1Gonzolo Lira awakened me to this one. Before his post I was blissfully unaware of the NDAA¹ .

Those who read me already know how I feel about the various renditions of the Patriot Acts. The NDAA passes those so far that you can’t even see them in the rear-view mirror. Embedded into this POS² is a little something called Indefinite Detention AKA the Levin/McCain detention bill. It is a part and parcel of the NDAA. Last December, Glenn Greenwald, writing for Salon, did a detailed analysis of this bill and the three critical points incorporated within it.

1. The Bill codifies Indefinite Detentions: Basically, it suspends Article 1, section 9, of the US Constitution in its entirety and indefinitely. It even removes the requirement for a trial. Anyone may be detained simply on suspicion and no proof is required whatsoever. Of course, without the requirement of a trial, due process becomes a dim historical artifact. It might be noted that Roman tyrants gained permanent ascendency over the triumvirate, ending the Roman Republic, by the simple expedient of declaring a permanent state of war (This may mark the historical end of the Republic of the United States) .
2. It expands the scope of the War on Terror to the point that it can never be won. It becomes a war that does not end and therefore supports the first point (above).
3. US citizens are not exempt from this bill³ . It leaves open the possibility of subjecting American citizens to military detention and trial by a military court to include indefinite detention of anyone suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda or an amorphous group of “associated forces” that could cover just about anyone arrested anywhere in the world.
4. A fourth point that many analysts miss is that these are military detentions of non-military subjects and thus violates the Posse Comitatus Act. Although the Posse Comitatus is not a part of the US Constitution, it is motivated by said document and expands on it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the NDAA shits all over the US Constitution and the US Bill of Rights.

1. National Defense Authorization Act of 2012  More links can be found on Google. [↩]
2. POS=Piece Of Shit [↩]
3. Surprisingly, this was done at Obama’s insistence. [↩]

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

Prosecutors and police are largely held immune from their faulty actions, not even compensating for the direct harm of their actions. My previous article on Mr. Morton, a man falsely imprisoned for 25 years, is but the tip of this iceberg. At the core of this is prosecutorial immunity and it needs to end.

The article is here and the discussions are there.

Once released, those arrested have little recourse. State and federal laws generally protect law enforcement agencies from lawsuits over such detentions as long as officers were acting on a valid warrant and had a reasonable belief that they were arresting the right person.

The problem is that these people, innocent victims, are not compensated or even returned to their homes. In the case of a Nissan customer service supervisor who was hauled by authorities from Tennessee to L.A. County on a local sex-crimes warrant meant for someone with a similar name. How did he get back home to Tennessee?

The worst of these was the case of Santiago Ibarra Rivera who wound up spending a month in jail, that’s a month’s loss of salary, probably lost his job, and all that he gets from Superior Court Judge Kathryn Solórzano is an apology.  Pardon me for thinking that as being a lot short of the mark. He is owed at the least, lost wages and a free ride back home.

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

This video got my attention

About the Republic of the USA

It is also extremely worrisome. In the various forums, it is amazing how many people do not know that the US is a Republic and guaranteed to remain so by the US Constitution. The majority of them are Democrats.

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

I commented on yet another LA Times article today. The main article is here.

"These kids got it," he said. "They understood the framework that was being laid out — that Hispanics are the oppressed and Caucasians are the oppressors. That’s very troubling." — Supt. John Huppenthal, Tucson Unified School District

The thing is that, this is nothing less than the truth. The entire Southwest was conquered by the US in the late 1800’s as a part of the Monroe Doctrine. Before then it was a part, a very valuable part, of Mexico. It was conquered through mass illegal immigration by US settlers, which gave the pretext for the Cavalry to invade in order to ‘protect’ those illegal settlers. It was exactly the same strategy used to conquer Texas and later on, Hawaii. After the conquest, the US engaged in systematic denigration and suppression of the native population that carries on to the present day, as evidenced by the Tucson law. A very large part of that was the systematic genocide of native Americans, the American Indian (Indians), by the US Cavalry. Former Mexican Nationals were not treated much better as they were largely of mixed Spanish and Indian blood.

This summer, Huppenthal drew fire after suggesting similarities between the program and the Hitler Youth. Huppenthal said the remarks were made on "an academic basis" and misunderstood.

He no longer draws the comparison, he said, because it is too inflammatory. But in an interview, he said, "The thing that Hitler did was he used perceptions of historical injustice, he cast them in racial terms, and then he also referred to the Sudetenland as a stolen land — that’s the parallel."

The Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American studies program does nothing other than to teach the truth. To outlaw the truth is yet another case of repression and since they are now fourth and fifth generation Americans, they are also US citizens. Must they be continuously conquered?

Huppenthal replied that curriculum must reach a standard that all Arizonans can be proud of. "I’d ask those people who have challenged me, have they really met that standard over the last couple years?"

The thing is that there are things in US history that no American should be proud of and remembering those things might prevent their re-occurrence. The US has done many shameful things and a part of the healing is to admit to doing them and at least to try and make some reparation. Teaching the true history is one of them.

Land of the free and the home of the brave? This really makes me, and everyone else wonder. I am not that proud of being an American with this crap going on.

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

This is just a marker for a future article. I haven’t finished my latest book yet, why no one has seen of heard much from me.

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

I am posting to the thread on the recent DEA statement on marijuana not having an acceptable medical use. It quickly morphed into a drug legalization debate. The entry I like best is

Slamlander at 05:58 AM July 12, 2011

Dihydrogen Monoxide has no acceptable medical use either and it is not on any drug schedule. It is highly addictive and has withdrawal symptoms that always result in death. Taken in excess, it can also result in death, more certain than marijuana. In fact, iut is 1000 times deadlier than heroine. Its potential for abuse is enormous.

Dihydrogen Monoxide is also known as a Universal Solvent and can dilute and carry in solution almost any other substance, both organic an inorganic. An overdose of Dihydrogen Monoxide kills by dissolving and leeching out the minerals in the body. The sufferer enters a coma and dies. there is no known treatment for  massive Dihydrogen Monoxide overdose.

Why isn’t it on the DEA’s Schedule I?

By comparison Marijuana is relatively benign.

I wonder if any of them will catch it

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

New York Legislature passes gay marriage bill

This is actually a major defeat for the Religious Right.

This is also a major victory for Constitutional Conservatives

During the debates on the LA Times forum one commenter mentioned how the US was, as a nation, turning away from God. I have news for them and every other religious nutjob out there; The US turned away from God, as a Nation, the moment that the First Amendment was ratified. The US is a Secular Nation, by law and NOT by God!

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

On the LA Times re: Gay judge wasn’t required to remove himself from same-sex marriage case, U.S. judge rules

A commenter named Ann Common said: “What we hate is sexual perversion.”

This is my response:

And now the truth is revealed! You are a hater. It may interest you to know that Victorian modes and culture [should have] died with Queen Victoria, the Hannover Queen. Wrapping yourself in a time-bubble will not change that.

I am not gay but I am a product of the 60′s, when my generation rejected puritan rules and the senseless taboos of the prohibitionistas who were in power at that time. Remember the California Communes?

"Signs, signs, everywhere there’re signs. blocking up the scenery, blowing my mind. Don’t do this or that, can’t you read the signs?"

Perversion is in the eye of the beholder, or not, as the case may be. Some think that a woman simply showing her face in public is a perversion. They even think that it causes earthquakes.

I am perfectly willing to let you believe in whatever you want but it is un-American to let you impose those beliefs on everyone else. We are NOT a Christian country, we are a Secular one, as evidenced by the First Amendment to the Constitution, and I reject the Religious Right, with fervor!

I relegate your Christian God to the same dark pit with the Muslim Allah; may they fondle each other forever, while humans get on with the business of humans, without their interference. I reject your rules that judge what is perversion and I reject your values as being un-American!

Families are supposed to love and support each other. Rejecting and oppressing such families simply because of your warped sense of perversion is the hallmark of a religiously repressive regime and not that of a free country. The only thing that we should be intolerant of is intolerance.

BTW, I have probably been a Republican longer than you’ve been alive and I reject the Religious Right/Moral Majority of Buchannan, Ford, and Quayle.

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

Does your laptop have rights?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. — Amendment four of the US Constitution

Note carefully that the only clause is one that includes probable cause and due process. This is followed closely by the fifth Amendment

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. – Amendment five of the US Constitution.

There is no need to pass new legislation to enable these rights. They are already the supreme law of the land.

Present law permits border and customs agents to conduct electronic fishing expeditions. – referenced LA Times article

Actually, it does not.

The reason airport searches are exempt from the 4th Amendment’s protection against illegal searches is that baggage might conceal contraband or dangerous materials. – referenced LA Times article

That is actually a very weak argument but one that both the DEA and TSA use extensively. That it is used and often upheld does not make it correct.

Extending that exception to allow federal agents to rifle through the content of electronic devices is unjustifiable. Unfortunately, two federal appeals courts, in cases involving child pornography, have upheld the Department of Homeland Security’s policy of allowing searches of electronic devices at the border.   – referenced LA Times article

This is where I can agree but it needs no special legislation as it is already specifically written into the US Constitution, a Constitution that all Federal Employees are sworn to uphold and defend. What it needs is action by the ACLU or voting citizens to tell the government to stop violating our rights. What it really needs is the DHS to and particularly the TSA to be disbanded as rogue agencies of a rogue government.

How many of those confiscated laptops resulted in fair compensation to their owners as required under the fifth Amendment?

All it would take is for one (1) Congress-Critter to bring suit with the Supreme Court. It is certain that at $25M plus, a regular citizen can’t do it anymore, which is itself in violation of the principals behind the US Constitution.

Amerika, the fearful. Home of cowards and the land of the slaves.

(I am tempted to tell you that you deserve what you have but my daughter still lives there.)

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

The unlawful detainment of known and obvious innocents is one of the first major proofs of a tyranny and the US is guilty as charged, again, and again! Amerika is NOT the land of the free! freedom at the convenience of the government is NOT freedom. It is not just the fact that Guantanamo exists, it is the fact that it can exist without major protest by the American sheeple. Amerika has forgotten the base meaning of freedom!

Again and again I point out that the Federal Government of the United States of America is a Rogue Government¹ .

Since that scumbag (Abraham Lincoln) was handed War Powers during the US Civil War, no POTUS² has ever relinquished a War Power willingly. Indeed, I suspect that to be the fundamental reason that Lincoln was assassinated. He was about to relinquish the tyrannical powers granted him for the Civil War. In truth, he should never have  had them! Note that the United States has been under continuous War Emergency since the US Civil War.

This parallels the sad history of the Romans, who started as a Republic run by a Triumvirate. They had an exemption for what they called a Tyrant³  .  I make careful and obvious note that the US Constitution has no provision for a tyrant. This is by careful design and is not an oversight. However, this and other non-trivial matters⁴ are simply ignored by the current US Federal Government. The US federal Government has long ago stopped being a government of the people and is now a tyranny of the Demo-Republican parties, The Tyrannical Republic of Amerika which is no better than The People’s Republic of North Korea. Both are fascist tyrannies, as was the old Roman Empire.

George Walker Bush (Junior Bush) is and was the most disgusting and evil President in US history⁵ . He has done more than anyone to undermine American freedoms and the US Constitution. Now, three years after we elected Obama, Barack Obama has proven that he is not one bit better than the Evil Bush. Obama has unilaterally extended the the Patriot Acts to long after the US Congress rescinded them. This is simply because he does not want to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security, the single largest Police State tool that has ever existed. The fact that he does not want to dismantle it makes him no better than the Evil Bush that built it in the first place.

Update: Ignoring the US Constitution.

1. A rogue government is a government that does not follow its own rules. For the US, those rules are enshrined in the US Constitution. [↩]
2. President of the United States [↩]
3. This is where the word originally came from and simply means Supreme Commander, during times of war. Unfortunately, as Rome grew, they were always at war and their tyrants found it increasingly easier to decline to relinquish their tyranny until one finally declared himself Emperor. The parallel to the US Federal government is obvious. [↩]
4. Like the protections of the writ of habeas corpus and the protections against improper and unlawful search and seizure [↩]
5. I’m a Republican and I still hate him! [↩]

Mirrored from The Slamlander.