Just In: Obama Admin. Admits Gave OK Kill US Citizens Overseas!

[Peter Lemkin]

There is something Kaftaesque, if not grotesque, about there even being a discussion about if it is legal or not for the US state to murder US citizens. I am not a lawyer but even I know it is a) wrong and b) illegal. End of discussion.

There are those neocons....err, I mean neo-fascists in the U.S. who actually try to make the 'legal' (sic) argument that it is legal if the President or someone the Presidents says can make such decisions so decides - because they think that person or person might be a threat [terrorist or other such pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey tag, tag, your dead moniker]. Name 'em and nail 'em - no messy and lengthy trial and conviction rates are better than any prosecutor's dream. But, yes, not only does it specifically violate many U.S. laws and the Constitution, it also violates international treaties the U.S. has signed and International Law - including those the U.S. imposed on the defeated Nazis - how ironic. What goes around really does come around in odd fashions.....

[Ed Jewett]

The suspension of the Constitution has been at the heart of the "continuity of government" planning in place and accelerated since Reagan, Ollie North, Iran-Contra et al. Major players, even while not serving in government, were Cheney and Rumsfeld, starting when they were in the White House under Ford and continued thereafter and, of course, renewed under VP Cheney in the Bush Administration. FEMA is the sheath of that sword. It goes back to the anti-war protests in the 60's, the riots in the inner cities, etc. when some in government felt especially threatened by the people being upset and potentially capable of raising enough of a ruckus so as to cause termination of war/empire, and so they put in place provisions for martial law, etc. This has been a major focus of Peter Dale Scott's inquiries, as well as others, especially in re: 9/11 when the COG was indeed activated. Though additional research is needed, it is my sense that that move was then quickly choked off into silent presence. There is previously the famous interchange between Sen. Daniel Inouye during the Iran-Contra hearings to squelch and hide inquiry. It lives today in the presence of the Main Core database of Americans to be watched and/or rounded up in the event of ... Today, it is suggested that some subset is also the to-be-terminated-for-cause list available to the terminators.

It has also to do with the flight of the "Doomsday" 'flying Pentagon' planes on 9/11 as documented by Mark Gaffney and others. Many relevant Executive Orders have been written and are in place requiring merely the formal signature and announcement. While I'm sure most here are cognizant of the matter, what we have witnessed is creeping totalitariansim; liberty and blance of power have been slowly rolled back at a slow rate, the infamous 'boiling frog' phenomenon, Milton Mayer's famous description of the Nazi escalation "They Thought They Were Free" (here's an excerpt: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html ), etc. And, yes, the declaration of a 9/11 state emergency has never, to my knowledge, been rescinded. All of this is documented and available on the 'net.

[Peter Lemkin]

As W famously once said, "The Constitution is JUST a piece of PAPER!". Sadly, due to his ilk, toilet paper and already flushed down and away.......

Some of the best stuff on COG is on Peter Dale Scott's website

[Magda Hassan]

What about that Peace Prize thingy he got? About time he gave that back I think. He received it under false pretenses. :reddy::evil::mad:

[David Guyatt]

O.K, Late night special. Whole Nation for half price....

I considered it and naw, but thanks. I've got an offer for 2/3rds of Blighty on the table at half the price right now. And Europe is coming up shortly too.

My money's on the whole planet going cheap after it goes down the toilet. The R & R profits will be enormous.

If there are any aliens around.

I've decided instead to focus my vast and unholy wealth in new educational practices. I'm going to start a nationwide night school and home tuition college (online) offering lessons to young parents in "educational water-boarding" and low voltage "electrickery remedial maths".

After all, it is so very important to drum the 3 "R's" into our young voters to be, don't you think?

And the balance of my worldly abundance will be invested in new smart global voting booths, where the new age new "elec"-torate will receive near lethal pulses of taser-juice if they try to press the wrong button.

[Peter Lemkin]

O.K, Late night special. Whole Nation for half price....

I considered it and naw, but thanks. I've got an offer for 2/3rds of Blighty on the table at half the price right now. And Europe is coming up shortly too.

My money's on the whole planet going cheap after it goes down the toilet. The R & R profits will be enormous.

If there are any aliens around.

I've decided instead to focus my vast and unholy wealth in new educational practices. I'm going to start a nationwide night school and home tuition college (online) offering lessons to young parents in "educational water-boarding" and low voltage "electrickery remedial maths".

After all, it is so very important to drum the 3 "R's" into our young voters to be, don't you think?

And the balance of my worldly abundance will be invested in new smart global voting booths, where the new age new "elec"-torate will receive near lethal pulses of taser-juice if they try to press the wrong button.

If you're going public and offering shares, I'm in! Electrifying and Enterprising ideas - RIGHT up with the 'times' and the ethics of the times.hot:

[Peter Lemkin]

What about that Peace Prize thingy he got? About time he gave that back I think. He received it under false pretenses. :reddy::evil::mad:

No, maybe you didn't notice it is now called the PIECES prize.

[Jan Klimkowski]

A US soldier was accused of waterboarding his four-year-old daughter because she would not recite the alphabet.

(Snip...)

Tabor was released from jail after posting $10,000 bail but restricted to the base at Lewis-McChord as a condition of his release and cannot have any contact with his girlfriend or children.

The youngster was taken into custody by Child Protective Services.

Three more lives fucked up by Their fatuous War on Terror. :evil:

[Ed Jewett]

[quote=David Guyatt][quote]Kucinich appears to be saying that the Constitution has been secretly suspended following 911?[/quote]Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Yes, America is Still in an Official State of Emergency



A reader asked whether the U.S. is still in an official state of emergency, and if so, what that means.
The answer is yes, we are still in a state of emergency.
Specifically:

On September 11, 2001, the government declared a state of emergency. That declared state of emergency was formally put in writing on 9/14/2001:

"A national emergency exists by reason of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, New York, New York, and the Pentagon, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States.


NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, I hereby declare that the national emergency has existed since September 11, 2001 . . . ."

That declared state of emergency has continued in full force and effect from 9/11 [throughout the Bush administration] to the present.

On September 10 2009, President Obama continued the state of emergency:

The terrorist threat that led to the declaration on September 14, 2001, of a national emergency continues. For this reason, I have determined that it is necessary to continue in effect after September 14, 2009, the national emergency with respect to the terrorist threat.

Does a State of Emergency Really Mean Anything?

Does a state of emergency really mean anything?

Yes, it does:

The Washington Times wrote on September 18, 2001:

"Simply by proclaiming a national emergency on Friday, President Bush activated some 500 dormant legal provisions, including those allowing him to impose censorship and martial law."

Is the Times correct? Well, it is clear that pre-9/11 declarations of national emergency have authorized martial law. For example, as summarized by a former fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation, and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Gary Schlarbaum Award for Lifetime Defense of Liberty, Thomas Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of Liberty and Templeton Honor Rolls Award on Education in a Free Society:

In 1973, the Senate created a Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency (subsequently redesignated the Special Committee on National Emergencies and Delegated Emergency Powers) to investigate the matter and to propose reforms. Ascertaining the continued existence of four presidential declarations of national emergency, the Special Committee (U.S. Senate 1973, p. iii) reported:

"These proclamations give force to 470 provisions of Federal law. . . . taken together, [they] confer enough authority to rule the country without reference to normal constitutional processes. Under the powers delegated by these statutes, the President may: seize property; organize and control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communications; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens."

(Most or all of the emergency powers referred to by the above-quoted 1973 Senate report were revoked in the late 1970's by 50 U.S.C. Section 1601. However, presidents have made numerous declarations of emergency since then, and the declarations made by President Bush in September 2001 are still in effect).

It is also clear that the White House has kept substantial information concerning its presidential proclamations and directives hidden from Congress. For example, according to Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy:

"Of the 54 National Security Presidential Directives issued by the [George W.] Bush Administration to date, the titles of only about half have been publicly identified. There is descriptive material or actual text in the public domain for only about a third. In other words, there are dozens of undisclosed Presidential directives that define U.S. national security policy and task government agencies, but whose substance is unknown either to the public or, as a rule, to Congress."

As former United States congressman Dan Hamburg wrote in October:

While ... Congress and the judiciary, as well as public opinion, “can restrain the executive regarding emergency powers,” nothing of the sort has occurred. Under the 1976 National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601-1651), Congress is required to review presidentially declared emergencies. Specifically, “not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated.” Over the past eight years, Congress has failed to obey its own law, a fact that casts doubt on the legality of the state of emergency.
As far as public opinion is concerned, how many Americans are even aware that a state of emergency even exists. For that matter, how many members of Congress know? ...
The Obama administration is essentially arguing that the United States is currently in a state of resisting foreign invasion a full eight years after the attacks of 9/11!
This is ludicrous. [Dr. Harold C. Relyea, a specialist in national government with the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress] argues that Congress and the judiciary, as “co-equal branches of constitutional government,” serve as a check on the executive power. As we have seen, Congress has either been shut out of this process, or, as in so many cases, it has capitulated. Dr. Relyea then offers that public opinion can restrain the executive. But the public doesn’t even know they’re living under a state of emergency. The media doesn’t report it, and the government is certainly not in the business of providing information that might raise the hackles of real Americans.
It’s time for the American people to rise to this challenge. Write your member of Congress, and your senators. Tell them to obey their own laws. Tell them to end this phony and treacherous state of emergency that imperils the freedom of us all.

Hamburg's must-read article also discusses the suspension of Possse Comitatus, the operation of Northcom inside the U.S., and the refusal of the Department of Homeland Security to provide information on the state of emergency to Congress or even to Congress members on the Homeland Security committee with the highest security clearances.
The Effect of a State of Emergency on the Economy and Business

The continuous state of emergency in effect from September 2001 to the present may have had a substantial affect on the economy and business.

Initially, as William K. Black - senior regulator during the S&L crisis, professor of Economics and Law, and an expert on white collar financial crime - has repeatedly pointed out, the government knew about an epidemic of mortgage fraud a long time ago. For example, the FBI warned of an "epidemic" of mortgage fraud in 2004. However, the FBI, DOJ and other government agencies putted their agents off of financial fraud investigation and forced them to focus on terrorism instead. See this and this

And as Reuters noted last week:

U.S. securities regulators originally treated the New York Federal Reserve's bid to keep secret many of the details of the American International Group bailout like a request to protect matters of national security, according to emails obtained by Reuters.

The national security claim may seem outlandish, but it is nothing new.
As Business Week wrote on May 23, 2006:

President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations.

In other words, national security has been discussed for years as a basis of keeping normal accounting and securities-related disclosures secret. While "national security" and a state of "national emergency" may not be exactly the same, they are variations of a single theme - an existential threat to our nation - which has dominated American since September 11.

Similarly, Congressman Brad Sherman, Congressman Paul Kanjorski and Senator James Inhofe all say that the government warned of martial law if Tarp wasn't passed.
Last year:

• Senator Leahy said "If we learned anything from 9/11, the biggest mistake is to pass anything they ask for just because it's an emergency"
  

• The New York Times wrote:
  "The rescue is being sold as a must-have emergency measure by an administration with a controversial record when it comes to asking Congress for special authority in time of duress."
  ***
  Mr. Paulson has argued that the powers he seeks are necessary to chase away the wolf howling at the door: a potentially swift shredding of the American financial system. That would be catastrophic for everyone, he argues, not only banks, but also ordinary Americans who depend on their finances to buy homes and cars, and to pay for college.
  Some are suspicious of Mr. Paulson’s characterizations, finding in his warnings and demands for extraordinary powers a parallel with the way the Bush administration gained authority for the war in Iraq. Then, the White House suggested that mushroom clouds could accompany Congress’s failure to act. This time, it is financial Armageddon supposedly on the doorstep.
  “This is scare tactics to try to do something that’s in the private but not the public interest,” said Allan Meltzer, a former economic adviser to President Reagan, and an expert on monetary policy at the Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business. “It’s terrible.”
  

Most of the Fed and Treasury's looting of America to funnel trillions in bailouts, loans, guarantees, and other favors to the too big to fails was done under the justification of an "emergency".
I don't know whether the official declaration of a "state of emergency" in effect from September 2001 to today was directly used for financial looting. But again, the fear of an existential threat to our country was used to justify the looting.
And many people allege that the government has taken drastic steps to manipulate market prices. If true, the president's ability to use emergency powers to "stabilize the markets" no doubt makes manipulation easier.

Congress Has the Power to Revoke the State of Emergency

A note to Congressional staffers: Congressman Hamburg is right. Congress does have the power to revokethe state of emergency.

Specifically, the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. Sections 1601-1651 (passed in 1976), gives Congress the power to countermand a presidential declaration of national emergency. Indeed, in 1976, Congress rescinded all of the declarations of national emergency made since World War II, as many of them had been on the books for years and were giving the executive unrestricted powers which were undermining the Constitution.

In 1983, the Supreme Court struck down a portion of Congress' power to countermand a declaration of national emergency. But Congress got around that ruling by amending the National Emergencies Act in 1985 to confirm Congress' power to countermand - through a joint resolution between the House and Senate - a declaration of emergency by the president (see this).

Moreover, in 2007, the Bush Administration tried to ignore the National Emergencies Act by issuing National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 51. But that dog won't hunt. The Constitution does not allow the president to unilaterally cut Congress out of the picture.
As former Chicago Federal Reserve economist and Senior Morningstar equity analyst William Bergman wrote in 2001:

Lord Acton’s famous saying that ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ provides a valuable warning. In light of the sweeping powers seemingly provided by statutes like 12 U.S.C. 95a and 12 U.S.C. 95(a), those who care about democratic principles and freedom may wish to monitor the implications of these and other laws for government choices before conditions arise giving rise to assertions of emergency authority, in addition to behavior arising amidst an emergency itself. This study could usefully include a renewed assessment of the constitutionality of these and other emergency statutes, as well as more fundamental review of their welfare implications per se, including work along the lines produced for the Senate Special Committee to Terminate the National Emergency in 1973.[i]

[i] See for example Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency, “Emergency Powers Statutes: Provisions of Federal Law Now in Effect Delegating to the Executive Extraordinary Authority In Time of National Emergency.” United States Senate Report 93-549; November 19, 1973.

[Magda Hassan]

And the 'War on Terror' will assure that the SOE stay that way for ever and ever and a day or until some some sanity prevails. But that will never happen if looking at the gene pool they have to choose from is any indication.