocity of the emboldened right that will win the day, it will be the capitulations of the corporate democrats that will have cost us dearly.
If only we could convince Bernie and Elizabeth to ditch the Democratic Party and start a new, Progressive Party..... Neoliberalism is the policy of the Moderate Republicans who hijacked the Democratic Party when they were ejected from the GOP. Read "Listen Liberal" by Thomas Frank, and it all becomes clear.
The remarkable thing is that Sanders could save the DP, bringing them millions of young voters and a new funding opportunity, but they are either too stupid or too corrupt to accept the offer. They treat him terribly and may just drive him to do what many of us have wanted -- starting a new and populist party.
Many of us have been asking Sanders to lead his revolution to a new party but instead he's been working like a dog to save the DP's bacon -- all while they treat him like dirt.
It may very well be the Democrats who push him into it, sealing their own fate, quintessentiall y tragic figures, the DP once again snatching disaster from the jaws of victory.
If Bernie were to leave, there might be a minority of DPers who leave for him, maybe as much as 20%, but the majority would, I believe, come from the plurality of Independents and the pool of those who have dropped out of the system.
Wouldn't that be something?
He was effectively recruited to be the first black president by a billionheiress from Chicago's Gold Coast who as far as I know had no record of championing the African American cause. And while part of the country was "ready" for a black president, part of it was definitely not, as the SPLC could have predicted. From his first day in office he was subjected to a firestorm of racist "humor" on the internet (a Tea Party friend who does not think he is a racist sent me plenty of it), and the Secret Service reported far more threats on his life than any previous president.
But on the particular point of whatever the Russian government did or didn't do, I agree with Anonymot and markovchhaney. As I said many times in these pages last year, powerful interests we cannot see, and a few we can, are engaged in a war of propaganda and dirty tricks, an opaque and mind-bogglingly complex version of Antonio Prohias's "Spy vs Spy" for extremely high stakes. The one thing of which we can be reasonably certain is that NO ONE is consistently telling the truth.
cowardice? of the Democratic party since 2000. We all know that Al
Gore won the election in 2000, before the Supreme Court ever entered the picture. Just the number of ballots that ended up in the swamps or any trash receptacle would have changed the results. And then 2004 happened, with the Republicans messing around with the voting machines in Ohio. And since that time, the 2016 election, along with Jon Ossoff's election in Georgia are, at minimum, in doubt. And certainly Obama knew about voter suppression in Republican states, and crosscheck as well as purging of legal voters from voting lists, and more, when he learned of Russia's perfidy. So the president's hesitation was beyond acceptable.
But why now? The voter suppression efforts are only getting worse, to the point that we cannot plan on any victorious elections until something is done, and nothing is being done. Political leaders must be the ones to start speaking up, and then ordinary voters will join in. But they have to start the process. Please, and another please, Democratic
senators, representatives , reporters, talk show hosts, anyone with a voice, stop with this 'keep you mouth shut' MO and say something. That is, unless you really don't give a damn. Yes, there will be an enormous reaction by the Republicans, but the suppression is their reaction to our cowardliness. There is no sense to continuing this way.