Glenn Greenwald writes in response to the overall positive reaction of the drone assassination of American born Anwar al-Awlaki:
What’s most amazing is that its citizens will not merely refrain from objecting, but will stand and cheer the U.S. Government’s new power to assassinate their fellow citizens, far from any battlefield, literally without a shred of due process from the U.S. Government. Many will celebrate the strong, decisive, Tough President’s ability to eradicate the life of Anwar al-Awlaki — including many who just so righteously condemned those Republican audience members as so terribly barbaric and crass for cheering Governor Perry’s execution of scores of serial murderers and rapists — criminals who were at least given a trial and appeals and the other trappings of due process before being killed.
From an authoritarian perspective, that’s the genius of America’s political culture. It not only finds way to obliterate the most basic individual liberties designed to safeguard citizens from consummate abuses of power (such as extinguishing the lives of citizens without due process). It actually gets its citizens to stand up and clap and even celebrate the destruction of those safeguards.
Sadly, among those that cheered this assassination of an American citizen are none other than pro war on terror libertarians Neal Boortz and Larry Elder. When Boortz heard that Ron Paul and Gary Johnson condemned the assassination, he called that notion “a bunch of horse squeeze.” After playing Ron Paul’s very well reasoned response explaining his objections, Larry Elder said that Paul “doesn’t get it” and “we are at war.”
I’m sorry gentlemen, I wasn’t aware that there was a “war on terror” exception to due process. But hey you guys are both attorneys who claim to hold the Constitution in high regard so what the hell do I know?
If there is anything our government does well its convicting people, putting them in prison, and/or executing them. If the government really had the goods on this guy, there’s virtually no chance he would have been found not guilty.
President Obama not only ordered the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki but the Fifth Amendment as well.
Federal law already makes it illegal for someone to possess a gun if he or she is “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” marijuana or other controlled substances. A Sept. 21 letter from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, issued in response to numerous inquiries from gun dealers, clarifies that medical marijuana patients are included in that definition.
“There are no exceptions in federal law for marijuana purportedly used for medicinal purposes, even if such use is sanctioned by state law,” said the letter by Arthur Herbert, the ATF’s assistant director for enforcement programs and services.
Federal firearm licensees, or FFLs, can’t sell a gun to someone who answers “yes” when a required form asks whether the buyer is a controlled substance user. Last week’s letter also says that licensed dealers can’t sell a gun or ammunition if they have “reasonable cause to believe” the buyer is using a controlled substance.
That includes if the buyer presents a medical marijuana card as identification, or if the buyer talks about drug use, having a medical marijuana card or a recent drug conviction, ATF spokesman Drew Wade said Wednesday.
[…]
Pro-marijuana and gun groups said the policy clarification amounts to rescinding the gun rights for the thousands of people licensed to use medical marijuana laws. And it appears to contradict a 2009 Department of Justice memo that said the Obama administration would not pursue prosecution of individual medical marijuana users who obey state laws.
[…]
Wade said both the 2009 memo and last week’s letter were approved by the Justice Department and he does not believe there is a contradiction in the two messages. He also that the dealers are in a good position to help prevent firearms from getting into the wrong hands.
Funny that the ATF’s spokesman would say he was worried about firearms “getting into the wrong hands.” Does the operation that is currently under investigation code named “Fast and Furious” ring a bell? The very operation where the ATF purposely allowed some 450 or so guns to “walk” across the Mexican border eventually arming the drug cartels? If this isn’t a scandal that calls out for a special prosecutor to investigate the Obama administration, I don’t know what does!
But for the very same ATF to then issue a letter saying that medical marijuana users have to choose between their Second Amendment rights and their medical treatment is beyond the pale.
Wow. It’s one thing to carry the necessary delusion that comes with most people in a startup… That self-delusion, the belief that you can’t fail (despite the high proportions of startups that fail), is what is required to overcome the often monumental odds most startups face. But is it merely delusion to submit THIS* to the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on June 23, 2011? No, I can’t think so. This is balls. Pure, shiny brass ones:
Solyndra does not publicly release quarterly results but is on track for this year. The ability to command a slight pricing premium as a result of substantial differentiation and product benefits continues and our cash production cost per watt is dropping rapidly at pace with the industry. In a highly competitive global marketplace Solyndra continues to win large projects on commercial rooftops around the world and we are confident we are competitive on the merits of our differentiated, lightweight, simple to install cylindrical rooftop and greenhouse products.
Evidence of Strong Momentum
1166 employees and growing, 49 open jobs on website
Exporting more >50% of product
Over 1000 installations >20 countries
Over 100MW shipped
2010 revenue ~$140M
2011 shipments expected to double over 2010
Fab ramp to 300MW on target
14th largest shipper from the Port of Oakland, more than 1000 containers this year
Doubled U.S. sales and marketing team in past 6 months
I can imagine Solyndra issuing mindless press releases like this — maybe in 2010 or 2009. I can even imagine them issuing such optimistic letters to the US Congress at that time — they still had enough free gov’t money in the coffers to at least try to justify themselves as an ongoing concern. But to do so in the middle of 2011, when you know you’re headed for the skids? That’s just asking for trouble! You have to think they’re going to wonder where all this optimism came from when the excrement hits the air circulation device.
Of course, there is no mention of profitability. Startups, when they have at least a hint of a viable road to profitability, would undoubtedly at least claim such. I have to think that whoever wrote this letter was deliberately focusing on revenue & jobs created, and not on profitability [not altogether unusual for a startup, to be sure] to deflect attention from the entity who had just loaned them $535M regarding when it might get paid back.
I note it’s titled “Exceeding Expectations”. I agree: I had no idea someone with barely money to keep the lights on would be capable of spewing out this much bullshit.
Hat Tip: Reason, who has a lot more of the timeline of the Solyndra saga at this link. » Read more
Is it possible that the G.O.P would nominate and/or the American people would elect for president a man who as governor more likely than not executed an innocent man?
An even more disturbing question would be: Could Gov. Rick Perry be elected president despite his efforts to keep investigators from learning the truth about the Cameron Todd Willingham case both before and after Willingham’s execution?
It seems we will have an answer to these questions in the 2012 campaign.
Apparently, these questions were not of much concern among Texans. According to a recent Politico article written by Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison who ran against Perry in the gubernatorial primary in the 2010 campaign asked focus groups what they thought about the idea that an innocent man may have been executed on Gov. Perry’s watch. For the most part, the question was a non-issue. According to several (unnamed) former Hutchison staffers, they quoted one individual as saying “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.”
Gov. RICK PERRY (R), Texas: This is a guy on his- on- in the death chamber, his last breath, he spews an obscenity-laced triad [sic] against his wife. That’s the person who we’re talking about here. And getting all tied up in the process here is, frankly, a deflection of what people across this state and this country need to be looking at. This was a bad man.
No question, the words that Willingham directed at his wife are pretty rough. Willingham could have taken the high road but he didn’t. A bad man? Maybe. But to suggest that because Willingham’s last statement, which I agree is obscene and arguably low class, somehow “proves” that he killed his own children tells me that the Texas governor has a very low standard of proof.
Willingham’s spouse believed in his innocence in the beginning but as the execution date drew nearer, she changed her mind and made statements in the media that she believed he was guilty. How many men, innocent or not, in a similar situation would feel betrayed say something similar?
At Gov. Perry’s first debate appearance at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, when challenged about his executive order that would have required girls age 12 and over to get the HPV vaccine, he said that the way he went about it was wrong but explained that he was concerned about these young girls getting a deadly cancer. He “errs on the side of life,” a statement I couldn’t believe he could actually say with a straight face given his unwillingness to err on the side of life with regard to capital punishment.
Governor Perry, a question about Texas. Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times. [Applause] Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?
Gov. Perry responds:
No, sir. I’ve never struggled with that at all. The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which—when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing, they go through an appellate process, they go up to the Supreme Court of the United States, if that’s required.
Never struggled with the thought that there’s even the slightest possibility that an innocent man has been executed on his watch at all? The fact that five men who were once on death row who were exonerated on his watch doesn’t give Gov. Perry even a little pause? Five men who would have been executed had Gov. Perry had his way? And even after the recent revelation via exculpatory DNA evidence that an innocent man, Claude Jones was executed just before Gov. George W. Bush handed the governorship to Perry and ascended to the presidency?
If Gov. Perry is so certain of the guilt of every single individual who has been executed on his watch, why does he continue to stymie investigations into the Willingham case? Perhaps even more importantly, why does Gov. Perry continue to block efforts to allow Hank Skinner to have DNA testing which would determine once and for all if Skinner is the murderer Gov. Perry thinks he is before executing him this coming November?
What is Gov. Perry so afraid of?
Gov. Perry would have us believe that the “very clear process” in Texas is so perfect that there is just no way that a wrongfully convicted person could be executed. He is either in denial or doesn’t care if the occasional innocent person is killed by the state (and even if Willingham wasn’t a murderer, he was still “a bad man” so who cares right?). The death penalty is just the sort of a punishment that neither Gov. Perry nor the State of Texas can live without. Judging by the thunderous applause at the very mention of Texas’ 234 executions at the Reagan Library, sadly Gov. Perry is hardly alone in a Republican Party where the majority of its members ironically and hypocritically call themselves “pro-life.”
All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
The issuance of debt is a revenue raising measure. The “debt ceiling” is, in fact, legislation initiated in the House of Representatives, which authorizes the executive branch to issue debt through the treasury (and by extension the federal reserve), up to a specific limit.
This “debt ceiling” and authorization of debt issuance; allows the executive branch to raise revenue in a constitutionally legitimate way; because the revenue is raised under the auspices of specific authorization by the house or representatives.
Neither the Senate, nor the House, acting separately or together; has the authority or ability to delegate this exclusive power of the house, to any other entity, including the president. In fact, it would be a clear violation of the principle of separation of powers to do so.
I am a cynically romantic optimistic pessimist. I am neither liberal, nor conservative. I am a (somewhat disgruntled) muscular minarchist… something like a constructive anarchist.
Basically what that means, is that I believe, all things being equal, responsible adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to do, so long as nobody’s getting hurt, who isn’t paying extra
