Countdown: Bush Admin Office of legal Counsel memos + Bush Lawyers Approved Constitution-Free Domestic Military Ops, Docs Show

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firedoglake

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Justice Department Releases Bush Administration National Security Memos

American Civil Liberties Union
(3/2/2009)
Newly Released Legal Documents Responsive To ACLU Lawsuit
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The Justice Department today released nine secret memos and opinions written by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that authorized some of the Bush administration’s unlawful national security policies, including a memo written by OLC lawyer John Yoo that argued the Fourth Amendment does not apply to military activities inside the United States. Some of the memos are responsive to American Civil Liberties Union lawsuits seeking OLC legal opinions and other government records.

In a recent letter to the Obama administration, the ACLU called on the OLC to release, at the earliest possible date, dozens of still-secret legal memos related to interrogation, detention, rendition, surveillance and other Bush administration policies.

Life after oil: alternative power

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RussiaToday

According to various estimates, the proven reserves of oil are expected to last for anywhere between 30 to 80 years. How then are we going to get energy after the sources have been depleted? What will life look like after oil? Find the answers in a new XL Report only on RT.

Cash-Starved States Need To Play The Banking Game: North Dakota Shows How by Dr. Ellen Brown

by Dr. Ellen Hodgson Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Ellen’s post
webofdebt.com
Mar. 2, 2009

“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”
– Francis Bacon

On February 19, 2009, California narrowly escaped bankruptcy, when Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger put on his Terminator hat and held the state senate in lockdown mode until they signed a very controversial budget.1 If the vote had failed, the state was going to be reduced to paying its employees in I.O.U.s. California avoided bankruptcy for the time being, but 46 of 50 states are insolvent and could be filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings in the next two years.2

One of the four states that is not insolvent is an unlikely candidate for the distinction – North Dakota. As Michigan management consultant Charles Fleetham observed last month in an article distributed to his local media:

“North Dakota is a sparsely populated state of less than 700,000, known for cold weather, isolated farmers and a hit movie – Fargo. Yet, for some reason it defies the real estate cliché of location, location, location. Since 2000, the state’s GNP has grown 56%, personal income has grown 43%, and wages have grown 34%. This year the state has a budget surplus of $1.2 billion!”

Preaching to the Choir? By Timothy V. Gatto + video

By Timothy V. Gatto
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
liberalpro.blogspot.com
March 2, 2009

There are so many of my fellow countrymen that wish Barack Obama were really the answer to this nations errant wandering. So far, since World War II, we have seen this nation violate just about every humanitarian principle ever developed by a modern civilization. We have overthrown governments for monetary gain, for the industrialists and the agricultural elite, for resources and markets, defying international law, and succeeding. We have become not a representative republic; the form of government proposed in The Constitution by our forefathers, instead we seem to have opted for a military oligarchy.

Last Rites for the United States, and Himself by Walter C. Uhler

Dandelion Salad

Sent to DS from the author, thanks, Walter.

by Walter C. Uhler
www.walter-c-uhler.com
2 March 2009

A Review of Last Rites, by John Lukacs

In 1990, at the age of sixty-five, John Lukacs wrote a well-received “auto-history” entitled Confessions of an Original Sinner. Now, almost twenty years later, Mr. Lukacs has given his readers part two: Last Rites. The book not only appears to constitute a valedictory for an erudite and influential 85 year old man — who admits that his curiosity, reading and appetite for life are weakening — but also the swan song for the five hundred years of European culture carried forward, until recently, by the United States.

Which is to say that Mr. Lukacs sees signs of America’s decadence all around: academics who neither buy nor read books, the widespread decline of serious reading, “the rapid deterioration of attention, the nervous constriction of its span,” an “unwillingness to think,” the rise of pictorial culture (a new “Dark Ages of symbols, pictures, images, abstractions”), and, most ominously, the emergence of a militaristic political conservatism in the United States.

He notes: “In 1950 there was not one American public or political or academic or intellectual figure who declared himself a ‘conservative.’ By 1980 more Americans declared themselves ‘conservatives’ than ‘liberals.'” Accompanying this rise of political conservatism was a “militarization of the popular imagination” that abetted the replacement of normal patriotism with aggressive nationalism.

“The Last Picture Show”: President Barack Obama’s Fiscal Year 2009 Budget by Richard C. Cook

by Richard C. Cook
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
richardccook.com
March 2, 2009

[“The Last Picture Show” was a 1971 film depicting the decay of small town America. It took place in the fictitious town of Anarene, Texas.]

We Hold These Truths by Richard C. Cook

Originally uploaded by Lorri37

We hear a distant tune reminiscent of America’s high and lonely places and the sound of a dry wind blowing. It’s March 2010 in the tiny West Texas town of Anarene. Nothing much happens here any more. The last business shut down a couple of years ago. It was a cement plant that went broke after the housing bubble burst and the banks stopped lending. The kids out of high school drive their jalopies from one end of Main Street to the other past boarded-up storefronts.

Some of the grown-ups carpool to low-wage jobs in a city 50 miles down the road. The elderly have had their Social Security eaten up by the high price of food but still get by on Spam and Kool-Aid. There used to be a movie theater, but it too closed a few months ago. Not a single person went to the “Last Picture Show.”

Addiction to War, Cindy Sheehan interviews Chris Hedges

Cindy Sheehan for Congress

by Cindy Sheehan
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
March 2, 2009

Addiction to War – March 1, 2009 (SOAPBOX #9, with Journalist Christopher Hedges)

Have you ever wondered just why military suicides happen so often these days?  This Sunday (March 1) our Soapbox showcases Journalist Christopher Hedges, former Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times.  Chris is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City.  He has been a war correspondent since 1983, and he has covered nearly every military struggle the US has been engaged in since that time.  He presents vivid insight into the psychology of war – especially in terms of its effects on our troops in the field, and on the American public who they defend.  Listen to Chris’ depiction of the nature and depth of the disconnect such violent combat engenders.  Give him a listen, and then take a fresh look at all the factors:  Ask yourself:  What is our great nation doing to its young?

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It’s Obama’s War, Now by Chris Hedges

The Iraqi Resistance Responds to President Obama

Apocalypse Nigh? by Cindy Sheehan (+ Action Alert)

Sheehan-Cindy L. M.

Hedges-Chris

Iraq on Dandelion Salad

Afghanistan on Dandelion Salad

It’s Obama’s War, Now by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
March 2, 2009

This is the text of a talk by Chris Hedges that will be read at anti-war gatherings to be held by The World Can’t Wait in New York’s Union Square, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Nashville, Louisville, Chicago and Berkeley on March 19 to protest the sixth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq.

The Rachel Maddow Show: Apocalypse Now?

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heathr456

Rachel Maddow interviews Left Behind authors Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye.

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Religion and money, the way to complete power – or not? By Siv O’Neall

The rise of ‘socialism for the 21st century’

Onward, Christian Zionists

Socialism

What is Socialism? (archive of posts)

Capitalism

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2

CUFI

Barack Obama on Dandelion Salad

Meet the new boss the same as the old boss

A Banana Republic By 2012? Change for the Worse By Paul Craig Roberts

Dandelion Salad

By Paul Craig Roberts
March 02, 2009 “Information Clearing House”

President Obama has presented the most irresponsible budget in US history. His fiscal year 2010 budget projects federal spending of $3.5 trillion and a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion. In other words, 50 percent of the government’s budget consists of red ink.

And Americans are angry that sub-prime borrowers took mortgages they couldn’t afford.

The bald fact is that the US government is going to have to borrow–or print–half of the money it intends to spend in Obama’s first budget. This fact has fallen through the cracks as New York Times headlines proclaim “A Bold Plan Sweeps Away Reagan Ideas.” It certainly does sweep away Reagan ideas. No Reagan budget ever presumed that the federal government could borrow half of its annual expenditures. Indeed, Obama’s budget deficit for 2010 alone exceeds the totality of “Reagan Deficits” for Reagan’s two terms of office.

As presidential budgets are marketing devices rather than financial statements, they are imbued with optimistic assumptions. Obama’s budget is based on optimistic assumptions about the extent of decline in GDP. A more realistic projection of GDP decline would reveal that Obama’s budget is the first since World War II in which more than half of the government’s expenditures must be financed by red ink. I suspect that the red ink component of the FY 2010 budget will surpass World War II budgets.

US military to help Mexican drug war

Dandelion Salad

Press TV
Mon, 02 Mar 2009 05:53:16 GMT

The United States has said its military is ready to cooperate with Mexican army to fight against the country’s war against drug cartels.

“I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

“Some of the old biases against cooperation with our – between our militaries and so on, I think, are being set aside,” he added.

Drug-related violence has killed over 1,000 people in the first two months of 2009. In 2008, the toll doubled from the previous year to 6,290.

[…]

via Press TV – US military to help Mexican drug war

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

The Iraqi Resistance Responds to President Obama

Dandelion Salad

Rafidan
The Political Committee
Baghdad
The Republic of Iraq

Statement in Response to President Obama’s Remarks made on the 27th of February 2009 regarding the proclaimed ending to the occupation of The Republic of Iraq.

Official English Transcript Release No: 57

March 02, 2009 “Information Clearing House“

Good Evening,

In Respect to the remarks of President Barak Hussain Obama, The president of the United States of America. The Political Committee of a number of factions in the Iraqi Resistance, mainly the factions present in our front, respond with our point of view on the contents of his speech.

Over the last four months, as the battle of our people continues to free Iraq of all foreign occupation. We have been studying the movements on the ground as well as analyzing the intelligence in order to assess the next strategy that the US administration will take under the leadership of the new presidency.

We had formulated our own plan of action based on the above mentioned, but have chosen to give the new president enough time to gather his thoughts and have a suitable amount of reports & briefings that would give him also a good picture of the daily developments on the ground.

MI5 alert on bank riots

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By Geraint Jones
Daily Express
Sunday March 1,2009

TOP secret contingency plans have been drawn up to counter the threat posed by a “summer of discontent” in Britain.

The “double-whammy” of the worst economic crisis in living memory and a motley crew of political extremists determined to stir up civil disorder has led to the ­extraordinary step of the Army being put on ­standby.

MI5 and Special Branch are targeting activists they fear could inflame anger over job losses and payouts to failed bankers.

[…]

The “protest season” is due to ­begin on April 1 with the G20 Summit in London next month, followed by the 60th anniversary of Nato in Strasbourg a few days later. May Day is also ­potentially a flashpoint.

Ministers cannot afford to allow ­latent public anger at Government policy to get out of hand if they are to maintain credibility through what promises to be ­Gordon Brown’s most testing period as Prime Minister.

The Stop the War coalition, orchestrating the G20 protest, said: “The first week of April could be a week of world leaders will never forget.”

[…]

via Daily Express | UK News :: MI5 alert on bank riots

h/t: CLG

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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40,000 demonstrate against Turkish government as economic crisis deepens

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2