Truth and Traditions

Electing men who would be king to the presidency is not good for our democracy. Not good at all.,

There’s another significant and telling parallel between Obama’s illegal war and the Bush eavesdropping scandal. One of the questions frequently asked about the NSA scandal was why Bush and Cheney decided to eavesdrop in violation of the law rather than having Congress approve their program; in the wake of 9/11, both parties in Congress were as subservient as could be, and would have offered zero resistance to requests by the administration for increased eavesdropping powers (the same question was asked of Bush’s refusal to seek Congressional approval for the detention and military commissions regime at Guantanamo). The answer to that question ultimately became clear: they did not want to seek Congressional approval, even though they easily could have obtained it, because they wanted to establish the “principle” that the President is omnipotent in these areas and needs nobody’s permission (neither from Congress nor the courts) to do what the President wants.

Obama seems to feel the same need.

All that aside, what is undeniable is that Obama could have easily obtained Congressional approval for this war — just as Bush could have for his warrantless eavesdropping program — but consciously chose not to, even to the point of acting contrary to his own lawyers’ conclusions about what is illegal.

Other than the same hubris — and a desire to establish his power to act without constraints — it’s very hard to see what motivated this behavior.  Whatever the motives are, it’s clear that he’s waging an illegal war, as his own Attorney General, OLC Chief and DoD General Counsel have told him.

via Obama rejects top lawyers’ legal views on Libya – Libya – Salon.com.

The war on drugs is a bust.

This is how the war on drugs will end: with elder statesmen calling for radical change, and millions of victims of the drug war saying enough is enough, and fiscal conservatives tiring of the expense, and civil rights advocates embracing reform as part of their agenda, and young people rejecting the war as the folly of their elders, and elected officials deciding it’s time to step out—and tens of millions of parents concluding that their children and the future of our society are better served by policies that rely dramatically less on criminal sanctions and harsh punishments and much more on science, compassion, health and common sense.

via The Forty-Year Quagmire: An Exit Strategy for the War on Drugs | The Nation.

Pretty soon they’ll be searching every house, at night, so they can look through the trapdoor that’s under every  bed, you know, the one that hides all the monsters.

There are two sides of the terror coin, after all: the people who want to kill you and the people who dislike the United States being at war all the time. Keep tabs on them both. Hell, just keep tabs on everyone. Everyone is now a terrorist.

Weirdest part: how did the FBI know who to go after when they wanted to perform raids? THEY LOOKED THROUGH OBAMA’S PHONE BOOK. Haha, there is some ironic proof he is a secret socialist terrorist. Some of those targeted are union organizers and activists Obama had contact with in Chicago.

via FBI Now Investigating Major U.S. Enemy: Domestic Peace Activists.