January 3, 2012

Amnesty International on NDAA: ""Trust me" is not enough of a safeguard"

"Despite expressing serious reservations, the Obama administration has paved the way for legislation that will authorize indefinite detention. The bill places enormous power in the hands of future Presidents, and the only answer the President has is to say "trust me."

"Once any government has the authority to hold people indefinitely, the risk is that it can be almost impossible to rein such power in. President Obama has failed to take the one action – a veto – that would have blocked the dangerous provisions in the NDAA. In so doing, he has allowed human rights to be further undermined and given Al Qaeda a propaganda victory."

Amnesty International and over 45 other organizations will protest the NDAA and Guantanamo in front of the White House on January 11--the 10th anniversary of the "war on terror" prison. Sign up at http://www.amnestyusa.org/jan11.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/trust-me-is-not-enough-of-a-safeguard-says-amnesty-international-as-president-obama-signs-the-ndaa-i

January 2, 2012

Could we please have our buddy lists back?

January 2, 2012

Unaccountable Killing Machines: The True Cost of U.S. Drones

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/unaccountable-killing-machines-the-true-cost-of-us-drones/250661/

It's all good though! Obama made a joke about killing people with them!

"In other words, Jaffe is describing a system in which a decentralized apparatus carries out summary executions of people we're assured are bad and who are sometimes U.S. citizens, and the president knows about this but chooses not to exercise oversight or control of the process."

December 31, 2011

No [US] citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA

From the ACLU's statement on the signing of the NDAA.

"“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,” said Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA’s detention authority.”"

http://ggdrafts.blogspot.com/2011/12/aclu-statement-on-obamas-signing-of.html

December 29, 2011

DCOccupy.org has been seized.

http://occupydc.org/

This domain name has been seized by ICE-Homeland Security Investigations pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court under the authority of 18 U.S.C. Secs. 891 and 2323.

December 28, 2011

Republican Gary Johnson launches 3rd Party bid...

He's the Libertarian Party candidate...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/28/gary-johnson-launches-third-party-white-house-bid/

"Johnson is seen as having no realistic chance of winning the presidency, but polls suggest a third-party candidate could siphon enough support from the eventual Republican challenger to help Obama score another term."

December 21, 2011

FireDogLake: EPA Releases Groundbreaking Mercury and Air Toxics Rule

"The EPA has been under assault from the GOP for the past year, and this has led to some uncomfortable rollbacks and compromises. The Administration’s cancellation of new ozone standards was particularly galling. But today, the EPA came through with new rules on mercury and air toxics that will deliver massive public health benefits, in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Congress called for new mercury and air toxics standards 21 years ago, so this has been a long time coming."

....


The industry has three years to comply, and at that point we will have eliminated many of the sources of toxic air pollution from power plants in the US. You’re talking about preventing 11,000 preventable deaths, 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 cases of childhood asthma every year. That’s something to be proud of."

http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/12/21/epa-releases-groundbreaking-mercury-and-air-toxics-rule/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed