Ralph Nader - Congressional Tyranny, White House Surrender

Published on Thursday, December 15, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/15-0

by Ralph Nader

Paraphrasing Shakespeare, something is rotten in the state of Capitol Hill. A majority of Congress is just about to put the finishing touches on an amendment to the military budget authorization legislation that will finish off some critical American rights under our Constitution.

Here is how two retired 4 star marine generals, Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar, described in the New York Times the stripmining of your freedom to resist tyranny in urging a veto by President Obama:

“One provision would authorize the military to indefinitely detain without charge people suspected of involvement with terrorism, including United States citizens apprehended on American soil. Due process would be a thing of the past….

“A second provision would mandate military custody for most terrorism suspects. It would force on the military responsibilities it hasn’t sought”…. "for domestic law enforcement….”

“A third provision would further extend a ban on transfers from Guantanamo, ensuring that this morally and financially expensive symbol of detainee abuse will remain open well into the future.”

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Bill Blum - Three Supreme Court Cases That Should Worry You

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/three_supreme_court_cases_that_should_worry_you_20111218/

Posted on Dec 18, 2011

By Bill Blum

At his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing, John Roberts, the nominee of President George W. Bush to become the 17th chief justice of the United States, promised to serve in the neutral fashion of a baseball umpire and lead the Supreme Court away from all manner of judicial activism. “[I]t’s my job to call balls and strikes,” he testified, “and not to pitch or bat.”

Few, if any, observers took Roberts at his word, given his track record as a Republican warhorse, including stints as a clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist and as deputy solicitor general under the first President Bush. But even the skeptics were not prepared for the judicial counterrevolution that Roberts and his conservative high court brethren have engineered since.

In the space of a few short years, the Roberts court has transformed American law with its miscarriages of justice. Among its dubious lowlights, the court has invented a Second Amendment individual right to bear arms, erected new barriers to age and sex discrimination lawsuits, undercut environmental protection, and, in the Citizens United case—its crowning glory to date—it has recognized corporations as people under the First Amendment with the constitutional right to spend without restraint on political attack ads.

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Gustav Wynn - 48 Members of Congress Move Towards Prosecution of Wall Street, But Need You

http://www.opednews.com/articles/48-Members-of-Congress-Mov-by-Gustav-Wynn-111213-990.html

December 13, 2011 By Gustav Wynn Dozens of members of Congress are waking up to the "Occupy Wall Street" sentiment sweeping the country. Instead of laying low as the Obama Administration crafts a deal to "sell immunity" to Wall Street firms, some in Congress are rallying behind the six rogue Attorneys General who have been actually trying to do their job and put crooks in jail for robosigning, mortgage origination and securities fraud. It's a great step for the Occupy movement.  Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) has proposed H. Con. Res. 85 to bar any settlement deal that would give Wall Street banks immunity for crimes that she says should be immediately investigated by federal and state prosecutors.  The grassroots response so far has been overwhelming, with over 77,000 signing Baldwin's petition (sign here) and thousands making phone calls to send a message to the banks.

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Call to Action - Bill of Rights Defense

On today's Gary Null Show, we spoke with Shaheed Buttar, the executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the People’s Campaign for the Constitution which aims to defend civil liberties, constitutional rights and the rules of law threatened by the war on terror. You can hear the full episode below:

Please visit the BoRDC sub-site specifically targeting the National Defense Authorization Act and join the fight against this travesty:

Our nation celebrates Bill of Rights Day every December 15, the anniversary of the ratification of the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

But on December 1—just two weeks before Bill of Rights Day—Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA allows the indefinite military detention of US citizens without trial. It contains the most oppressive national security powers we’ve seen in our lifetimes, easily worse than any Bush administration policy.

Join the Bill of Rights Defense Committee in standing against the military detention provisions of the NDAA.

Take action on the NDAA

1. Sign our petition

Add your voice to the thousands of Americans saying "NO!" to indefinite detention without trial.

Sign our petition against the NDAA.

We also have a special petition for military service members, veterans, and retired officers because those voices are uniquely important on this issue.

2. Learn more about the NDAA

Our toolkit on the NDAA includes information on why the NDAA is so dangerous, talking points about the bill, and ideas for anti-NDAA events and actions you can hold in your community.

3. Hold an event in your community

Bill of Rights Day is just around the corner: Thursday, December 15. Standing up for the right to trial, separation of powers, and presumption of innocence is a great way to celebrate the Bill of Rights.

Local actions can help demonstrate widespread opposition to this dangerous law and shift the discussion in Washington. Our toolkit offers a wide range of ideas about what kinds of events you might host.

Tell us about your event and we'll help publicize it!

We also have a full-page flier and quarter-page flier you can use to publicize your event.

Washington's Blog - Joe Biden Drafted the Core of the Patriot Act in 1995 … Before the Oklahoma City Bombing

By Washington's Blog

Global Research, December 11, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28148

The Core of the Patriot Act Was Drafted in 1995 … By Joe Biden Everyone knows that the Patriot Act was drafted before 9/11. But few know that it was Joe Biden who drafted the core provisions which were included in that bill … in 1995. CNET reported in 2008: Months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, Biden introduced another bill called theOmnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of “terrorism” that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review.* The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode “constitutional and statutory due process protections” and would “authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.”

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Statement from Office of Senator Bernie Sanders - Sanders Files ‘Saving American Democracy Amendment’

Published on Thursday, December 8, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/08-6

Vermont Senator Calls for Constitutional Amendment to Protect Democracy from Citizens United

Statement from Office of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

WASHINGTON – Warning that “American democracy in endangered,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today proposed a constitutional amendment to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that allowed unrestricted and secret campaign spending by corporations on U.S. elections.

Warning that “American democracy in endangered,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today proposed a constitutional amendment to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that allowed unrestricted and secret campaign spending by corporations on U.S. elections. The first constitutional amendment ever proposed by Sanders during his two decades in Congress would reverse the narrow 5-to-4 ruling in Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission. In that controversial decision almost two years ago, justices gave corporations the same First Amendment free-speech rights as people.

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Dave Johnson - License to Profit -- Legalized Corruption in the US Congress

Tuesday 6 December 2011

by: Dave Johnson, Truthout | News Analysis

http://www.truth-out.org/license-profit-legalized-corruption-us-congress/1323198914

Are members of Congress corrupt? Perhaps we should define the term. There is the terrible, "legal" corruption of pay-for-play campaign contributions, with wealthy donors and big corporations paying to get tax cuts, subsidies, special laws and "access." This is part of why our government is responsive to the agenda of the 1 percent and their corporations only.

Even worse, there is the new "Citizens United" form of corruption, enabled by conservatives on the Supreme Court who ruled that corporate money is "speech." Now, corporations can threaten elected officials: If they don't get what the corporations want, they can put up so much money to oppose - which in today's campaigns mean smear - that official in the next election; so that the person won't be able to be elected to any office again.

But the blatant, in-front-of-our-faces "legal" corruption of the current campaign finance system is about raising and spending millions of dollars to get a job that pays relatively little, notpersonal profit. It has the appearance of bribery, with corporate interests pouring huge amounts of money into the process. Of course, corporations don't do this for the good of the country; they do it out of profit interest. Why else would a corporation do it? By definition, offering something of value to a government official with the intent to influence what that official does is bribery, but in this case it is legal, because what's offered is considered "speech."

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Michael Hudson - Debt and Democracy -- Has the Link been Broken?

By Prof. Michael Hudson 

Global Research, December 6, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28076

*This article was first published in German in the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung, December 2, 2011.

Book V of Aristotle’s Politics describes the eternal transition of oligarchies making themselves into hereditary aristocracies – which end up being overthrown by tyrants or develop internal rivalries as some families decide to “take the multitude into their camp” and usher in democracy, within which an oligarchy emerges once again, followed by aristocracy, democracy, and so on throughout history.

Debt has been the main dynamic driving these shifts – always with new twists and turns. It polarizes wealth to create a creditor class, whose oligarchic rule is ended as new leaders (“tyrants” to Aristotle) win popular support by cancelling the debts and redistributing property or taking its usufruct for the state.

Since the Renaissance, however, bankers have shifted their political support to democracies. This did not reflect egalitarian or liberal political convictions as such, but rather a desire for better security for their loans. As James Steuart explained in 1767, royal borrowings remained private affairs rather than truly public debts.[1] For a sovereign’s debts to become binding upon the entire nation, elected representatives had to enact the taxes to pay their interest charges.

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Tony Cartalucci - US Caught Meddling in Russian Elections!

Putin compares US funded NGOs to Judas the betrayer

By Tony Cartalucci

landdestroyer.blogspot.com - 2011-12-05

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2011/12/us-atempts-to-overthrow-russian.html

December 4, 2011 - What would Americans say if they found their polling stations and certain political parties entirely infiltrated by Chinese money, Chinese observers, and Chinese-backed candidates promoting China's interests in an AMERICAN election? The answer ranges from incarceration, to trials featuring charges ranging from fraud, to sedition and even treason with sentences ranging from decades to life in prison, perhaps even death, as well as possible military action for what could easily be considered an act of war.

Indeed, the attempted subversion of a foreign nation and/or meddling in its elections are acts of war, an act of war the United States government through its various "Non-Governmental Organizations" (NGOs) have been committing on and off for decades around the globe. In fact, the very "Arab Spring" is a geopolitical conflagration tipped off by this vast network of Western backed NGOs.

The New York Times in its article, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," clearly stated as much when it reported, "a number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington."

The Times would continue by explaining, "the Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department."

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Shocking News - The US financial situation simplified

The US financial situation simplified: This makes it very easy to understand the present situation. This country won't be able to go another four years at this rate. How those in charge can't see this is a total mystery.

Why the U.S. was downgraded:

• U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000

• Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000

• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000

• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000

• Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000

Let's now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

• Annual family income: $21,700

• Money the family spent: $38,200

• New debt on the credit card: $16,500

• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710

• Total budget cuts: $385