Stephen Colbert takes on Glenn Beck
Good News :
Obama fires GM CEO - Michael Moore is pleased
Obama wants Trade & travel restrictions to Cuba be overturned
Obama's mixed message on detainees / POWS/ Bagram etc.
And now for more insanity from Glenn Beck and his call for a peaceful uprising against in his opinion the Fascist Obama Administration.Odd he never spoke out against the Bush administration when it passed the Patriot Act or other draconian legislation. It never bothered him that some of those terrorist suspects detained at Guantanamo or elsewhere were in fact innocent. No like his buddies Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly ,Sean Hannity etc. he called American citizens disloyal and traitors if they publicly voiced their objections to the War in Iraq or other policies of the Bush Regime.
FOX's Glenn Beck compares Obama to the Nazis in Germany
Colbert takes on Glenn Beck-March 31, 2009
and here's the always insane hate monger Michael Savage on his radio show comparing Obama to Hitler are he and Glenn Beck reading from the same script from Karl Rove or what.
Michael Savage: Obama appointees actually have almost the same exact policies as the Nazi Party did
And here's an example of the type of thinking to be found on the Conservative/Far Right website Townhall.com. They the Republicans and conservatives still don't get it that their ideology and mean-spiritedness was rejected by the American people when they voted for Barack Obama and the Democrats.
The Republican Party: Lost in the Wilderness by Matt Barber at Townhall.com, April1, 2009
Much of the party leadership has become emotionally addicted to the placebo of political pragmatism, swallowing the media-driven misconception that, to voters, ideological “moderation” is somehow the political gold standard.
So, the Grand Old Party has become the Bland Old Party, suffering a largely self-inflicted electoral thumping at the ballot box two election cycles running.
... Despite the party platform explicitly affirming unborn children's “right to life which cannot be infringed,” current RNC Chairman Michael Steele recently chose to parrot the DNC’s pro-abortion talking points.
When asked about “abortion rights” in an interview with GQ magazine, Steele said: “I think that's an individual choice.” A clearly stunned interviewer followed up: “Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?” Steele: “Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice. … Yeah. Absolutely.”
But the enigmatic Steele didn’t stop there. While addressing the highly polarizing issue of homosexuality, he flippantly cast aside the GOP’s moral values banner, sounding off like a spokesman for the “gay” activist Human Rights Campaign.
Taking a jab at the untold thousands of ex-“gay” Americans who have found freedom from the homosexual lifestyle, he opined, “I don't think I've ever really subscribed to that view that you can turn it on and off like a water tap. You just can't simply say, oh, like, ‘Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being gay.’”
...If the GOP ever wishes to reverse its spiral into the abyss of irrelevancy, it must, in word and deed, make a bold, unapologetic return to the fiscally conservative and socially conservative policies that fueled the Reagan revolution
Obama Good News:
"We the People" to "King of the World": "YOU'RE FIRED!" Micheal Moore.com, April 1, 2009 (TruthOut)
Friends,
Nothing like it has ever happened. The President of the United States, the elected representative of the people, has just told the head of General Motors -- a company that's spent more years at #1 on the Fortune 500 list than anyone else -- "You're fired!"
I simply can't believe it. This stunning, unprecedented action has left me speechless for the past two days. I keep saying, "Did Obama really fire the chairman of General Motors? The wealthiest and most powerful corporation of the 20th century? Can he do that? Really? Well, damn! What else can he do?!"
This bold move has sent the heads of corporate America spinning and spewing pea soup. Obama has issued this edict: The government of, by, and for the people is in charge here, not big business. John McCain got it. On the floor of the Senate he asked, "What does this signal send to other corporations and financial institutions about whether the federal government will fire them as well?" Senator Bob Corker said it "should send a chill through all Americans who believe in free enterprise." The stock market plunged as the masters of the universe asked themselves, "Am I next?" And they whispered to each other, "What are we going to do about this Obama?"
Not much, fellows. He has the massive will of the American people behind him -- and he has been granted permission by us to do what he sees fit. If you liked this week's all-net 3-pointer, stay tuned...
Ban on travel to Cuba may be lifted
A bipartisan group of senators says Congress is ready to pass legislation to allow all Americans to visit Cuba. Supporters say the move would create thousands of jobs. By William E. Gibson los Angeles Times ,April 1, 2009 (TruthOut)
" Obama has ordered a review of U.S. policy on Cuba and last month loosened restrictions to let Cuban Americans visit relatives. Journalists can travel to Cuba, as can people on humanitarian missions."
-- A bipartisan group of senators predicted Tuesday that Congress was ready to pass legislation to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba.
Removing the travel ban would produce a burst of tourism, create thousands of jobs and generate as much as $1.6 billion in business a year, an independent research group said.
A Senate news conference Tuesday and one in the House set for Thursday reflect new attempts to lift the travel ban, a key part of the U.S. trade embargo imposed after Fidel Castro took power in Havana in 1959. The broader trade embargo would remain in place.
Sponsors said the bill would free Americans to travel to the one place in the world they can't go and encourage Cubans to push for democratic reforms by exposing them to new people and information.
"Punishing the American people in our effort to somehow deal a blow to the Castro government has not made any sense at all," said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.). "At long last, this policy, which has been in place for 50 years and has not worked, will finally be removed."
Sometimes it seems President Obama does not understand or he underestimates the political capitol he has with the American voters and may be squandering it .
So here's a bit concerning Obama's mixed message on the status of prisoners held in Bagram and other US facilities:
Is Obama just not thinking straight when it comes to so called terrorists being held in US run facilities or those run in cooperation with the US government or military. Why does Obama want to continue with the draconian Bush/Cheney policies in regard to " detainees"/ POWS. Is Obama playing some sort of elaborate political game ie sounding tough then hoping the DOJ will bring to his senses and therefore he gets to admit to mistakes and yet the policy is changed for him by a more independent and honest Department of Justice. Or does he just not realize that many of the people held in theses prisons are being held without any real evidence against them except those confessions brought about by harsh and abusive treatment and a little torture and threats on the side.
President Obama claimed his administration was going to abide by the Geneva Conventions and other International agreements - maybe he needs to re-read them . He will find that torture and abuse of prisoners is not tolerated and are not defined in the narrow sense that they are by Bush/Cheney, the Neocons or even Fox News or CNN or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter et al. America does not have the right to define torture anyway it feels or in ways that will protect those Americans who have permitted the use of abusive, harsh techniques which under international law and which historically have been determined to be torture. Obama is either committed to abiding by International Laws or he is not there is no wiggle room . That's what Bush, Cheney , John Yoo and Condoleeza Rice et al did when they chipped away at the definition of abuse and torture to the point that only techniques which are life threatening or may lead to organ failure are considered torture. This would mean that ripping out someone's finger nails or shoving strips of bamboo under someone's finger nails would not constitute torture.
As for abuse the neocon thugs see even now nothing wrong with what they consider to be harmless pranks and a bit of horseplay or just goofing around so leading a naked man around on a dog leash or conducting mock executions or sleep deprivation or sensory deprivation or sensory overload or threatening a detainee's family if they didn't confess was ok. Are these things ok for Obama's administration to do. Under the normal rules of law any statement or confession made under these circumstances ie abuse, torture or duress are unreliable and are inadmissible to a real court of law as opposed to the kangaroo courts set up by the former Bush Regime. One wonders if Obama is truly committed to treating prisoners according to international standards and giving them access to legal counsel and allow some communication with their families and are given their day in court as soon as possible . Is Obama willing to break away from the illegal , immoral policies of the Bush Regime and its supporters.
Unfortunately he has a lot of Neocons and Hawks in his administration or outside of it giving him advice. This is creating problems with his Wall Street deals and with his foreign policy ie Iraq, Afghanistan , Israel, Palestine etc. Time for him to ignore them or toss them out and do the right thing rather than follow the same old disastrous policies which American presidents have been pursuing for the past forty or more years.
Federal Judge to Obama DOJ: You're Wrong, Bagram Prisoners Do Have Rights by Liliana Segura, AlterNet ,April 2, 2009.
Issuing a stern warning on executive power, Judge John D. Bates has granted three prisoners in Afghanistan the right to challenge their detention.
Nevertheless, Prof. Ramzi Kassem, an attorney for one of the detainees called it "a great day for American justice."
"Today, a U.S. federal judge ruled that our government cannot simply kidnap people and hold them beyond the law. Amin Al Bakri and his family can now rest assured that an impartial judge will give them their day in court."
...Barack Obama's Department of Justice made headlines in late February when it adopted the Bush administration's notoriously unconstitutional stance on prisoners at Bagram Air Base, claiming that such "detainees" have no right to challenge their detention. As the Independent UK reported at the time, "less than a month after signing an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, President Barack Obama has quietly agreed to keep denying the right to trial to hundreds more terror suspects held at a makeshift camp in Afghanistan that human rights lawyers have dubbed 'Obama's Guantanamo.'"
Four prisoners at Bagram, however, have been challenging this position in court since before Obama took office -- and today, three of them won a major victory.
In a momentous, 53-page decision by Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a U.S. court concluded "for the first time," according to the International Justice Network, "that detainees held indefinitely without charge in U.S. custody in Afghanistan are entitled to challenge their detentions in U.S. courts."
Judge Bates wrote that "Bagram detainees who are not Afghan citizens, who were not captured in Afghanistan, and who have been held for an unreasonable amount of time" are entitled to the right of habeas corpus -- a smackdown of the Obama administration's claim to the contrary.
Obama lawyers have argued that, because Afghanistan (unlike Gitmo) is located in an active "war zone," prisoners held their may be subjected to indefinite detention. But Judge Bates didn't buy it.
"Although the site of detention at Bagram is not identical to that at Guantanamo Bay, the 'objective degree of control' asserted by the U.S. … is not appreciably different than at Guantanamo," Bates wrote.
Moreover, the right of habeas corpus was "forged to guard against" executive abuses like the "arbitrary exercise of the government's power to detain," he warned. Quoting the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Boumediene v. Bush, which granted prisoners at Guantanamo habeas rights, Bates wrote, "the Executive does not have "the power to decide when and where [the Constitution's] terms apply."
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and so it goes,
GORD.
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