Make Government Spending Larger Again!

"The U.S. Congress voted early on Friday to approve a $1.3-trillion government funding bill with large increases in military and non-defense spending, sending it to President Donald Trump, who was expected to sign it into law." (source)

Trump's Disgraceful Conduct vs. Christian Evangelicals

Remember back when we had a president and first lady that you would actually want your kids to look up to, learn from, and aspire to be like?

You know, the couple that wasn't mired in conflicts of interest and nepotism, overtly racist statements and disgraceful social media posts, decades of financial ties with hostile foreign powers, and sex scandals ranging from covered-up affairs with porn stars and sexual harassment allegations to bragging about sexual assault and wanting to date their own daughter?

It might be time for Christian Evangelicals, who overwhelmingly support Donald Trump, to reconsider just how important they say "personal character" is in their leaders.  Or stop supporting lecherous buffoons.

A Bit of Perspective...

Here's a bit of perspective for the incoming president...

Oliver Stone on NSA Spying

"The question is not 'do you have something to hide?' The question is whether we control government or the government controls us." - Oliver Stone

Two Party System Drones On

If you oppose drone strikes, that is to say the unmanned aerial military assaults of residential and business areas around the globe as the U.S. government sees fit, you cannot vote for Obomney 2012.

 

On issues like drone warfare, corporate cronyism, inflationary monetary policy via the Fed, the surveillance state, NDAA and PATRIOT, the drug war, and criminalizing whistle blowers, there is no debate between Obama and Romney.

The corporate duopoly works extremely hard to scare voters into "defensive voting." Rather than voting for a third party candidate or God forbid attempting to run as one, most Americans are corralled into electing the "least worst." Most informed progressives will cast a disillusioned vote for Obama and most principled conservatives will cast a disillusioned vote for Romney. Neither school of thought really gets what they want while Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms get exactly what they paid for.

War is Making Us Poor

Contrary to Keynesian economics, warfare is not good for the economy because war only destroys wealth; it cannot create it. Government spending on war, including escalating borrowing on credit to fund military operations, has both short term and long term destructive effects - morally and economically.

Bush vs. Obama: Torture vs. Murder

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN:  "If the Bush Administration didn’t like somebody, they’d kidnap them and send them to torture chambers.  If the Obama Administration decides they don’t like somebody, they murder them." - Noam Chomsky (source)

NDAA and Obama Kool-Aid

OKAY KIDS, TIME TO PUT DOWN THE OBAMA KOOL-AID. If you plan on voting for Barack Obama after the egregious assault on civil liberties as represented by signing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law, you are probably drinking too much Obama Kool-Aid. This shit is about to get real, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (source).

"The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield... We are extremely disappointed that President Obama signed this bill even though his administration is already claiming overly-broad detention authority in court. Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back those claims dimmed today. Thankfully we have three branches of government, and the final word on the scope of detention authority 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."

This is the kind of Big Brother non-sense that most liberals and progressives once protested and marched against during the Bush Administration.  The continual impulse to protect Barack Obama and rationalize his apparent indifference toward the Bill of Rights is only discrediting the Democratic Party and the critical thinking skills of its members.

"Yes we can - indefinitely detain American citizens without charges or legal counsel!"

Killing al-Awlaki has made America less Safe

The assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki has tragic consequences on the rule of law and giving due process to all individuals accused of a crime.  Not that al-Awlaki was every charged, much less given a trial, before a Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) operation killed him and six others in Yemen this week (source).

While the Bush Administration was fond of kidnapping people, detaining them in military prisons indefinitely without charges, and torturing them (source), the Obama Administration seems to prefer outright assassination operations followed by hopes of higher approval ratings (source).  While most of the mainstream media and political pundits across the spectrum seem to approve of President Obama's "shoot first, justify killings later" approach, there are dissenting voices.  Notre Dame law professor Mary Ellen O'Connell summarizes her concerns of the legal slippery slope the Executive Branch is sliding down (source):

And what about within the U.S.? If the president can target suspects in Yemen, why not here?  And why just the president?  Why can’t governors order missile strikes on suspected terrorists and other criminals?  We are told with respect to targeted killing - as we were with torture - that post-9/11 circumstances require extraordinary measures.  Some of our leading ethicists countered that the absolute ban on torture must be respected as a moral imperative, regardless of the consequences.  We could say the same about targeted killing, but, as in the case of torture, it turns out that doing the moral thing is also the effective thing.

The intrepid reporting of The Nation's Jeremy Scahill is also a welcome voice of reason:

Glenn Greenwald further identifies the double standard that the political left in America seems to have with regard to presidential transgression of authority (source):

Remember that there was great controversy that George Bush asserted the power simply to detain American citizens without due process or simply to eavesdrop on their conversations without warrants. Here you have something much more severe. Not eavesdropping on American citizens, not detaining them without due process, but killing them without due process, and yet many Democrats and progressives, because it’s President Obama doing it, have no problem with it and are even in favor of it. To say that the President has the right to kill citizens without due process is really to take the constitution and to tear it up into as many little pieces as you can and then burn it and step on it.

As I have mentioned previously after the assassination of (an unarmed) Osama Bin Laden (source), this kind of extra-judicial killing is not just an international travesty but one whose domestic implications will be longstanding.  Following the assassination of al-Awlaki, the U.S. State Department has announced that Americans are in elevated danger when traveling abroad (source) - as was the case after the killing of Bin Laden.  While popular opinion seems to be "the world is a better place, and Americans are safer, after the removal of al-Awlaki," reliable intelligence sources indicate that the opposite is true.

Rather than training in the operation of stealth helicopters and assault weapons, I believe JSOC needs to be trained by any zookeeper in the use of a tranquilizer gun.  If the case for al-Awlaki's criminal actions was so strong, it should have been presented before a jury as he stood trial - not used as posthumous rationale for killing him in a missile strike as he sat eating breakfast in the Yemeni desert.

Not coincidentally, I wrote about the dangerous dehumanization of warfare waged by predator drones the day before these very same tactics were used against al-Awlaki (source).

Obama Nation

"drones over Pakistan, Yemen and Libya

is Obama the bomber getting ready for Syria?

first black president, the masses were hungry

but the same president just bombed an African country"

A stunning, raging, sagacious hip-hop video about the betrayed ideals placed in Barack Obama:

Obama 2012: The Least Worst

"There will always be a 'least worst' between the Democrats and Republicans, every four years, every two years. And 'least worst' means that you exert no pull on the least worst, and, therefore, your own influence and your own impact is self-limited."  —Ralph Nader, November 3rd, 2004

Obama's "Evolving" views on Same-Sex Marriage

PRESIDENTIAL POSTURING LIKE THIS INFURIATES ME (source). Obama is in full fundraising mode so it's clear that he is courting the "gay vote" across the country, yet he continues to hamstring himself to placate social conservatives ("Blue Dog" Democrats?) by claiming his views on same sex marriage are "evolving." Really? What if a candidate has "evolving" views on interracial marriage, women's suffrage, or slavery?

A disingenuous form of evolution: political posturing over ideological substance.

GLBT rights advocates are boxed into voting for Obama because it's entirely obvious that the GOP will not produce a gay rights affirming candidate. Yet the notion that someone as intelligent and educated as Barack Obama has "evolving" views on something as simple as marriage equality is patently insulting. It's clear to everyone that he is merely pandering to both sides of the debate, hoping to rake in the most votes, while avoiding taking a strong position for what he believes is right.

I respect anti-gay pastor Fred Phelps. I respect gay rights advocate Dan Savage. These are men of action whose views on the subject are transparent and frankly-stated. But I have no patience for Obama and his ilk who attempt to compromise their values so heavily that what remains is a poll-tested, enfeebled shill who will follow campaign cash over substantive moral courage.



UPDATE: I'm not entirely sure if NY state passing same sex marriage legislation (source) will be the tipping point or not, but eventually there will be a "critical mass" after which most other state and federal officials will have no choice but to honor marriage equality.