The Conservative claim that the NAACP "demands" food stamps shows why Republicans still have racism issues

The Conservative claim that the NAACP "demands" food stamps shows why Republicans still have racism issues

If Rick Santorum is upset that pretty much nobody believed him when he said he wasn’t talking about “black people” living off “somebody else’s money,” he has Newt Gingrich to blame. A day after the GOP’s flavor of the week changed stories and claimed, “I didn’t say black,” when he said,  “I don’t want to make [something sounding like black] people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money,” Gingrich again called President Obama “the food stamp president.” He told reporters in New Hampshire, “I will go to the NAACP convention and tell the African-American community why they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps.”

On Thursday I performed the mental exercise of giving Santorum the benefit of the doubt, and laid out the way the GOP’s ’60s era rhetoric about “welfare queens” and “welfare cheats” has been updated to include much of the multiracial working class, including whites – including anyone who has a public sector job, a union-protected job, or collects unemployment, Social Security or Medicare. It seemed theoretically possible – while still hard to believe – that Santorum was merely sharing the new GOP line that we’re all welfare queens now, any of us who’ve ever benefited from a government program.

Then Gingrich made my thought exercise seem unduly kind, by demonstrating exactly why people should be inclined to distrust Santorum’s new story and believe he was talking about black people: The modern GOP seems unashamed of its prejudice.

It’s impossible not to believe that having our first black president unleashed a new round of GOP race-baiting, even leaving birtherism aside. In August, one of Obama’s few Republican friends, Sen. Tom Coburn, lapsed into shameful racial stereotyping trying to “defend” the president, telling an Oklahoma constituent that Obama’s “intent is not to destroy … It’s to create dependency because it worked so well for him … As an African-American male, coming through the progress of everything he experienced, he got tremendous benefit through a lot of these programs.” A black guy raised by a (white) single mother gets into Harvard Law School: In the everyday vocabulary of today’s Republican Party, he’s looking for a handout.

Ronald Reagan wrapped up the ugly racism of earlier Republicans in pretty paper when he claimed, “We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won,” and made the case that welfare — which he associated with Democrats — created “dependency” that harmed its recipients. You didn’t have to be angry or racist anymore to oppose welfare programs; you could say you were trying to help their recipients. Reagan also muted the rhetoric that associated welfare with race, at least a little. More than 30 years later, having a black president makes it seem safe, and necessary, to unwrap Reagan’s pretty paper and once again make plain the GOP’s political association between welfare and African-Americans.  Make that, having a black Democratic president. This wouldn’t happen to President Herman Cain, would it?

Whether it is now or the 1980s most people receiving aid to dependent children ( what everyone calls welfare, but requires that the recipient work forty hours a week) there are more white folks receiving it than African-Americans. Yet when conservatives talk about aid programs to help the working poor they always seem to drag black Americans into the discussion. Newt said "And so I'm prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps". Why didn't he say he was ready to meet with poor southern whites and ask why they don't demand paychecks instead of food stamps and having their jobs shipped to China because of conservative trade policy. 

His Royal Highness Mitt Romney Really Cares About The Workers

His Royal Highness Mitt Romney Really Cares About The Workers

Speaking to reporters tonight in Des Moines, Iowa, a worker laid off by a company owned by Bain Capital accused former Bain Capital CEO and current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney of being “out of touch” with the concerns of average Americans.  Randy Johnson and more than 250 of his fellow workers at a Marion, Indiana American Pad and Paper (AMPAD) facility lost their jobs after Bain decided to close the plant amid a labor dispute.  Johnson, who noted that he personally reached out to Romney during the labor dispute, said, “I really think [Romney] didn’t care about the workers. It was all about profit over people.”  In addition to the layoffs and eventual bankrupting of AMPAD, Bain Capital under Romney’s leadership drove several other firms into bankruptcy and caused thousands of layoffs.

Conservatives and of course the radical anti-American movement known as conservatism finds nothing wrong with this kind of dog-eat-dog crony capitalism. Fair and humane capitalism in the tradition of American values is considered communism by the rabid fake patriots like Romney.

Much of the World, Including The U.S., Does Does Practice Capitalism, They Practice Greed

Much of the World, Including The U.S., Does Does Practice Capitalism, They Practice Greed

For those looking for signs of how globalization has woven the world into a web of unexpected vulnerability, 2011 offered a bumper crop.

An earthquake in Japan sent the global auto manufacturing industry into a conniption.

A flood in Thailand drastically reduced supplies of computer hard drives, forcing even a titan like Intel to swiftly reduce revenue forecasts.

State-subsidized solar panel production in China crushed a U.S.-subsidized solar start-up, thereby igniting a Washington political scandal.

It is child’s play to find further examples. The underlying reality is that unexpected consequences make everyone nervous. Sensibilities are on hair trigger. Just two weeks ago, the New York Times captured the new jitteriness in a single quote. In a story reporting how U.S. stock traders were increasingly setting their alarm clocks for the middle of the night, in order to absorb the latest news from Europe as soon as it started to break, one stock analyst, Michael Mayo, complains in a tone of bemused wonder: “Who would have thought we would have to be looking at Italian sovereign debt yields to figure out what Morgan Stanley’s stock will do?”
For those who haven’t been living and dying on every twist and turn of the European financial crisis, some unpacking of that sentence may be in order. Most modern governments routinely auction some form of state-backed bonds or other securities in order to raise cash. If the bond investors aren’t excited about the opportunity — let’s suppose, just for argument’s sake, that they’re afraid the Italian economy is about to collapse — then Italy must offer a higher interest rate, or yield, on those bonds to attract buyers. The higher the yield, the more negative the bond market’s judgment is assumed to be.

But for most of November and December, the health of Italy’s debt sales became not merely a judgment on Italy’s economic health and fiscal stability, but a swiftly translated proxy for investor sentiment about the state of all Europe. If Italy ran into real trouble, so the theory went, France and Germany would soon be swept into the vortex. And a European recession would obviously be bad news for the rest of the world. So one unsuccessful auction in Rome becomes immediate cause for bearish sentiment in New York and Tokyo and Shanghai.

And no one wants to be caught more than one nanosecond out of the loop. If the orders go out to sell or buy, you want to get there first. Since now, more than ever, bad news travels fast, everyone’s got to be quick on the trigger.

It doesn’t seem healthy, but we’re going to have to get used to it. Volatility and vulnerability are built into the infrastructure of our modern world. The jury may still out on the chaos theory question of whether a single butterfly flapping its wings in Botswana can cause a typhoon in the Philippines, but we now know without a shadow of a doubt that the relative success or failure of a troubled European government’s attempt to raise cash can send instant shock waves across financial markets across the globe.

And we know, intimately, that it doesn’t take much to set off a cascade of trouble — after the great global crash of 2008, traders everywhere are in a state of permanent PTSD. Beyond the obvious surface connections between markets — that European recession slowing U.S. economic growth — there are abundant linkages beneath the scenes that are obscure and hard to unravel, interconnections woven by complex derivatives and hedging strategies and computer-driven high-speed trading algorithms that instantly translate woe in one market to panic in another.

The inescapable conclusion: Our modern high-tech markets, in which more money than ever before swirls around the globe in a blink of an eye, are better at transmitting panic and fear than anything heretofore created by humans. If civilization is supposed to imply progress, then something has gone very awry: In the second decade of the 21st century, our infrastructure is increasingly fragile, increasingly prone to disruption. The sword of Damocles hangs above everyone’s head, and the thread that keeps it from falling is fraying perilously thin.

What is perhaps most fascinating about this state of affairs is how it has arisen as a consequence of global capital’s relentless quest for lower operating costs and greater efficiency and flexibility. The better we get at extending supply and production chains across the globe, the more vulnerable those chains become to a disruption at any given point. The faster we enable the transmission of information around the world and through the financial markets, the more volatile those markets become, as every new headline sends a different trading signal.

 If you want to fix this, guess what, according to right-wing conservatives, you're a socialist. If you want a capitalist system, a free market system that does regularly crush the middle and blue collar class, you're a stinking commie. In America we just do not have adult conversations about how to make things better because any talk of making things better, more fair, less catastrophic gets you labeled a communist. Do you hope your kids will live in a fair enlighetned societyand does not have to go through the economic insecurity you have to live with? Forget it. The powers that be have decided that greed is good. The powers that be have decided any attempt to bring back regulations like Glass–Steagall Act to protect average Americans is Marxism on wheels.

Conservatives Keep Mangling American History - Maybe That is Why Their Agenda is Anti-American

Conservatives Keep Mangling American History - Maybe That is Why Their Agenda is Anti-American

The mortgage crisis began in 2006 and it’s all President Obama’s fault—at least according to Fox News host Sean Hannity. Hannity recently blamed [1] Obama—“his policies, his economic plan, his fault”—for the mortgage crisis, ignoring who was actually president (that would be George W. Bush) as the housing market slipped [2].

Hannity’s is just one example of the selective memory and historical revision frequently on display in the conservative movement. Right-wing pundits, politicians and pseudo-historians are nibbling away at objective historical truths to rewrite history for present-day purposes, and hardly any topic is off-limits: glorifying the “Reagan Revolution” to children, sugarcoating the Jim Crow South and revising textbooks to offer a favorable view on Phyllis Schlafly—among many others.

Below, read about eight ways in which conservatives try to rewrite, sugarcoat or ignore aspects of American history.

1. Michele Bachmann on the founding fathers and slavery. Propelled to the front of the Republican field after her victory in the Iowa straw poll, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann’s historical views are notoriously error-prone. In one her infamous gaffes, she said [3] the founding fathers “work[ed] tirelessly to end slavery” (in fact, George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves) and that John Quincy Adams [4] was a founding father—he was born in 1767.

Bachmann was a research assistant to John Eidsmoe for his 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith of our Founding Fathers, in which Eidsmoe wrote, “The church and the state have separate spheres of authority, but both derive authority from God. In that sense America, like [Old Testament] Israel, is a theocracy.”

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2. Secession was fine, dandy and legal. Texas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry is fond of pro-secession comments [7]; in 2009, he joked [8] that “we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.”

In his dreams. In fact, these attempts at humor sidestep what secession actually leads to: a nullification crisis, a Civil War, hundreds of thousands of casualties and the federal government as the victor anyway. And secession is illegal. In 1866 the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. White [9] that Texas’s ordinance of secession was “absolutely null.”

...3. Forgetting September 11? Conservatives have an uncanny ability to misremember when the September 11 attacks occurred. In July, Fox News [12] host Eric Bolling said “we were certainly safe between 2000 and 2008?—?I don’t remember any terrorist attacks on American soil during that period of time.” (In his “apology [13],” he accepted no blame: “Yesterday, I misspoke when saying that there were no US terror attacks during the Bush years. Obviously, I meant in the aftermath of 9/11, but that is when the radical liberal left pounced on us…. thank you liberals for reminding me how petty you can be.”)

A surprising slip came from ex–New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In January 2010 he claimed [14] that “we had no domestic attacks under Bush.”

.....4. Mike Huckabee’s “Learn Our History.” Mike Huckabee’s cartoon history series is whitewashing American history. While claiming to engage children in an easy-to-digest format without “misrepresentations…historical inaccuracies, personal biases and political correctness,” personal biases somehow make an appearance [17]. Each video is produced with consultation from Learn Our History’s “Council of Masters;” one “Master,” Larry Schweikart, is the author of 48 Liberal Lies About American History, including “Lie #45: LBJ’s Great Society Had a Positive Impact on the Poor.”

In a DVD [18] on the “Reagan Revolution,” viewers are invited to “journey to a time when America suffered from financial, international and moral crisis:” Washington, DC, 1977. A knife-wielding African-American man demands “gimme yo’ money!” Ronald Reagan’s arrival—against triumphant music playing and a caption reading “one man transformed the nation…and the world”—changed all that for the better, the DVD suggests.

5. The New Deal did harm. Anti–New Deal views have long reverberated among Republicans. Bachmann [19] blamed FDR for turning a recession into a depression by passing “Hoot-Smalley Tariff” (never mind that it’s Smoot-Hawley and it was passed three years prior to Roosevelt’s inauguration). And a barrage of recent books, including FDR’s Folly, by Jim Powell of the Cato Institute, and Amity Shlaes’s The Forgotten Man, blame FDR and the New Deal for prolonging the Depression. Newt Gingrich has praised [20] The Forgotten Man, with its anti-stimulus message, as a blueprint for a return to “Whig-style free-market liberalism.”

6. David Barton. An amateur-turned-“historian,” Barton is the founder of WallBuilders, a pseudo-historical organization “with an emphasis on the moral, religious, and constitutional foundation on which America was built,” says its website. One of his revisions [21] insists that John Adams claimed that government cannot exist without the Holy Ghost. In his presentations of the subject, Barton misunderstands Adams’s mocking statement about fervent believers in the Holy Ghost as historical truth, omitting succeeding sentences wherein Adams describes those beliefs to be “Artifice and Cunning.”

Barton’s claims about the religious roots of the country have been debunked from academics, even from Christian colleges. John Fea, chair of the history department at Messiah College, wrote [22], “Barton claims to be a historian. He is not. He has just enough historical knowledge, and just enough charisma, to be very dangerous.”

7. Texas Textbook Revisions. Last year the Texas Board of Education revised public school textbooks, expanding [23]discussion of Ronald Reagan at the expense of public figures like Justice Sonia Sotomayor, omitting reference to Thomas Jefferson as an Enlightenment thinker in favor of Protestant leader John Calvin, and offering favorable views [24] on Senator Joseph McCarthy, women’s rights opponent Phyllis Schlafly and the Heritage Foundation.

Many historians opposed [25] the changes—but the board voted along party lines [26] to approve of the revisions. Nearly 5 million Texas students live with the result.

8. Jim Crow wasn’t that bad. Last December, Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi sugarcoated Jim Crow–era Mississippi, saying [27] of his native Yazoo County, “I just don’t remember it as being that bad,” and, “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders.”

In reality, 1960s Mississippi was 42 percent black, of which only 2 percent were registered to vote, according to the nonprofit African-American Registry [28]. Civil rights activists were murdered [29] and students rioted [30] against integration. “Not bad” indeed! 

The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were both based on Liberal political theory. Democracy itself is a liberal concept. As is small-r republicanism. The latter is tricky, trying to find the balance between individual rights and the other extreme where everyone, citing their individual rights, does anything they please. Conservatives plainly do not believe in balance. They believe the financial elite should have all the power and run the country instead of the people.

Radically UnAmerican, Republicans Intent on Bringing Back Elements of Jim Crow Laws

Radically UnAmerican, Republicans Intent on Bringing Back Elements of Jim Crow Laws

A 93-year-old Tennessee woman who cleaned the state Capitol for 30 years, including the governor’s office, says she won’t be able to vote for the first time in decades after being told this week that her old state ID failed to meet new voter ID regulations.

Thelma Mitchell was even accused of being an undocumented immigrant because she couldn’t produce a birth certificate:

    Mitchell, who was delivered by a midwife in Alabama in 1918, has never had a birth certificate. But when she told that to a drivers’ license clerk, he suggested she might be an illegal immigrant.

    Thelma Mitchell told WSMV-TV that she went to a state drivers’ license center last week after being told that her old state ID from her cleaning job would not meet new regulations for voter identification.

A spokesman for the House Republican Caucus insisted that Mitchell was given bad information and should’ve been allowed to vote, even with an expired state ID. But even if that’s the case, her ordeal illustrates the inevitable disenfranchisements that result when confusing voting laws enable state officials to apply the law inconsistently.

The incident is the just latest in a series of reports of senior citizens being denied their constitutional right to vote under restrictive new voter ID laws pushed by Republican governors and legislatures. These laws are a transparent attempt to target Democrat constituencies who are less likely to have photo ID’s, and disproportionately affect seniors, college students, the poor and minorities.

As ThinkProgress reported, one 96-year-old Tennessee woman was denied a voter ID because she didn’t have her marriage license. Another senior citizen in Tennessee, 91-year-old Virginia Lasater, couldn’t get the ID she needed to vote because she wasn’t able to stand in a long line at the DMV. A Tennessee agency even told a 86-year-old World War II veteran that he had to pay an unconstitutional poll tax if he wanted to obtain an ID.

Conservatives can shroud their radical UnAmerican agenda in five layers of Flags and Bibles to hide the stench. At the end of the day there is nothing patriotic about the conservative agenda. Wake up America, the anti-democracy movement known as conservatism is destroying our democratic republic one step at a time.

Yet Another Anti-American Republican Ignores Constitution - Gingrich Front Group Calls For Punishing Judges By Eliminating Their Court

Yet Another Anti-American Republican Ignores Constitution - Gingrich Front Group Calls For Punishing Judges By Eliminating Their Court

Earlier this month, a unanimous panel of 9th Circuit judges held that a 43-foot tall Latin cross cannot constitutionally be displayed on federal land in San Diego. Even though this decision flows naturally from the First Amendment and from Supreme Court decisions forbidding the government from endorsing Christianity — or any other faith — above others, the right’s reaction to this decision has been predictably apoplectic.

Perhaps the most unhinged reaction comes from Newt Gingrich’s Renewing American Leadership, which proclaims that the judges who decided this case must be punished by having their court abolished:

    Upon ascending to the presidency, Jefferson then did something remarkable — he and his congressional allies passed the Judicial Act of 1803 that simply abolished the newly-created judgeships and the courts they presided over. He reminded the deposed judges that they had no cases to hear, no building in which to hear them, and no funding for their salaries. The former judges took their case to the Supreme Court, demanding that their positions be restored. Under the plain terms of the Constitution, however, they didn’t have a leg to stand on, and President Jefferson emerged victorious.

    Today we face a similar issue: those whose policies are unable to win at the ballot box are seeking to build a stronghold of government power in the courts, without needing to garner a single vote. Just as it did in 1803, the Executive and Legislative branches could take action today and ”reorganize” the Ninth Circuit Court right out of existence!

Gingrich himself made a similar argument last year, when he told the now-floundering CPAC convention that Thomas Jefferson’s “judicial reform act of 1802 abolished 18 out of 35 federal judges, over half…I am more cautious than Jefferson. I would only abolish the Ninth Circuit Court.” This proposal, however, has one big flaw: the United States Constitution.

The Constitution provides that “[t]he judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office,” a provision which exists entirely to prevent Congress from strong-arming judges by threatening their jobs. While there is some precedent for reducing the size of a judge’s area of jurisdiction for non-punitive reasons — the 5th Circuit was split into two circuits in 1981 after it became too large and unwieldy — an Act of Congress which effectively stripped a court’s judges of all their responsibilities would certainly run afoul of the Constitution.

Moreover, while Gingrich is correct that Jefferson did unconstitutionally abolish several federal judgeships, this precedent is best read as a sign that the framers, while brilliant, were no less capable of letting their passions overcome their ability to follow the Constitution than modern lawmakers occasionally prove to be. Indeed, Jefferson himself came to power in part because of a nationwide backlash against wildly unconstitutional laws passed by his predecessor.

Ultimately, however, the most frightening thing about Gingrich’s proposal isn’t its direct conflict with the Constitution, but the implications of such a violation of the Constitution for a fair and impartial judiciary. The framers protected judges from exactly this kind of intimidation because they knew that judges cannot be trusted to enforce unpopular laws or to extend the law’s protection over unpopular groups if they constantly have to watch their backs. At the end of the day, Gingrich’s proposal is nothing more than another sign of the right’s utter contempt for the Constitution and the law.

Gingrich is supposed to be one of the big thinkers of the Anti-American conservative movement. Which just goes to prove how low their standards are to be considered a great thinker.

The Indefinite Detention Provisions in the NDAA Does Mean U.S. Citizens May be Detained Indefinitely by the Military. Obama Has Withdrawn Veto Threat So There Goes the 4th Amendment

The Indefinite Detention Provisions in the NDAA Does Mean U.S. Citizens May be Detained Indefinitely by the Military. Obama Has Withdrawn Veto Threat So There Goes the 4th Amendment

Even at this 11th hour – when all of our liberties and freedom are about to go down the drain – many people still don’t understand that the indefinite detention bill passed by Congress allows indefinite detention of Americans on American soil.

The bill is confusing. As Wired noted on December 1st:

    It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”

A retired admiral, Judge Advocate General and Dean Emeritus of the University of New Hampshire School of Law also says that it applies to American citizens on American soil.

The ACLU notes:

    Don’t be confused by anyone claiming that the indefinite detention legislation does not apply to American citizens. It does. There is an exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032 of the bill), but no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial (section 1031 of the bill). So, the result is that, under the bill, the military has the power to indefinitely imprison American citizens, but it does not have to use its power unless ordered to do so.

    But you don’t have to believe us. Instead, read what one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Lindsey Graham said about it on the Senate floor: “1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”

Another sponsor of the bill – Senator Levin – has also repeatedly said that the bill applies to American citizens on American soil, citing the Supreme Court case of Hamdi which ruled that American citizens can be treated as enemy combatants:

    “The Supreme Court has recently ruled there is no bar to the United States holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant,” said Levin. “This is the Supreme Court speaking.“

Levin again stressed recently that the bill applies to American citizens, and said that it was president Obama who requested that it do so:

Under questioning from Rand Paul, another co-sponsor – John McCain – said that Americans suspected of terrorism could not only be indefinitely detained, but could be sent to Guantanamo:

U.S. Congressman Justin Amash states in a letter to Congress:

    The Senate’s [bill] does not even distinguish between American citizens and non-citizens, or between persons caught domestically and abroad. The President’s power, in his discretion, to detain persons he determines have supported associated forces applies just as strongly to Americans seized on U.S. soil as it does to foreigners captured on a far away battlefield.

Two retired 4-star generals (Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar) write in the New York Times:

    One provision [in the bill] 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.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson – General Colin Powell’s chief of staff – says that the bill is a big step towards tyranny at home.  Congressman Ron Paul says that it will establish martial law in America.

One of the reasons this will pass is that most people are more concerned about their holiday shopping than they are about the Constitution and their rights being trampled. people think the military and the government will not come after them by mistake. It will only happen to the bad guys. Its the government by luck theory of rights.

To Fight Terrorism The US Senate Has Declared The Military Can Detain Americans Without Trial or Legal Representation

To Fight Terrorism The US Senate Has Declared The Military Can Detain Americans Without Trial or Legal Representation

Three years ago, former Guantánamo Bay detainee Mustafa Ait Idr cautiously sat with me in a Sarajevo café, spilling hot coffee as he brought the cup to his lips. Though it was seven months after his release, he was still nursing a broken finger – punishment, he said, for refusing to strip naked in his cell – and was unable to fully grasp the cup due to his loss of dexterity. His face was also partially paralysed from beatings, and he told me how his head was held in a toilet for prolonged periods of time.

Upon his release, he met his youngest son for the first time. Ait Idr was one of "the Algerian Six", a group of European (mainly Bosnian) citizens unlawfully detained at Guantánamo Bay for seven years. In 2008, a US federal judge ordered the release of five of the six men during the first-ever Guantánamo Bay habeas corpus trial. Just to obtain that trial, the men had to prevail in a 5-4 decision from the US supreme court. No charges were ever filed against them.

If the new National Defence Authorisation Act is enacted into law as it is currently written, many believe that American citizens would be in danger of enduring similar indefinite military detention without cause. Last week, the US Senate passed the NDAA, a massive $662bn defense bill with provisions that would amplify the role of the military in the seizure and detention of terror suspects, including US citizens. The act, a lovechild of Senators Carl Levin (Democrat) and John McCain (Republican), would permit the indefinite military detention of US citizens without charges or a trial. While the confusing bill is still a work in progress (the Senate and the House have yet to settle upon a final bill that will go to the president), it is already drawing fierce controversy across the country.

The NDAA holds that the military has the authority to detain "a person who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban, or associated forces […] without trial" and authorises "transfer to the custody or control of the person's country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity". This implies that a naturalised American citizen could be exiled to their country of origin, even if it endangers their life. It also implies that an American citizen born in the US could be transferred to another "foreign entity".

So, what exactly does "other foreign entity" include? No one is quite sure, but an "entity" akin to the new mercenary company in Abu Dhabi run by Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, cannot be ruled out.

There is confusion as to whether the NDAA applies to US citizens; but Section 1031 of the bill does indeed authorise indefinite military detention, without trial, of US citizens accused – not yet proven guilty, just accused – of terrorist acts. This was clarified in the following exchange on the floor of the Senate:

    Senator Rand Paul (Republican): "Under the provisions, would it be possible that an American citizen then could be declared an enemy combatant and sent to Guantánamo Bay and detained indefinitely?"

    Senator John McCain (Republican): "I think that as long as that individual, no matter who they are, if they pose a threat to the security of the United States of America, should not be allowed to continue that threat."

Section 1032 of the bill would require mandatory military custody of someone accused of being affiliated with al-Qaida or plotting attacks against the US; American citizens would be exempt from this specific measure. Aside from the unabashed disregard for civil liberties, placing the burden of detention and trial upon the military, rather than civilian law enforcement, diminishes and delegitimises the FBI's role in counter-terrorism efforts. This could make it challenging to collaboratively gather intelligence on domestic terror cells.

The proposed changes would require the military to act as police, wardens and judges – jobs for which it is not equipped. Highly-decorated General Paul Eaton (US Army, retired), has affirmed this, saying:

    "After serving for more than 30 years in the military, I can attest to its ability to conduct warfare brilliantly. We prefer not, however, to serve as policemen. The armed forces are not staffed, trained or equipped […] Our police, FBI and prison system are designed to keep America safe."

Senator Mark Udall (Democrat) sponsored an unsuccessful pitch to omit the controversial detainee portions, but his motion was defeated. The Senate also rejected a measure by Senator Dianne Feinstein (Democrat) to limit mandatory military custody to those captured outside the US. It failed (by a 45-55 vote), with only three Republicans voting in favor. Senator Feinstein did, however, succeed in pushing through a measure that ensures that the bill does not affect "existing law".

It it some though thin solace that President Obama has promised to veto the bill as written. Any adult reading this has very likely been falsely accused of doing wrong during their life. False accusations are cheap by the dozen. If the new National Defense Authorization Act is passed a as written it is not just your reputation that might take a beating, you can be hauled off to a military prison and never given the chance to defend yourself. A nice gift to any personal enemies you have made in life, but not much justice as guaranteed under the 4th Amendment, for you.

America's Crazy Drug War - Why Are Cops Losing Their Jobs for Questioning the Drug War?

America's Crazy Drug War - Why Are Cops Losing Their Jobs for Questioning the Drug War?

With so much bloodshed, hundreds of thousands incarcerated, and millions of families torn apart, one would have to be blind not to question the failed war on drugs. Given their close proximity to the devastation it has wrought, it’s only natural that the police and Border Patrol officers tasked with executing the drug war for the last four decades would have the strongest views. Yet, around the country, some have been fired for criticizing the drug war as well as supporting drug decriminalization.

On April 13, 2009, 26-year-old Bryan Gonzalez was patrolling the U.S.–Mexican border near Deming, New Mexico, when he pulled up next to fellow agent Shawn Montoya for a break. The two began a casual discussion about the drug-related violence in Mexico, at which point Gonzalez shared his belief that drug legalization would end both the drug war and the cartel violence. When Montoya asked why Mexicans cross the border and steal jobs, Gonzalez responded that Mexicans came to the United States due to a lack of available jobs in Mexico.

Although he was born in the United States, Gonzalez informed Montoya that he had dual U.S.–Mexican citizenship until the age of 18, which gave him a unique understanding and sympathy for the migrants who cross the border. Gonzalez also mentioned Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, an organization of mostly retired law enforcement officials opposed to the drug war.

Little did Gonzalez know that know that voicing his beliefs would cost him his job. According to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, he was reported to his supervisor, who sent word of the exchange to the Joint Intake Command in Washington, D.C., which launched an investigation into the matter.

In October 2009, after two years as a officer with excellent reviews from his employer, Gonzalez received a letter of termination from the Border Patrol, citing his “personal views that were contrary to the core characteristics of Border Patrol agents, which are patriotism, dedication, and esprit de corps.”

“I was terminated not because my service was inadequate, but because I hold certain opinions that are shared by millions of my fellow Americans,” Gonzalez is quoted as saying in an ACLU press release. “I am no less patriotic or dedicated to excellence in my work because I respectfully disagree with some of our current border enforcement policies. It was wrong for the U.S. Border Patrol to retaliate against me for exercising my free speech rights guaranteed by the very Constitution I swore to uphold.”

Micah McCoy, communications specialist at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico, told AlterNet, “People don’t give up the right to have a political opinion when they put on a uniform of a government agency.” McCoy specified that Gonzalez was not expressing his view as a representative of the border patrol.  “It’s not like he was going on TV and saying all drugs should be legalized. He was having a casual conversation with a coworker that was reported to a supervisor by a third party who wasn’t even present during the conversation. And Bryan subsequently got fired for it.”

In January, the ACLU of New Mexico filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of Gonzalez. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is trying to have the case thrown out on behalf of the Border Patrol because Gonzalez has already lost a discrimination complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which backed the Border Patrol’s position that Gonzalez could no longer be trusted to uphold the law.

The more disturbing element to this story is that the retaliation against Gonzalez for his critical view of the drug war is not an isolated incident. Several law enforcement officers have faced similar reprisals for questioning the wisdom of U.S. drug policies. 

Its shame that outdated drug law policy cannot even be questioned. Making drugs such as marijuana legal would remove that completely from the costly court and jail system. Making the penalties for other drugs much lower would remove the very element of risk that inflates the costs that gives some pretty awful people motivation to commit more serious violent crime to protect their profits.

Protect Internet Freedom, America Must Act to Prevent This Attack On Our Democratic Republic - The PROTECT IP Act Is Very Real and Very Bad — Call Now to Block It

Protect Internet Freedom, America Must Act to Prevent This Attack On Our Democratic Republic - The PROTECT IP Act Is Very Real and Very Bad — Call Now to Block It

The PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) is the evil step-sister of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the much-criticized Internet blacklist bill introduced in the House last month. They’ve got a lot in common — both bills would allow the government and private rightsholders to censor the Internet for Americans, and both bills have faced strong opposition from regular citizens, business leaders, and public interest groups.

In one way, though, PIPA is much worse: while SOPA is still in the House committee stage and has been the target of extraordinary public opposition, PIPA is already out of committee and poised for consideration of the full Senate. That means PIPA is a few dangerous steps further along in the process of becoming law. And with only a few weeks to go in this legislative session, the Senate may try to rush the bill through before the public has a chance to respond.

We're not going to let that happen. Despite their efforts to push this through under the radar, folks who care about the Internet and innovation are tracking this bill and getting the word out. You can help, in an old-school and very effective way: Pick up the phone.

Right now, the best response to this threat is to let your Senator hear your voice, explaining why you as a constituent think PIPA is such a bad idea. That’s why we’ve joined with many other public interest groups, including Public Knowledge, Fight for the Future, Demand Progress and others, in asking the public to call in to the Senate.

Even if you’ve already used our action alert (and thank you), please take a few minutes now and get on the phone with your Senator’s office. Let them know that Internet censorship is unacceptable.

Here are some talking points for you to mention during the phone call:

    Hello, my name is [YOUR NAME] and I am a constituent of the Senator.

    I think S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act, is a bad idea, and I hope the Senator will stand against it.

    PROTECT IP is overbroad, and could be used as a tool for online censorship. Further, it creates a bad precedent internationally for fragmenting the Internet.

    Thank you for your consideration, and for acting against this dangerous bill.

Find your state in the list below to get the phone numbers for your Senators. If your Senator has already spoken out against PIPA, his or her name will be in bold text. Please call to thank them for their position!

Big content is not going to give up on the idea that the best way to protect its slow-moving business model is to ensure that it gets to dictate the pace of innovation.  Let’s send a signal that the next generation of creators and innovators will not let big content decide the future of the Internet.

Help us spread the word!

Once you’ve called your Senators, there are still more steps you can take to fight this disastrous bill. Tell your friends, in person, on Facebook, or on Twitter, and ask them to call their Senators. You can join over 100,000 Americans who have signed a Demand Progress petition — Senator Ron Wyden has promised to read from the list if he needs to filibuster the bill. And if you haven’t yet used our action alert, act now to e-mail your legislators with your opposition.

State     Senator     Phone
Alabama     Richard Shelby     (202) 224-5744
Alabama     Jeff Sessions     (202) 224-4124
Alaska     Lisa Murkowski     (202) 224-6665
Alaska     Mark Begich     (202) 224-3004
Arizona     John McCain     (202) 224-2235
Arizona     Jon Kyl     (202) 224-4521
Arkansas     Mark Pryor     (202) 224-2353
Arkansas     John Boozman     (202) 224-4843
California     Dianne Feinstein     (202) 224-3841
California     Barbara Boxer     (202) 224-3553
Colorado     Mark Udall     (202) 224-5941
Colorado     Michael Bennet     (202) 224-5852
Connecticut     Joe Lieberman     (202) 224-4041
Connecticut     Richard Blumenthal     (202) 224-2823
Delaware     Tom Carper     (202) 224-2441
Delaware     Chris Coons     (202) 224-5042
Florida     Bill Nelson     (202) 224-5274
Florida     Marco Rubio     (202) 224-3041
Georgia     Saxby Chambliss     (202) 224-3521
Georgia     Johnny Isakson     (202) 224-3643
Hawaii     Daniel Inouye     (202) 224-3934
Hawaii     Daniel Akaka     (202) 224-6361
Idaho     Mike Crapo     (202) 224-6142
Idaho     Jim Risch     (202) 224-2752
Illinois     Dick Durbin     (202) 224-2152
Illinois     Mark Kirk     (202) 224-2854
Indiana     Richard Lugar     (202) 224-4814
Indiana     Dan Coats     (202) 224-5623
Iowa     Chuck Grassley     (202) 224-3744
Iowa     Tom Harkin     (202) 224-3254
Kansas     Pat Roberts     (202) 224-4774
Kansas     Jerry Moran     (202) 224-6521
Kentucky     Mitch McConnell     (202) 224-2541
Kentucky     Rand Paul     (202) 224-4343
Louisiana     Mary Landrieu     (202) 224-5824
Louisiana     David Vitter     (202) 224-4623
Maine     Olympia Snowe     (202) 224-5344
Maine     Susan Collins     (202) 224-2523
Maryland     Barbara Mikulski     (202) 224-4654
Maryland     Ben Cardin     (202) 224-4524
Massachusetts     John Kerry     (202) 224-2742
Massachusetts     Scott Brown     (202) 224-4543
Michigan     Carl Levin     (202) 224-6221
Michigan     Debbie Stabenow     (202) 224-4822
Minnesota     Amy Klobuchar     (202) 224-3244
Minnesota     Al Franken     (202) 224-5641
Mississippi     Thad Cochran     (202) 224-5054
Mississippi     Roger Wicker     (202) 224-6253
Missouri     Claire McCaskill     (202) 224-6154
Missouri     Roy Blunt     (202) 224-5721
Montana     Max Baucus     (202) 224-2651
Montana     Jon Tester     (202) 224-2644
Nebraska     Ben Nelson     (202) 224-6551
Nebraska     Mike Johanns     (202) 224-4224
Nevada     Harry Reid     (202) 224-3542
Nevada     Dean Heller     (202) 224-6244
New Hampshire     Jeanne Shaheen     (202) 224-2841
New Hampshire     Kelly Ayotte     (202) 224-3324
New Jersey     Frank Lautenberg     (202) 224-3224
New Jersey     Bob Menendez     (202) 224-4744
New Mexico     Jeff Bingaman     (202) 224-5521
New Mexico     Tom Udall     (202) 224-6621
New York     Chuck Schumer     (202) 224-6542
New York     Kirsten Gillibrand     (202) 224-4451
North Carolina     Richard Burr     (202) 224-3154
North Carolina     Kay Hagan     (202) 224-6342
North Dakota     Kent Conrad     (202) 224-2043
North Dakota     John Hoeven     (202) 224-2551
Ohio     Sherrod Brown     (202) 224-2315
Ohio     Rob Portman     (202) 224-3353
Oklahoma     Jim Inhofe     (202) 224-4721
Oklahoma     Tom Coburn     (202) 224-5754
Oregon     Ron Wyden     (202) 224-5244
Oregon     Jeff Merkley     (202) 224-3753
Pennsylvania     Bob Casey, Jr.     (202) 224-6324
Pennsylvania     Pat Toomey     (202) 224-4254
Rhode Island     Jack Reed     (202) 224-4642
Rhode Island     Sheldon Whitehouse     (202) 224-2921
South Carolina     Lindsey Graham     (202) 224-5972
South Carolina     Jim DeMint     (202) 224-6121
South Dakota     Tim Johnson     (202) 224-5842
South Dakota     John Thune     (202) 224-2321
Tennessee     Lamar Alexander     (202) 224-4944
Tennessee     Bob Corker     (202) 224-3344
Texas     Kay Bailey Hutchison     (202) 224-5922
Texas     John Cornyn     (202) 224-2934
Utah     Orrin Hatch     (202) 224-5251
Utah     Mike Lee     (202) 224-5444
Vermont     Patrick Leahy     (202) 224-4242
Vermont     Bernie Sanders     (202) 224-5141
Virginia     Jim Webb     (202) 224-4024
Virginia     Mark Warner     (202) 224-2023
Washington     Patty Murray     (202) 224-2621
Washington     Maria Cantwell     (202) 224-3441
West Virginia     Jay Rockefeller     (202) 224-6472
West Virginia     Joe Manchin     (202) 224-3954
Wisconsin     Herb Kohl     (202) 224-5653
Wisconsin     Ron Johnson     (202) 224-5323
Wyoming     Mike Enzi     (202) 224-3424
Wyoming     John Barrasso     (202) 224-6441

Almost all these senators have contact them by e-mail entries on their websites for those who either want to double up on your contact efforts or e-mail is just more convenient..