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Congressional Tyranny, White House Surrender
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.”
All of Obama’s leading military and security officials oppose this codification of the ultimate Big Brother power. Imagine allowing the government to deny people accused of involvement with terrorism (undefined), including U.S. citizens arrested within the United States, the right to a trial by jury. Imagine allowing indefinite imprisonment for those accused without even proffering charges against them. Goodbye 5th and 6th Amendments.
On some government agency’s unbridled order: just pick them up, arrest them without charges and throw them into the military brig indefinitely. This atrocity deserves to be repeatedly condemned loudly throughout the land by Americans who believe in the rights of due process, habeas corpus, right to confront your accusers, right to a jury trial—in short, liberty and the just rule of law.
Some stalwart lawyers are speaking out soundly: They include Georgetown Law Professor, David Cole, George Washington University Law Professor, Jonathan Turley, Republican lawyer, Bruce Fein, former American Bar Association (2005-2006) president, Michael Greco, and the always alert lawyers at the civil liberties groups. Their well-grounded outcries are not awakening the citizenry.
Where are the one million lawyers? Where are the thousands of law professors? Where are the scores of law school deans? Are they not supposed to be our first constitutional responders?
Where is the Tea Party and its haughty rhetoric about the sanctity of constitutional liberty? Most of the Tea caucus voted for tyranny. Presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul has been an outspoken critic of this attack on our civil liberties.
The majority also voted to ratify a dictatorial procedure in the Congress, as well. This indefinite, arbitrary, open-ended dictatorial White House mandate was never subjected to even a House or Senate Committee hearing, and was not explained with any rationale known as legislative “findings.” It was rammed through by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees without the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees invoking their concurrent jurisdiction for public hearings.
So extreme are these majority Congressional extremists, composed of both Republicans and renegade Democrats, the latter led by Senator Carl Levin, that the Obama Administration has to lecture them about the fundamental American principle that “our military does not patrol our streets.”
It is not as if the imperial presidencies of Bush and Obama need any more encouragement and legitimization to continue on their lawless paths to criminal wars of aggression, unlawful surveillance, arbitrary slayings of innocents, wrongful imprisonments, and unauthorized spending. Instead of Congress using its constitutional authority regarding the war, appropriations and investigative powers, it formalizes its impotence by handing the “go for it” power to the Executive branch with the vaguest of language boundaries.
Usually there are a few Senators whose upfront defense of our Constitution would lead them to stand tall against the “Senate Club” and put a “hold” on this pernicious amendment. Civil libertarians hope that, before the final Senate vote in the rush to get home for the Holidays, Senators Rand Paul, Tom Harkin, Al Franken, Richard Blumenthal, Ron Wyden, Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley, Tom Coburn or Mike Lee would step forth.
A “hold” could spark the demand for public hearings and floor debate to give the American people the time and information to react and ask themselves “how dare Congress take away our most fundamental rights?”
President Obama initially threatened to veto the entire bill and make Congress drop these pernicious dictates that so insult the memory and vision of our founding fathers. He is already signaling that he doesn’t have the backbone to reject the false choice “between our safety and our ideals,” that he asserted in his Inaugural Address.
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180 Comments so far
Show AllBe careful not to make comparisons with what's happening here and how Hitler came to power and turned Germany into hell on earth. You will be called a nutcase, that can never happen here, we have a constitution.
It could and Germany had a constitution as well although it had absolutely no track record of democracy at the time. Still it isn't happening here any more than it ever has, sorry to disappoint.
You are right, John. It is being *codified* more in the last decade than ever before in the US, but in terms of actual implementation, WW I was still far worse than anything we've seen thus far in the so-called 'war on terror.' Think the Palmer Raids of 1919-20. Thousands of anti-war dissidents were rounded up and imprisoned under the Espionage Act and that other act, the name of which escapes me at the moment but which essentially nullified the First Amendment. The socialist Eugene Debs was imprisoned for two years simply for opposing the war and calling for draft resistance.
Note, however, that due process for all Americans was undermined in October 2006 when Congress and Dubya, knowing that the Democrats would control Congress within three months, eliminated due process for "enemy combatants". Democrats controlled Congress for four years after that, including the first two years of Obama's term, yet not one Democrat ever attempted to restore due process for the as yet to be defined "enemy combatants".
History has confirmed that if one American is denied due process, we are all at risk of being denied due process.
In a legislative sense, "it has happened here".
And a bunch of others (Emma Goldman comes to mind) were deported to Russia, a country most had not seen since childhood and some, never.
"Germany had a constitution as well although it had absolutely no track record of democracy at the time..."
The Weimar Republic was not democratic?
The only 'nut cases' left in this country are meme voters. With regards the 'nut' jobs on this forum, they are known by their neverending Dem apologetic.
Hey EF, didn't you hear Nader it's only "renegade" dems.
At a condominium community in Long Beach CA, under palm trees and subtle sunlight I have coffee very morning with a bunch of fine folk, mostly liberal democrats who read the LA Times and a spattering of conservatives. All civilized folk with kind hearts who -- except for one of the conservatives -- are willing to dump all of our constitutional protections without a wimper. All of them. Finito. They nicely say I am a nutcase because I point this out to them and say we are not represented under a one party --with two halves-- corperatocracy. That they refuse to ask for redress of grievances. That they will get me committed or arrested or murdered with a clear conscience. Perhaps under the Obama administration. And they like me. They humor me. They don't believe a word I say. They think that the LA Times is a liberal paper. They are innocence in the onslaught of constant propaganda.
It is 1930s Germany.
"He is already signaling that he doesn’t have the backbone to reject the false choice"
?
The Obama regime’s objection to military detention is not rooted in concern for the constitutional rights of American citizens. The regime objects to military detention because the implication of military detention is that detainees are prisoners of war
Detainees treated according to the laws of war have the protections of the Geneva Conventions. They cannot be tortured. The Obama regime opposes military detention, because detainees would have some rights. These rights would interfere with the regime’s ability to send detainees to CIA torture prisons overseas. [Yes, Obama is still apparently allowing "extraordinary renditions" to torture people abroad.] This is what the Obama regime means when it says that the requirement of military detention denies the regime “flexibility.”
The Bush/Obama regimes have evaded the Geneva Conventions by declaring that detainees are not POWs, but “enemy combatants,” “terrorists,” or some other designation that removes all accountability from the US government for their treatment.
By requiring military detention of the captured, Congress is undoing all the maneuvering that two regimes have accomplished in removing POW status from detainees.
I believe that is how Obama is thinking. You've nailed it.
Odd choice of beliefs for Constitutional Lawyer.
I puzzled over that line too. It's as though Nader wrote the column before the White House made clear it was not going to veto the bill, then edited later and forgot to edit out that part.
I think that Ralph is slipping a bit in his old age. Ten years ago he would not miss such important facts as thinking that Obama was threatening a veto to this travesty because the bill was going too far. Indeed, Obama's veto threat was because the bill was going to place limits on his tyranny.
The Obomonable veto threat was just Kabuki theater and not very good.
It is not a stretch of the imagination to see history repeating itself in comparing 9-11 and the NDAA with the Enabling Act of 1933 Germany which followed the Reichstag fire false flag attack. Note that the Army Reserves currently has a TV advert that seeks recruits for a "civilian internment" MOS.
Tony Vodvarka
OK, here's the scoop. The US federal government has basically become an organized crime outfit on steroids. Evidence; It has illegally invaded other countries. Evidence; Members of congress "invest" on insider information, (illegal if we did it), and make themselves millionaires.
The fed runs a protection racket for the banksters. They steal billions, trillions, then pay relatively small fines, no jail time and don't have to admit wrongdoing. Evidence; No major player in the latest financial meltdown has gone to jail. Evidence; Obama says no laws were broken as he takes record bribes, sorry I mean campaign contributions from Wall Street.
Nothing has been done to about the too big to fail banks, or hold the banksters accountable. They have only got bigger and bolder. Evidence; Corzine and MF Global. They looted customers accounts, to cover reckless bets against European debt, and it appears that their only "punishment" will be that they had to go to congress to testify that they have no idea where the money went.
People have finally had it and are taking to the streets around the world, and the next even bigger financial crash has yet to happen. The crooks in government and big business are scared. My guess is if you look at who voted for this bill and who didn't will give you a good indication of who is neck deep in criminal activity and who isn't. Seeing McCain was one who wrote it, and has been in congress for so long, he is probably a major player in the massive mob formally known as the Washington.
These people have no honor. They swore an oath to protect the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, then they basically defecate on that same document to cover up their crimes.
They are busily writing laws so they can shut down websites, and even the internet itself so they can crush anyone organizing against their corruption.
The shit is about to hit the fan in a big way. Bigger than the 2008 crash, and it will probably occur in 2012, 2013 at the latest. The crooks in DC are scared, and want to be able to label anyone who stands up to them as a terrorist, so they can then disappear them like the cowardly 2 bit dictators that they really are.
Stay tuned folks, things are about to get very ugly, very fast.
NCTom, you outlined the storyline beautifully. You are right on the money.
I however disagree that "The crooks in government and big business are scared.". I think you're mistaken. They are as emboldened as ever. They have no shame of what they do and no remorse of what they've done. They have everyone and everybody who's anyone or anything to protect them. The Supreme Court, the United States military down to their grunts at the local PD.
Who IS scared and freaked out? Regular, honest businesses and business people. Not to mention a large segment of the civilian population. Hence the unwillingness to spend, hire and get back to "normal". A lot of others may not know exactly (and don't want to know) of what's going on, but they're hip to the fact its "something".
Agreed. When things go south they'll go south fast. If Paul gets anywhere close to the presidency he'll either be – one way or another – neutralized, or the election will be cancelled by something: a perceived domestic threat or, hell, whatever they come up with.
Then civil war begins.
As for McCain, he probably started out with good intentions, but he's a madman now and extremely complicit in what's going on.
That's my take anyway. I could be wrong.
McCain's criminal activities were widely publicized when I lived in Arizona 25 years ago.
McCain authored "Operation Streamline" which imprisons the undocumented with the privatized prison for profit group CCA.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2010-10-21/news/operation-streamline-costs-taxpayers-millions-tramples-on-the-constitution-treats-immigrants-like-cattle-and-doesn-t-work-so-why-are-the-feds-so-committed-to-it/
Perhaps their goal is to have the CCA run this scam and be paid by the taxes of the very people whom they imprison?
Nicely stated.
Bravo, NCTom!
........Now the FBI is pushing to implement the "Next Generation Identification" @
http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/blog/?p=5016. The next crash is going to dwarf the Great Depression! They're getting ready for the global chaos that will follow.
Simply put, this legislation is blatantly unconstitutional. Who is to Guard us from this tyranny? 5 of the 9 Roberts Supremes, years later, after untold abuses?
The Founders also gave us wise guidance in the other definitive American document that precedes the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. “But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.”
“…a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World:
-He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.
-He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
-He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies…
-He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
-He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.
-He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us.
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.
For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his
Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and
destroyed the Lives of our People. He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.
…we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury.
…is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.”
Occupy your own country
You're dead right, NCTom, the only thing that could come out of this that would let me sleep at night is each and every congressperson that voted "yes" on this be tried for treason, and hung on conviction. America is in a scary state right now
That would be nice, to have every traitor to this country that voted for this bill be tried and hanged on conviction. I will fall asleep tonight thinking of 93 senators swinging in the wind. Sweet dreams.
NC-TOM: Excellent post. Like I said a few months ago, current events are turning you from a moderate into a radical thinker. It's refreshing to see truth evolve a person... (as opposed to drawing up a wall of defenses protected by an endless supply of platitudes).
MED: I'm sure you realize that the government's pro-torture case rests solely on semantics... the fundamental integrity of another human being doesn't just vanish because the verbiage used to define them: enemy combatant versus prisoner of war can be disguised by the likes of a morally inverted prune like John Yoo or Alberto Gonzales.
Pretty much every day I watch several shows on RT, Democracy Now, and read websites that explain all the legalized crime that our federal government and its masters the Banksters are raining down on us. It takes a while, but when you really start to put all the pieces together, and see all the lies we are fed daily, on so many levels, it does tend to get ones blood boiling.
Barack Obama has proven repeatedly that if he is not an agent of hope for people both home and abroad then he most certainly is quite adept at being an agent of changing his mind. Perhaps Obama should be re-labeled as being the master of the flip-flop. Obama, that alleged populist, apparently has nothing on Bush when it comes to changing his position on vital issues.
From what I have read Obama was only thinking of vetoing the bill because there was some concern that his already unlimited powers would somehow be restrained. Now that his concerns have been relieved, he doesn't intend to veto the bill. And what about Carl Levin speaking on the Senate floor and repeating several times that the egregious language in the bill allowing for the indefinite detention of American citizens was the exact language that Obama wanted. I wouldn't trust Obama as far as I could throw him. And I certainly wouldn't give him credit for having our best interests at heart on any issue, least of all this one.
Exactly. And shame on Ralph and virtually every other commentator except Glenn Greenwald for buying into this ridiculous notion that Obama wanted to veto the bill on the basis of civil liberties. Quite the opposite.
Don't forget that one of Obama's first efforts after moving into the White House was to get Congress to allow him to give banksters unlimited bailouts without any Congressional approval.
Obama doesn't flip-flop. Although he is an expert at populist rhetoric, Obama is fascist to the core.
Although I voted for Nader four times, I am disappointed that he is portraying Obama as anything other than a constitutional law expert continuing to abuse the US Constitution.
Nader has always had a soft spot for Democrats--chalk it up to senility. That's why, last time around, I voted for Cynthia.
"Nader has always had a soft spot for Democrats--chalk it up to senility." Which does not explain why Nader then ran against those same Democrats in 2000 and 2004.
I believe that the "soft spot" arises from Nader's intellectual-- NOT political-- pragmatic conservativism.
Nader has increasingly struggled with-- or juggled-- two conflicting and mutally exclusive views of the Democratic Party.
On the one hand, he obviously recognizes that the Dems are so co-opted or corrupt that there's "not a dime's worth of difference" between the Democrats and the Republicans.
On the other hand, as a life-long liberal civic reformer devoted to the Sisyphean practice of chipping and chipping away at obstacles, and valuing incremental change, Nader can't help but see a baby worth reviving in that reeking, putrescent Democratic bathwater.
So, almost in spite of himself, he vacillates between condeming the Democrats and challenging them to return to the semblance of a true opposition party-- and moreover, a political party committed to serving the interests of the ordinary unprivileged citizen and resisting the depredations of an authoritarian capitalist overclass.
Critics, especially knee-jerk Nader-bashers, are suckers for the facile criticism that this is blatant self-indulgent, even self-serving hypocrisy. I reject this simplistic verdict, because I think Nader's history as an ascetic wonk establishes that he is indeed a principled "public citizen" dedicated to advocating the most viable solutions he can imagine to faciliate the common welfare.
I don't share Nader's evident optimistic belief that the Democratic Party can be redeemed or reformed, so I wince or cringe when he resorts to pulling his punches-- e.g., euphemistically or rhetorically characterizing Carl Levin as a "renegade Democrat".
This suggests that there is actually a wholesome, righteous Democratic Party core, presumably beleaguered or overwhelmed by a faction of "bad apples" (Levin, the "Blue Dogs", etc.)
I consider this wishful thinking. But FWIW, I tend to "forgive" Nader's quirks-- as I do with diverse others, e.g. Robert Fisk and Alexander Cockburn-- and simply discount the bits where he idiosyncratically veers off the rails. YMMV.
A rather insightful analysis, and one that gladdens me as it skewers the "Nader haters" who , as this "downtown walker" did, use little intellect and less truth to bash Ralph.
That's why this article lost me at the title, when it only said Congress, and then I read through and said, WTF! Cenk, Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow gave Obama more than equal billing with Congress on this. In fact Maddow and Cenk virtually gave Obama top billing in this latest atrocity. Cenk played once again the piece of Levin, making the whole thing quite clear as to what Obama wanted. I'm hearing too much about Obama caving. Obama did not cave.
BTW, my two State Senators Gillibrand and Schumer voted for this. Well, I voted for the Green Party, not these two, in 2010.
IMO you're right on point on your assessment of O-Bomb-em. IMO the only way Obama vetoes this 'Authorization of the US as a Police-State Act' is for poly-trickal reasons- IF he's confident the congress has enough votes to over-ride his veto. That way he can claim that congress - especially the Repugs 'Made Him Do It'!
" Hope a dope" mass murderer obomber shows his consistency, as a lying, spineless, puppet for the fascist police state that is amerika !
You are right, tio. He is a coward and will murder children by drone joystick and then boast about the "terrorists" who were among his collateral damage. Looks like we are all soon to become some type of obomber's collateral damage. He is a war criminal and that is why he said he wished to "look forward" and not prosecute his com-padres...Bush, Cheney, Yoo, Rum, et al!
Don't blame President Wallstreet, you've got to be a lying, spineless puppet to be electable in this country. Those duplicity lessons he was forced to take as a kid really paid off. There's never been a better time to be a rat bastard.
Hope a Dope, yea that's a good one, tiozapata. How very "audacious" of you. What should ObamaKhans slogan for reelection be?
Obama mentioned his slogan on "60 Minutes" -- Better than the Alternative. Even Cokie Roberts was a little apoplectic over that one LOL.
Hey remember this one. Why change dicks in the middle of a screw vote for Nixon in 72
IT DOESN'T MATTER WE'RE GOING TO HELL, VOTE FOR OBAMA IN TWENTY-TWELVE
Good one DTW, How about, Obamas's your man he'll bomb Iran!
Except, by the time the elections roll around, it'll have to be: Obama's your man, he bombed Iran
Slogan: Dare to dream a New American dream
Our Democracy is most definitely being shredded by the Washington crowd and Obama is standing by watching!!! It's not a stretch to believe he will not veto such a pernicious slaying of our Sacred Constitution!!! I'm beginning to believe that there won't be a single worthy candidate in our next presidential election!
"Obama is standing by watching!!!"????
He didn't appear to be watching when he extended the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest 1%. He was smiling and eager to sign on the dotted line. Didn't he even sign a copy of it so no one could say he hadn't signed it correctly? And on other issues he's handed on a gold platter to the right, he wasn't watching. He had that big ear to ear grin on his face.
Your tense is wrong--has been shredded--but my comment is that there have been worthy candidates in every presidential election (Ralph among them) but spineless Americans are too afraid to cast a third party vote lest their vote be "wasted". Stupid monkeys. I'd rather vote for a good person who isn't elected than a bad one that is. Shame on all of you who still repeat the MSM meme of there being only two electable candidates. The candidate with the most votes still wins, no matter what party they are, although that too may change. Turn off your TV and pay attention to reality for a change.