Obama Trashes the Constitution and Locks up Americans for Ever Sceed

And, as to lifetime detention of U.S. persons, the bill by its very terms (thanks to an amendment introduced by Senator Feinstein) confirms what would have been the proper reading anyway—namely, that its detention authorization provision (section 1021) does not “affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.”  For good measure, section 1022 also provides that its purported presumption of military detention “does not extend to citizens of the United States.

          Marty Lederman 

Glenn Greenwald:

 Marty Lederman and David Barron wrote the authorization to kill Anwar al-Awlaki.

Martin "Marty" S. Lederman  He has concentrated on questions involving freedom of speech, the Religion Clauses, congressional power and federalism, equal protection, separation of powers, copyright, and food and drug law. He helped draft the June 2010 memorandum authorizing the targeted killing of U.S. citizen and Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. ^[1]

Lederman is currently on leave from his position as Associate Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. He teaches courses in constitutional law, separation of powers, and executive branch lawyering. When not serving in government, he has been a regular contributor to the weblogs SCOTUSblog and Balkinization. His blogging and scholarship focuses on matters related to executive power, detention, interrogation, civil liberties, and torture.

Lederman was formerly an attorney at Bredhoff & Kaiser, where his practice consisted principally of federal litigation, including appeals on behalf of labor unions, employees and pension funds, with particular emphasis on constitutional law, labor law, civil rights, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and employment law. He graduated from University of Michigan and Yale Law School. 

======

David Barron

Education

• Harvard College A.B. 1989, History
• Harvard Law School J.D. 1994

Appointments

• Chair, Section on Local Government Law, AALS
• Assistant Professor of Law, 1999
• Professor of Law, 2004
• Honorable S. William Green Professor of Public Law, 2011http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?id=4

=====

Robert M. Chesney, a University of Texas School of Law professor who specializes in national security law, said he believed the killing was legal. But he said it was "plenty controversial" among legal experts.

The administration's legal argument in Awlaki's case, Chesney said, appears to have three elements: First, Awlaki posed an imminent threat to the lives of Americans; second, he was fighting with the enemy in the armed conflict; and third, there was no feasible way to arrest him.

http://www.statesman.com/news/world/awlaki-killing-fuels-debate-on-presidential-power-1889257.html?printArticle=y

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Benjamin Wittes

"Under these circumstances, I don’t have grave due process anxieties about targeting a U.S. national."

"Let’s hold up what we know about the Al Aulaqi case to this test:

(1) He has clearly been identified with a high degree of confidence using the best intelligence available and a multi-layered review process as a high-level operational terrorist leader in a group that the government reasonably regards as part of Al Qaeda (or at least cobelligerent with it) and who has actually planned attacks on behalf of that group. Critically, this intelligence, some of which has become public, is notsimply about his role as a charismatic, inspirational jihadist cheerleader or as an internet propagandist, facts that would not, repugnant though these activities are, be grounds for targeting him.

(2) Efforts to capture Al Aulaqi have clearly been made. This morning’s New York Times, for example, has a lengthy story about such efforts over a long period of time:

But in fact, the Yemeni security services, many trained by American Special Forces soldiers, appear to have pursued Mr. Awlaki for almost two years in a hunt that was often hindered by the shifting allegiances of Yemen’s tribes and the deep unpopularity of Mr. Saleh’s government.

In 2009 and 2010, Mr. Awlaki seems to have been mostly in the southern heartland of his own powerful tribe, the Awaliq, where killing him would have been politically costly for the government, and capturing him nearly impossible. The area where Mr. Awlaki was finally killed, in the remote north, did not afford him the same tribal protection. There are also many tribal leaders in the far north who receive stipends from Saudi Arabia — the terrorist group’s chief target — and who would therefore have had more motive to assist in killing him.

The hunt for Mr. Awlaki has involved some close calls, including the failed American drone strike in May, and the previously unreported operation in the Yemeni village. Yemen’s elite counterterrorism commandos, backed by weapons from Yemen’s regular armed forces, formed a ring around the town as commanders began negotiating with local leaders to hand Mr. Awlaki over, said one member of the unit.

“We stayed a whole week, but the villagers were supporting him,” said the counterterrorism officer, who is not authorized to speak on the record. “The local people began firing on us, and we fired back, and while it was happening, they helped him to escape.”

What’s more, Al Aulaqi has been on notice for quite some time that he is wanted and has not sought to surrender or turn himself in, and the government has made clear it would accept his surrender. So there’s a strong basis on which the government can argue here that it has pursued remedies short of lethal force. It has tried to take Al Aulaqi alive and remained open to the possibility but the chance did not pan out. What did pan out was an opportunity to attack a car from a remote, stand-off position.

(3) Would the foreseeable result of not taking this chance have been the loss of innocent life? This question seems to me to answer itself. A government worth anything simply has to take seriously a man who has been personally involved in terrorist actions in the past, who promises more, and who is taking active steps to conduct them."

Morning Joe and 2% Unemployment in Singapour

A slick republican on MJ made the astonishing claim that Singapore has only 2% unemployment.   I wonder how they do it?

Not really, American companies flock to places they can destroy the environment in and don't have to worry about messy things like child labor and hazardous work conditions.    Heck, if we paid our workers 60 cents an hour and did not spend billions on our defense, I think we could get our unemployment to 1%.

Eric Cantor Explains the The US Must Do Israel's Bidding!

Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, said the speech was “a step in the right direction,” but that “we need to make sure that this president is also going to stand by Israel and not allow his administration to somehow speak contrary to what our ally thinks is in its best interest.” 

Naom Chomski and His "Basic Facts"

(3) Noam Chomsky has a very dispassionate, excellent new article laying out some clear and basic facts about the Iran situation that are rarely aired;


Says Glenn Greenwald


"

Concerns about “the imminent threat” of Iran are often attributed to the “international community”—code language for U.S. allies. The people of the world, however, tend to see matters rather differently.

The nonaligned countries, a movement with 120 member nations, has vigorously supported Iran’s right to enrich uranium—an opinion shared by the majority of Americans (as surveyed by WorldPublicOpinion.org) before the massive propaganda onslaught of the past two years."

China and Russia oppose U.S. policy on Iran, as does India, which announced that it would disregard U.S. sanctions and increase trade with Iran. Turkey has followed a similar course.

         Turkey actually is against Iran having nuclear arms and so is Russia.    China, dissed Iran in the last tour of the region.

Now, these 120 nations, that "vigorously support Iran's rights to enrich uranium", include,

Iran-  

Bahrain:  No, not really at all.

US embassy cables: Bahrain king says Iranian nuclear program must be stopped

Togo:    I googled Togo and Iran nuclear arms and go nothing.   So maybe Noam is right.

Barbados

Kuwait:   Well yes, but only if..

The Kuwaiti emir says all Middle Eastern nations, including Iran, are entitled to have a civilian nuclear program within the framework of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations.

#92 Saudi Arabia     Um, no, they are extremely opposed to a nuclear Iran.

Fiji

Egypt   Yes, Noam is correct

" the majority of the population supports Iran's nuclear ambitions. In its view, the American policy in the Middle East is guided by its support for Israel. Iran and Syria are the only countries in the region that challenge Israel and U.S. hegemony."

Note: this was before Mubarak was ousted, and now Egypt diplomats wish for a tenuous relations with Iran.

There are many more of the 120 that one might look at, but a random sampling of Noam's list of 120, as I took 20 minutes to look into,  would lead one to say, he is full of b.s.

More over, Chomski's knee jerk anti-Americanism leads types like Glenn Greenwald to hims like flies to a pile...

More Chompski

"

Most countries have voiced support for Iran's peaceful nuclear program and dismissed the West's accusations that the country might be concealing a nuclear weapons program. "

No, and the one's that do support a peaceful one, would be sad to know, Iran has not been upfront on the peaceful part.      And hat tip to Iran, you don't sound peaceful when always saying "Death to American and Death to Israel"!

Glenn Greenwald and Obama the Neocon

www.DemocracyNow.org – Political blogger Glenn Greenwald recently wrote about retired General Wesley Clark’s recollection of an officer telling him in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks that the then U.S. Secretary of Defense had issued a memo outlining a plan for regime change within five years in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. Democracy Now! broadcasts an excerpt of Clark’s comments and ask Greenwald to respond. “What struck me in listening to that video … is that if you go down that list of seven countries that he said the neocons had planned to basically change the governments of, you pretty much see that that vision, despite the perception that we have a Democratic president and therefore the neo-conservative movement is powerless, is pretty much being fulfilled,” Greenwald says.
=


Syria?   We have stayed out.


Lebanon?   Nope


Libya?  WE took part in a regime change.   We did not pick the new leader like neocons did in Iraq and Afghanistan and we took part mostly to forestall an eminent genocide on Benghazis.


Somalia?   Nope


Sudan?   Nope


Iran?   Nope


One has to mention Egypt as well, which had a regime change, but one opposite Neocons would have approved of, and one Bolton hates.


To sum up, Greenwald is one ignorant guy.

Obama and Gas Prices

From Huffingtonpost

2683 Fans

Unfan

My husband and son are both in the industry.  A few years ago, we were told the problem was due to inadequate refinery capabilities.  That is not the case now, not at all.  We do have greatly increased oil production here, our use of refined products has decreased, and oil output around the world exceeds needs.  Our refineries here pollute our air and water, and they are shipping the refined products out of the country, leaving us to deal with the consequences of that.  They have more than enough capacity and we have products stored everywhere.  The increase in the price of oil is due to speculation, and much of it has been justified due to the drums of war being stoked against Iran.  We are hearing the same individuals and the same groups drumming and then they are probably purchasing the futures and making money off their drive to war.  Besides, the real truth of it all is that the real problem is that the profit margin at the refinery level has expanded at astronomical percentages.  They are Enroning us.  Their rate of increase far exceeds the levels of increase in the price of oil, even though oil is being increased far more than it should be, as well.  Once again, our system is victimizing us and the same people are benefiting from it and lying about it.

Wow, what a fantastic post!


and another great comment..


If the amount of drilling is up 149% since 2009

AND

The demand for oil domestically is the lowest in 16 years

AND

We are producing more oil and exporting more oil than we have in 8 years

Why is the price of gas still so high?

I know that the trading on the three big commodity exchanges sets the price of crude, not the oil companies, but global demand is still a bit slack since a few years ago also.

Could it be that speculation is driving up the price?

According to the Commodity Futures Trading Association its estimated that speculation is driving up the cost of tank of gas in a Ford Explorer by $10 a tank.

Wow


===




But we need that Keyston oil to be independent?!

Hillary Clinton's Pisses off a Cowboy!

She had State Department pick a consulting firm beholden to keystone Pipeline to carry out environmental study of Sandhills for oil line.   Called Cardo Entrix.    In parts of the fragile Sandhills, one can did down 2 feet a hit water.   They said sure, no problem, but then, to mess up a sure deal, they pissed off a Nebraska cowboy.

Chris Hayes, Chris Hedges, and Whistleblowing

http://law.unl.edu/sites/unl.edu.college-of-law.law/files/alumni/transcript/docs/2011Fall/6_moberly_fall_2011.pdf

President Obama’s Whistleblowing Dilemma

-these are some parts of an amazing article that fairly covers the balance of secrecy and oversight.

By Richard Moberly, Associate Dean for Faculty and Associate Professor of Law1

In several ways, Obama has lived

up to these promises. The three

most prominent pieces of Obama’s

legislative agenda- the economic

stimulus package, the financial reform

bill and health care reform- all

included provisions that enhanced

whistleblower protections. Moreover,

Obama’s appointments to key

administrative positions in charge of

whistleblower protection consistently

have supported employee rights

and have worked steadily to unravel

the long-standing anti-whistleblower

bias in those agencies.

Obama’s administration has a track record of retaliating against

the employee and, in several cases, criminally prosecuting the

employee. In Obama’s view, there appears to be a difference

between “bad” whistleblowing, which he calls “leaking” when it

relates to national security, and “good” whistleblowing, which

relates to non-security issues.

=

The courts have weighed in on this

debate as well. The Supreme Court has

recognized that the president has the unrestricted

power to maintain secrecy by

declaring essential information confidential

or top secret and by issuing security

clearances in order to access that information.

Lower federal courts have eviscerated

the whistleblower protections Congress

put in place by narrowly interpreting

antiretaliation laws to allow administrative

agencies to revoke a whistleblower’s

security clearance (essentially a de facto

discharge because the whistleblower can

no longer satisfy the job’s requirements)

and to remove protection from whistleblowers

whose job duties include legal

compliance. Moreover, courts have recognized

a “state secrets” evidentiary doctrine

that compels courts to dismiss civil cases

that would require the government to

disclose state secrets.

=

reporter about military action he

believed to be illegal, but the information

could reveal classified information about

the country’s military capabilities. In that

case, disclosing national security information

could endanger people’s lives and

expose weaknesses that could be exploited

by our enemies, causing greater harm

than the typical whistleblower disclosure

related to financial matters or mismanagement.

Similarly, the documents revealed

to WikiLeaks provide some embarrassing

and often scandalous information, but they

revealed arguably little in the way of illegal

government conduct. Instead, they likely

damaged diplomatic relationships and undermined

government initiatives internationally.

Finally, even if the employee was

right about conduct being illegal, he or she

might not understand the larger context

for certain government conduct. We might

question whether an employee should

be the person balancing the costs of the

illegality against the costs to our national

security of revealing the information.

=

The whistleblowers

who exposed the Bush administration’s

domestic wire-tapping, secret CIA renditions

and waterboarding torture methods

revealed important information about

arguably illegal activities and also allowed

public debate about the way in which the

country fought the war on terror. Additionally,

it is clear that just because a

government official labels information

as “classified” does not mean it should be

classified. It is broadly recognized that the

government engages in a systematic and

unwarranted overclassification of documents

as “secret.” For example, last year

the federal government classified almost

77 million documents, a 40 percent

increase over the previous year.

=

Further, although WikiLeaks has

published numerous classified documents

revealing little in the way of illegality, the

website also published a disturbing video

about an apparently illegal attack on

Afghanistan civilians by a U.S. Army helicopter.

Illegal conduct, even in the name of

national security, simply should not be able

to hide behind a veil of secrecy. Indeed,

given the current lack of protection for national

security whistleblowers to use official

channels, the system ironically encourages

employees to disclose wrongdoing to the

press or to sources like WikiLeaks in the

hope of remaining anonymous.

Can we truly balance secrecy

=

Can we truly balance secrecy and

oversight? These are complex issues, and

cases like Thomas Drake should make

Congress and President Obama reconsider

whether the current balance skews too

far toward hiding important information

about misconduct from Congress and the

public. Statutory whistleblower provisions

either exclude national security employees

explicitly or only half-heartedly encourage

them to blow the whistle on misconduct.

In erecting ineffective measures, perhaps

we have failed to address either branch’s

concerns because the law neither fully encourages

whistleblowers to go to Congress

nor adequately maintains the secrecy that

is needed for some state secrets.

Answers about Iran's Nuclear Ambitions

The following are a few important segments of a fantastic NPR, Talk of the Nation radio program.

The reformist side has, for quite some time now, been supportive of improving relations with the United States, but they were sidelined after the political turmoil that occurred in 2009 and 2010. More recently, President Ahmadinejad has emerged as someone who has suggested that Iran would benefit from an improvement in relations with the United States, but he's been blocked by the supreme leader's camp.

SHUSTER: That's right. The Iranians have known to - have been known to discount their oil in the past in order to make sure that they have buyers for it. It's interesting, though, that a few weeks ago, the Chinese premier was in the Persian Gulf meeting with leaders of various Gulf states, obviously, to talk about the situation - the tense situation in the Gulf and the supply of oil. He went to Saudi Arabia and meet with other smaller Gulf Arab states, and he did not visit Tehran. And it was - it's believed that the discussions held, particularly with Saudi Arabia, were about whether Saudi Arabia could supply more oil to China in the event that there's some kind of an embargo imposed - serious embargo on Iran. Very interesting development, I thought.
====
The North Koreas certainly saw their acquiring of a nuclear weapon as a deterrent against attack, either from the United States or from South Korea or both. That example may be what's functioning in the minds of some Iranian leaders, if they are considering - and there are some who have said that they would like to see Iran acquire a bomb, not all but some. That might be the calculus that they are figuring in order to deter attack by the United States.


CONAN: There is talk of kicking Iran out of a program called SWIFT, which is based in Europe and which channels all of the financial transactions, pretty much, on the world market. It would pretty much cut off Iran's ability to export oil.


CONAN: Now the arrival of U.N. inspectors from the IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency, in Tehran, this is part of a series of inspections. So far, Iran has not shown them what they want to see. 

CONAN: There's also the letter that was sent to the P5-plus-1, that's the group of the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany. This is the group that's been negotiating with Iran on and off on its nuclear program; talks founded, what, I guess about a year ago.

SHUSTER: That's right.

======

-SHUSTER: I don't think that President Obama is against direct talks with Iran. He came into office in 2009 advocating diplomatic engagement with Iran. It turned out that it was difficult. The Iranians don't always cooperate in the ways that the U.S. negotiators would like.

Hillary Clinton, secretary of the state, at the same time essentially imposed preconditions for talks with the Iranians that included a suspension of their uranium enrichment activities, which is in a number of U.N. Security Council resolutions. And there came a point when it seemed fruitless to pursue that notion sometime in 2009, 2010.

_

CONAN: And this is an idea to restart those talks and apparently, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, without preconditions.

========

SHUSTER: That's right, and this seems to be an effort on the part of what you might consider to be the more open-minded faction in Iran, probably led by a current moderate who is foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, and there does seem to be some remote chance that this time around there could be some negotiations that could take place between Iran and the Europeans and the United States.

CONAN: And more talk of that just this past weekend in Israel, as senior officials from the U.S. and Britain were there, they say, to advise Israel: Please don't, or at least wait. Let's give sanctions a chance.

Yesterday, both Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Israel not to attack Iran, to give harsh international sanctions more time.

SHUSTER: I'm not sure. It's - I think it's quite clear that the Obama administration has no stomach for military action against Iran. The British don't, either.

We've seen, in the last six months, a complete collapse of the Iranian currency, which has made it very difficult for ordinary Iranians to travel, ordinary businessmen in Iran to borrow foreign currency to use to finance their imports. Things are quite difficult in Iran economically right now, perhaps more so than in many recent years.

So this is having some - it is having some kind of an effect.

SHUSTER: It's difficult to predict, and your question requires a prediction. But it's important to note that in less than two weeks, there will be a parliamentary election. It'll be the first important election nationwide since the disputed presidential election in 2009.

And it's unclear really what this is for. The authorities, the clerical authorities have already crossed off the ballot hundreds of more - let's say more reformist-oriented candidates. The formal opposition is not taking part because they felt that the 2009 presidential election was stolen from them, and they won't take part.

Iranian leaders even on the conservative side have always boasted that Iran is a democracy and always put great store in elections, even if they didn't like the outcome of elections. I think now there'll be a lot of - there'll be a lot of attention paid to the turnout and whether the Iranian public is willing to go back to the polls given all that's happened since the presidential election in 2009.

And there is talk of extra-constitutional actions that could take place. It's not a far-fetched scenario, but at this point, there's no concrete signs that something like that is going to take place. It certainly looks like the parliamentary elections will come off.

And what's also interesting about them is they pit two conservative camps against one another, one supporting the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and one supporting President Ahmadinejad. And Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have had some really rough times in the last couple of years.

SHUSTER: Yeah, that's right. It's - this has been a constant theme in Iranian politics for all these years. And what's interesting is that in the last 10, there's been a kind of competition that's emerged among different political factions in Iran, focused on who might get the credit for improving relations with the United States.

The reformist side has, for quite some time now, been supportive of improving relations with the United States, but they were sidelined after the political turmoil that occurred in 2009 and 2010. More recently, President Ahmadinejad has emerged as someone who has suggested that Iran would benefit from an improvement in relations with the United States, but he's been blocked by the supreme leader's camp.

And it's been argued, I think effectively, that the supreme leader needs the notion of an enemy in the United States in order to maintain his hold on power in Iran, that if the United States were to be removed as the so-called Great Satan, that might remove one of the bulwarks of the Islamic revolution in Iran and raise questions about the future.

On the Shiite crescent, I think it - we heard a great deal of fear expressed about a growing Shiite crescent after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the coming to power in Baghdad of a Shiite-led government that had friends in Tehran.

Things are so unpredictable in the Middle East, and now with more than a year of the Arab spring and this ongoing, very bloody confrontation in Syria, it looks less and less like Iran can maintain any kind of a regional control or even influence in politics, whether it seeks to ally with the Shiite in Baghdad or the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon or the Shiite protestors in Bahrain.

Iran seems set to lose its only real ally in the Arab world, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, and it seems that the Iranian leadership is floundering as far as making the claim that it continues to be the - to lead the Muslim world in the Middle East.

=

JOHN: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I was interested in knowing, is there any evidence at all that Iran wants or intends to have a program for nuclear weapons?

SHUSTER: That's - that sounds like a simple question to answer and it's not. It's a very complex question. And what's true is that Iran has been - has had a complex nuclear program - program of nuclear activities for more than 20 years. And it's fairly well known that before 2003, the Iranians actually had a full-pledged nuclear weapons program. It had started during the war with Iraq in the 1980s.

But after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the discovery of components of this nuclear weapons program, the Iranians shut it down, and there's seems to be - the conclusion that the U.S. intelligence community came to and the International Atomic Energy Agency, that in 2003 it was shut down. The question - the questions risen since 2003 is to whether they've restarted components of this nuclear weapon program, and that's what the senior delegation from IAEA is trying to find out about in Tehran today and tomorrow. And they've been trying to find out answers to some of their tougher questions for quite a number of years.

So - and there was a recent report from the International Atomic Energy Agency back in November that said - that essentially said, we have a lot of questions because there's a lot of evidence that components that could only be understood to be for a nuclear weapon have been undertaken in Iran in recent years. But the IAEA and the U.S. intelligence community have stopped short of saying that Iran has restarted a full-pledge nuclear weapons program so that...

JOHN: Sorry for that being been undertaken.

SHUSTER: Well, there are some evidence that there are experiments that had involved elements of a nuclear weapon that - elements of a nuclear program that could only be applied for nuclear weapon. Like, for instance, the senior delegation wants to visit a place called Parchin, which is a military base not far from Tehran where there were explosives tests in the past, and there were some kind of an encasement where high explosives were used. The IAEA believes this has something to do with the design of a nuclear weapon. They want to go and they want to see this place, and they want to talk to engineers and scientists who are involved in this place. The Iranians won't let them - haven't let them in the past and are likely to resist allowing them to see this place right now. But there is evidence and there are questions about whether these involved experiments that could only be applied to nuclear weapon technology.