THE OWLS' NEST - Mostly U.S. Politics
FreedomWorks is opening up a whole new world of fighting symbols of injustice that don't exist. You know what? They should rent a bus, order themselves to sit at the back of the bus, then refuse to sit at the back of their own bus! Fight the power!
As Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy put it, this will be the “Christmas wish list for Halliburton,” and the border security industry, as at this year’s Border Security Expo, is visibly licking its chops. Senator Marco Rubio laid out the following list or, as the trade magazine Homeland Security Today called it,"treasure trove" of products that it expected to be ordered if the bill passed: 86 integrated fixed towers, 286 fixed camera systems, 232 mobile surveillance systems, 4,595 unattended ground sensors, 820 handheld equipment devices, 416 personal radiation detectors, 104 radiation isotope identification devices, 62 mobile automated targeting systems, 53 fiber-optic tank inspection scopes, 37 portable contraband detectors, 28 license plate readers, 26 mobile inspection scopes and sensors for checkpoints, nine land automated targeting systems, and eight non-intrusive inspection systems.More great news for defense contractors: The wonderful technology they're developing for use against potential invasion by Mexican nannies and gardeners can be exported! There are trouble spots all over the world where these wonderful new toys can be deployed -- starting with Israel. Coming soon: militarized borders everywhere! Good times!
In addition, Rubio said, the immigration bill would include "four unmanned aircraft systems, six VADER radar systems, 17 UH-1N helicopters, eight C-206H aircraft upgrades, eight AS-350 light enforcement helicopters, 10 Blackhawk helicopter 10 A-L conversions, five new Blackhawk M Model, 30 marine vessels, 93 sensor repeaters, 90 communications repeaters, two card-reader systems, five camera refresh, three backscatters, one radiation portal monitor, one littoral detection, one real-time radioscopy, and improved surveillance capabilities for existing aerostat."
The reform package calls for “persistent surveillance” and 24/7 drone flights, although the areas of these flights are not specified. Even before the Senate reform bill came into view, San Diego-based General Atomics was awarded a contract that would add 14 more drones to the current fleet of 10 used by Customs and Border Protection (CBP, the parent agency of the Border Patrol). CBP plans to have 18 drones in flight by 2016 and 24 in the years to follow patrolling US skies over cities such as San Diego, Tucson, and El Paso—not to speak, in the north, of Seattle, Detroit, and Buffalo.
Senator Ron Wyden is not an Obama hating emo-prog. He is a US Senator with Top Secret clearance and he knows all the details of these NSA surveillance programs and understands the implications of them in a free society. It would be advisable for those who think that this story can be discounted because you think Edward Snowden is a traitor or Glenn Greenwald is a twitter asshole to read Wyden's entire speech today to Center for American Progress.It's actually frightening to read. Senators Wyden, Udall, and Merkley have been trying for years to bring first Bush's, then Obama's policies on secret surveillance to the attention of the American public. They are severely limited by law as to what they can say about what they know -- if they say too much, they'll end up in a cell next to Bradley Manning (and Edward Snowden, if the government can get their hands on him).
In the pages of The Nation, the oldest continuously published weekly in the country and the self-described “flagship of the left,” a former member of the House of Representatives has called for the impeachment of the president over revelations of massive government surveillance of ordinary citizens.Wow (you may think), what a damning indictment of President Obama (you may think) -- and from a solid left-wing source! The lefties have turned on their own (you may think) and are attacking the president (you may think)!
Democrat Elizabeth Holtzman of New York, who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate era, powerfully yet dispassionately lays out the case for the immediate impeachment of the president.
“Nothing less is necessary to protect our constitutional system and preserve our democracy,” she declares.
The last straw for the retired Congresswoman was the revelation that the president “directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans” (a number that is likely conservative).
“As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment,” writes Holtzman in her bombshell treatise. “A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law — and repeatedly violates the law — thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office.”
The eloquent Harvard Law grad provides a devastating legal critique of the vast executive-branch scheme to log every phone call in the United States.
“It now appears that thousands of calls were monitored and that the information obtained may have been widely circulated among federal agencies,” Holtzman writes.
The skilled jurist also draws eerily ominous parallels between what’s happening right now and the actions of the corrupt Nixon administration.
“Among his other abuses of power, President Nixon ordered the FBI to conduct warrantless wiretaps of seventeen journalists and White House staffers,” Holtzman sagely explains. “In fact, the first illegal Nixon wiretap was of a reporter who, in 1969, revealed the secret bombing of Cambodia, a program that President Nixon wanted to hide from the American people and Congress.”
The president, Holtzman says, “has been guilty of such gross incompetence or reckless indifference to his obligation to execute the laws faithfully as to call into question whether he takes his oath seriously or is capable of doing so.”
Holtzman makes a remarkably unqualified argument against the president, leaving little doubt that The Nation is laying down strict principles, rather than engaging in some cheap situational attack that it would hypocritically abandon if, for example, the same abuses were being carried out by a president whose party and agenda the flagship left-wing magazine found more palatable.
To show just how serious she is about impeachment proceedings, the former House member concludes with expert guidance for Americans who want to see the president impeached.
“Drumming up public support means organizing rallies, spearheading letter-writing campaigns to newspapers, organizing petition drives, door-knocking in neighborhoods, handing out leaflets and deploying the full range of mobilizing tactics,” she writes.
“An energized public must in turn bear down on Congress. Constituents should request meetings with their Senators and Representatives to educate them on impeachment,” Holtzman concludes. They can also make their case through e-mail, letters and phone calls.”
At this juncture, The Daily Caller is not prepared to endorse the extreme measure Holtzman advises. Nevertheless, if you are, and if you would like to contact the Senators and Representatives who represent you to voice your views on impeachment, you can find their contact information here.
