Side-Splitting Laughter on May 18th . . . .

From today's Adbusters email.

Full page link here.    Pay particular attention to the Laughriot on May 18th.

The May 2012 Insurrection

Tactical Briefing #30.

Adbusters , 26 Apr 2012

• #globalchange
• #M12
• #occupychicago
• #occupywallstreeet
• general strike

 

NICK WHALEN

Hey you dreamers, strikers and new left redeemers out there,

For thirty-one magical days beginning this Tuesday, May 1, we take the plunge and Strike! We block the Golden Gate Bridge; occupy a Manhattan-bound tunnel; seize the ports. In 115 cities, we march into banks, erect tents and refuse to leave. We disrupt financial institutions forcing thousands to preemptively close. Five thousand of us pray, dance, sleep on Wall Street and in front of the Fed and if the Bloombergs of the world bring out paramilitary police to intimidate us, we use our social media fire to call out 50,000 more occupiers.

Hope to hear ya'll laughing hysterically on May 18th . . . .

CISPA & C-30: Joined at the hip . . . .

From OpenMedia.ca today:



And from BGR today:

Thousands rally against CISPA cybersecurity bill

By: Dan Graziano | Apr 26th, 2012

The controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which is supported by more than 100 members of the House of Representatives, is scheduled to be discussed in Congress on Friday, where it will be the first bill to go to a vote since the collapse of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in January. The bill looks to give businesses and the federal government legal protection to share cyber threats with one another in an effort to prevent online attacks. Internet privacy and neutrality advocates, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, feel the bill does not contain enough limits on how and when the government may monitor private information . . . .

Stay informed and stay involved . . . .

dickhead Comes to Vancouver . . . .

dickhead cheney came to The Vancouver Club tonight to promote his book.

Of course I participated to see Vancouverites welcome him in style.

To the best of my knowledge, he signed no autographs for the crowd outside the facility . . . .

Barney & Gomer Coming to Your Neighbourhood Soon . . . .

As soon as harperco "improves" their citizen's arrest legislation, we can all live like we were in Mayberry, North Carolina.



Yee haw . . . .

And So It Begins . . . .

The organized lynching of truth-telling by way of FoxNoise, of course.

From The Guardian this morning:

A Fox News contributor and former state department adviser has accused WikiLeaks of conducting "political warfare against the US" and called for those behind the whistleblowing website to be declared "enemy combatants" so they can be subjected to "non-judicial actions".
_______________

Whiton ends with the following plea: "How much will our information-collection capabilities have to be diminished, and how many of our friends and collaborators around the world must die, (Ed: Never mind that there has been no evidence of that.) before President Obama and his friends on Capitol Hill start caring more about national security?"

Oh sure, call Julian Assange and his tribe of transparency troops "enemy combatants" so they can get the same kind of "deal" Omar Khadr got.

Compare the FoxNoise response with that of Britain's deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, who backs an investigation into the torture allegations.

An ocean away and worlds apart . . . .

Canadian Coup de RCMP . . . .

*Updated link due to the Lady Alison's astute discovery. (Thanks, Alison!) Apparently the story disappeared off the web 'til it reappeared this morning at the updated link to the Montreal Gazette below . . . .


As "drf" exclaimed when he pointed this* out to me: "WTF?!?"

What the hell has harperco wrought now ? ? ? ?

RCMP warn against threat of coup d’etat

By Ian MacLeod, Postmedia NewsSeptember 12, 2010

OTTAWA — RCMP officials have identified a new threat to national security: a coup d’etat.

The reference to a violent overthrow of the federal government is contained in the RCMP’s plans and priorities report to government for 2010-11. It lists national security as one of five operational priorities for the year.

The document then cites four specific security concerns:

• Espionage and sabotage.

• Foreign-influenced criminal activities detrimental to the interests of Canada.

• Terrorism.

• And . . . “activities aimed at overthrowing, by violence, the Government of Canada.” (Ed: emphasis mine)

RCMP officials were not immediately available Friday to explain the reference, but such language has not appeared in previous RCMP reports.

Just keeps gettin' curiouser and curiouser . . . .


H/T "drf" & the Lady Alison

Be Careful What You Ask For . . . .

It appears members of the GLBT community in Texas will be enjoying a bit of schadenfreude in the near future.

You're gonna love this one, gang, via McClatchy today:

Texas' gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages
Dave Montgomery | Fort Worth Star-Telegram | November 18, 2009

AUSTIN — Texans: Are you really married?

Maybe not.

Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.

The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages.

She calls it a "massive mistake" and blames the current attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott, for allowing the language to become part of the Texas Constitution. Radnofsky called on Abbott to acknowledge the wording as an error and consider an apology. She also said that another constitutional amendment may be necessary to reverse the problem.

_______________


Radnofsky, the Democratic nominee in the Senate race against Kay Bailey Hutchison in 2006, said she voted against the amendment but didn’t realize the legal implications until she began poring over the Texas Constitution to prepare for the attorney general’s race. She said she holds Abbott and his office responsible for not catching an "error of massive proportions."

"Whoever vetted the language in B must have been asleep at the wheel," she said.

Was I right?

Do you love it?

Thought you would . . . .

Joya to the World . . . .

Since my friend was singing in the pre-show choir for Malalai Joya's Vancouver book tour kick-off, I walked up the hill to her performance this evening.

I had previously heard Ms. Joya on a PBS program in the US, but to hear her story live in person was very moving. It is something I would recommend to anyone that has the opportunity to attend one of her appearances on this tour.

Be advised that neither bush, harper nor obama are positively portrayed. The woman knows where the real element of change for her country lies: Within it's people.

In response to a question from and Afghani-Canadian woman in the audience:

"What will happen to Afghanistan if all the foreign troops leave?"

was:

"The Afghani people will work it out. Slowly, they will begin to see that democracy and equal rights for all people, genders, religions is the thing to do. It won't be easy. It won't be fast. But it will happen. Having foreign troops there only more firmly entrenches the Taliban and the war lords in power. Make them leave, and the situation will slowly begin to change."

I'm thinking the military/industrial/congressional complex would not like her answer . . . .

The Lady Alison has the details of the tour . . . .

M & M . . . .

Matt and Michael are getting a bit impatient.





Is there a "movement" stirring?








One can only hope . . . .

The More Things Change . . . .

Since there is not a whole lot of current television programming that is worth the time to watch, recently I've been checking out DVDs from the local Vancouver Public Library. Yes, one of those "Socialist" organizations - Horrors!

At any rate, this week I've been re-viewing Series #1 of "The West Wing" from 1999. Now that was television - not the crap that passes today. The following audio clip is from an episode entitled "Take Out the Trash Day" in which C.J. Craig - the White House press secretary - is talking to parents of a young gay man who died from a hate crimes attack. C.J. is attempting to enlist the parent's support and presence at President Bartlett's signing of hate crimes legislation.





Ten years later not a whole lot has changed . . . .

Forty Years Later . . . .

For the good times . . . .

Atheists vs. repugs - Round One . . . .

Let the battle begin.

It's actually not much $$ involved.

It's the principle of the thing.

Per McClatchey today:

Atheists sue to keep 'In God We Trust' off Capitol Visitor Center
Rob Hotakainen | McClatchy Newspapers Posted: July 18, 2009

WASHINGTON — A California Republican congressman wants to do a little writing on the walls of Washington's newest federal building. If Rep. Dan Lungren gets his way, Congress will spend nearly $100,000 to engrave the words "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance in prominent spots at the Capitol Visitor Center.

Lungren's proposal drew only a whimper of opposition last week when the House of Representatives voted 410-8 to approve it. Now, however, Lungren finds himself tussling with a national atheists and agnostics group.

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc. sued this week to stop the engraving, accusing Lungren of trying to force his religious beliefs on as many as 15 percent of all U.S. adults. That comprises "atheists, agnostics, skeptics and freethinkers, none of whom possess a belief in a god," according to the lawsuit.

"It really is a Judeo-Christian endorsement by our government, and so Lungren is wrong," said Dan Barker of Madison, Wis., a co-president of the foundation. "Lungren and others are pro-religious, and they want to actually use the machinery of government to promote their particular private religious views. That is unconstitutional, and that's what we're asking the court to decide."

_______________


The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has 13,500 members, sued in U.S. District Court in Wisconsin. It alleges that Congress is trying to make belief in God synonymous with citizenship and "discouraging nonbelief" among Americans, a contention that Lungren rejects.

Lungren said that the phrase "In God We Trust" had a long history and was consistent with the beliefs of America's founding fathers. He also said that the Declaration of Independence referred to rights given by a creator.

_______________


Barker said the foundation had been waiting for the right case to challenge "In God We Trust." He said government actions could be challenged on state-church grounds if they had specific religious agendas. In this case, he said, backers of Lungren's plan have provided "the smoking guns" by giving specific, overt religious reasons for doing the engraving.

Barker said that atheists regarded the phrase "In God We Trust" as rude, uncivil and un-American.

"Tens of millions of really good Americans don't believe in God," he said. "In fact, there's many more nonbelievers than there are Jews, and we wouldn't think of offending Jews on our national monuments. . . . Why is it wrong to offend a Jewish minority but it's not wrong to offend those of us who serve in the military and sit on juries but we don't believe in God?"

This Freedom From Religion Foundation sounds like my kind of people.

Makes me proud to be a "Dairy Queen" originally from Wisconsin . . . .

"'Ya Want Change With That Legal Brief, Sir ? ? ? ? "

If the Obama administration's stance on legal matters is any indication, the "change" they're offering is mainly pocket change.

Yeah, yeah, yeah I know what you're thinking: "But if you consider the alternative, he's head and shoulders above. They would have been disastrous!"

Consider these quotes from the article below, however:

President Barack Obama is morphing into George W. Bush;
Obama's legal arguments repeatedly mirror Bush's;
this administration's legal arguments have blended into the other;
Obama has come to emulate Bush;
he's following Bush's lead in defending in court the federal marriage law;
The Obama White House has followed suit;
The Obama White House, so far, takes the same view;
The Obama administration now agrees;
as Obama follows the Bush lead;
The Obama administration now says the same.

From McClatchy yesterday:

In stark legal turnaround, Obama now resembles Bush
Michael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers | June 19, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is morphing into George W. Bush, as administration attorneys repeatedly adopt the executive-authority and national-security rationales that their Republican predecessors preferred.

In courtroom battles and freedom-of-information fights from Washington, D.C., to California, Obama's legal arguments repeatedly mirror Bush's: White House turf is to be protected, secrets must be retained and dire warnings are wielded as weapons.

"It's putting up a veritable wall around the White House, and it's so at odds with Obama's campaign commitment to more open government," said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a legal watchdog group.

_______________


Whatever the reasons, policy persists.

The Bush White House sought to keep e-mails secret. The Obama White House has followed suit. The Bush White House sought to keep visitor logs secret. The Obama White House, so far, takes the same view.

Petaluma, Calif., resident Carolyn Jewel and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a legal activist group, sued the Bush administration over warrantless wiretaps. The Bush administration said that the lawsuit endangered national security. The Obama administration now agrees.

_______________


An ACLU lawsuit, initially filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., contends that the Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan knowingly supported a CIA operation that flew terrorism suspects to brutal overseas prisons. The Bush administration invoked the "state secrets" privilege in an effort to stop the suit.

"Further litigation of this case would pose an unacceptable risk of disclosure of information that the nation's security requires not be disclosed," the Bush administration declared in a legal filing on Oct. 18, 2007.

The Obama administration now says the same, after a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled April 21 that the case could proceed.

"Permitting this suit to proceed would pose an unacceptable risk to national security," the Obama administration declared in a legal filing June 12.

For both arguments, the two administrations relied on the attestations of the same man: former Bush CIA Director Michael Hayden.

You need to count your "change" the next time a vote is cast.

I seem to be missing some of mine . . . .

Year End Cleanup . . . .

Some end of the year cleanup is in order, and how fitting it is to feature the bush administration.

From Bob Herbert of the New York Times we get:

Add Up the Damage
By BOB HERBERT - December 30, 2008

Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?

You don’t hear much from him anymore. The last image most of us remember is of the president ducking a pair of size 10s that were hurled at him in Baghdad.

We’re still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is thrashing the Palestinians in Gaza. And the U.S. economy is about as vibrant as the 0-16 Detroit Lions.

But hardly a peep have we heard from George, the 43rd.

















When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

_______________


The catalog of his transgressions against the nation’s interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don’t hold your breath. He’s hardly the contrite sort.

He told ABC’s Charlie Gibson: “I don’t spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don’t worry about long-term history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it.”

The president chuckled, thinking — as he did when he made his jokes about the missing weapons of mass destruction — that there was something funny going on.

Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel prize in economics, also of the New York Times now weighs in:

Looking for a word
December 31, 2008

Unusually, I’m having a vocabulary problem. There has to be some word for the kind of person who considers his mild discomfort the equivalent of torture, crippling injury, or death for other people. But I can’t think of it.

What brings this to mind is this from Alberto Gonzales:

"I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

This reminded me of Laura Bush’s remark on carnage in Iraq:















"And believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this."

Remember this. And remember, too, that for long years these people were considered heroic patriots, defenders of the nation.

And now it is time for them to go away . . . .

"Inclusive" Is One Thing. "Homophobic" Is Another . . . .

Damn, I wish Kucinich or Feingold would have had the proverbial "Snowball's Chance in Hell" of getting elected President . . . .

A Crack in the Law ? ? ? ?

The Toronto Star supplies this:

Drop law on sagging pants, judge rules

TheStar.com - World - September 18, 2008

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla.–A judge has decided a town law banning sagging pants is unconstitutional after a teen spent a night in jail accused of exposing too much underwear.

Julius Hart, 17, was charged last week after an officer said he spotted the teenager riding his bicycle with 10 to 12.5 centimetres ( 4-5 inches) of blue-and-black boxer shorts revealed.

_______________


"The first time I saw this particular fashion, I disliked it," Hart's public defender, Carol Bickerstaff, told the judge. "And then I realized I'm getting old."

Will wonders never cease?

There are actually a few rational people in Florida after all.

Go figure . . . .

Florida Joining the 21st Century ? ? ? ?

What's goin' on down in Florida since we left?

From McClatchy yesterday:

Poll: Florida gay marriage ban falling short of needed margin

Mary Ellen Klas | Miami Herald

September 08, 2008

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Charlie Crist continues to ride high job approval ratings, according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University, but the luck's not as good for the ballot amendment he supports -- the measure to ban gay marriages.

Florida voters are satisfied with the governor's performance, with 61 percent saying they have a favorable view of Crist, compared to 25 percent who say he's doing a poor job. But he isn't on the ballot this year and the proposal on the November ballot to enshrine in the state Constitution a definition that marriage is between a man and a woman falls short of the 60 percent approval threshold.

Voters support Amendment 2 by 55-41 percent, with Republicans favoring it 76-21 percent while Democrats oppose it 51-45 percent.

And now today, also from McClatchy:

Florida court strikes down 31-year ban on gay adoptions

Carol Marbin Miller | Miami Herald

September 09, 2008

A Monroe Circuit Court judge has ruled that Florida's 31-year-old gay adoption ban is ''unconstitutional'' in an order that allows an openly gay Key West foster parent to adopt a teenage boy he has raised since 2001.

Declaring the adoption to be in the boy's ''best interest,'' Circuit Judge David J. Audlin Jr. said the Florida law forbidding gay people from adopting children is contrary to the state Constitution because it singles out a group for punishment.

Florida is one of only two states — the other is Mississippi — that forbids gay people from adopting.

Circuit judges in Florida have found the statute unconstitutional twice before, both in 1991, but both challenges stalled. A Miami case expected to be heard next month may provide an additional challenge to the law.

Maybe we should have left sooner.

Hey, it's not like we didn't try to . . . .

Border BS . . . .

This Homeland Security crap just keeps gettin' better 'n better.

Per Reuters:

U.S. tracking citizens' border crossings
Wed Aug 20, 2008 1:05am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has been using its border checkpoints to collect information on citizens that will be stored for 15 years, raising concern among privacy advocates, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials said the collection is part of a broader effort to guard against terrorist threats, the report said, citing a Federal Register notice the agency issued last month.

_______________


But it states that information may be shared with federal, state and local governments to test "new technology and systems designed to enhance border security or identify other violations of law," the Post reported.






A DHS spokesman was not immediately available for comment on the report.




Information on international air passengers has long been collected this way but Customs and Border Protection only this year began to log the arrivals of all U.S. citizens across land borders, the Post said.

Privacy advocates raised concerns about the expanded collection of personal data and said safeguards are needed to ensure the system is not abused.

"People expect to be checked when they enter the country and for the government to determine if they're admissible or not," Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology told the Post.

"What they don't expect is for the government to keep a record for 15 years of their comings into the country."

Huh.

15 years.

Sounds about right, doesn't it?

I'm thinkin' a boycott of the US border is in order, folks.

"Heckuva job, Mikey . . . . "

Border BS . . . .

This Homeland Security BS is getting a bit out of hand.

Per CBC News this afternoon:


U.S. border agents given power to seize travellers' laptops, cellphones
Friday, August 1, 2008 | 3:33 PM ET

CBC News

U.S. authorities now have the power to seize and detain travellers' electronic devices, including laptops and cellphones, and make copies of their contents at an off-site location, under newly disclosed customs policies.

The policy gives border agents at any point of entry into the United States the authority to also take documents, books, pamphlets and hard drives. The items can be seized from anyone crossing the border and may then be copied and shared with other government agencies, according to Department of Homeland Security documents dated July 16.

"Officers may detain documents and electronic devices, or copies thereof, for a reasonable period of time to perform a thorough border search," the policy says. "The search may take place on-site or at an off-site location."

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold told the Washington Post he finds the new policies "alarming" and said he plans to introduce legislation that would make grounds for border searches more rigorous.

_______________


"They're saying they can rifle through all the information in a traveller's laptop without having a smidgen of evidence that the traveller is breaking the law," said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology.

This whole crossing the border thing is really becoming annoying, and now it is an invasion of privacy to boot.

At least Russ Feingold is aware of the situation. That gives me some hope . . . .

Bastards ! ! ! !

Why is this not at all surprising based on previous US actions?

Per Reuters this evening:

U.S. rejects outside probe of Canadian sent to Syria
Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:18pm EDT - By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Wednesday he had rejected a request from lawmakers that an outside special counsel investigate the case of a Canadian taken off a plane in New York and sent to Syria, where he says he was tortured.

Mukasey said under questioning at a House of Representatives Judiciary Committee hearing that he did not believe that a special counsel was warranted "at this time."

Maher Arar, a Syrian-born software engineer, was taken into custody by U.S. officials during a 2002 stopover in New York while on his way home to Canada and then deported to Syria because of suspected links to al Qaeda.

Arar says he was imprisoned in Syria for a year and tortured. His case has become a sore spot in U.S.-Canada relations.

_______________


Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, cited testimony last month that U.S. officials may have sent Arar to Syria, rather than Canada, because they knew of the likelihood of torture.

"If that doesn't trigger need for a special prosecutor, I can't imagine what would," he said.

Mukasey said U.S. officials received assurances from Syria that Arar would not be tortured. "Sending him to Canada could have posed a threat to our country," Mukasey said, adding that sending him to Syria was "safer."

'TENDENCY TO COVER UP ITS CRIMES'

Maria LaHood, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which represents Arar in the United States, replied, "Sending Maher to Syria instead of home to Canada was certainly not safer for him, and did nothing to make the United States safer."


She said, "The tendency of the Department of Justice to cover up its crimes is exactly why an outside prosecutor is needed."

The title of this post says it all . . . .