blog.arithm

As reported by Glen Greenwald on Friday, the U.S. government is now, via remote control drones, assassinating citizens that it, the government, deems a threat, without formal charges, and without due process. Politico has a good update here.

As Dr. Paul Craig Roberts points out, that threat came in the form of free speech from Inspire Magazine’s publisher, Samir Khan, and — in particular — the sermons of a moderate American Muslim cleric, Anwar Awlaki.

Awlaki had advised the U.S. government after 9/11 on Muslim extremist counter-terrorism. According to Roberts, Alwaki was disillusioned and radicalized by this experience.

You know, I voted for Obama. And over the years, as the wars have expanded, the spending accelerated, as civil liberties have been aggressively, deliberately eroded, I have, on very rare occasions, polled friends and family for their opinion. Of those who supported Obama, the response has been generally apologetic. “He needs more time,” say some. “The administration is trying to compromise,” lament others. “He’s in our court; Obama just needs time to negotiate,” seems to be the sentiment.

I don’t see this. I see, instead, an administration hell-bent on entrenching and expanding illegal powers bestowed on it by the administration before. The Bush Presidency pretended to cater to it’s Republican base while aggregating power into the Executive Branch. The Obama Presidency pretends to cater to it’s reactionary Democratic base, promising to reverse former abuses, while in reality consolidating the very same powers it had vowed to reverse and restore to the people.

Roberts sums it up poetically:

The Obama Regime, like the Bush/Cheney Regime, is a regime that does not want to be constrained by law. And neither will its successor. Those fighting to uphold the rule of law, humanity’s greatest achievement, will find themselves lumped together with the regime’s opponents and be treated as such.

Power consolidated, with these drone attacks the Obama Regime is testing the waters, exercising freshly minted authority to set precedent.

A frightening precedent it is.

How much longer, I wonder, before the drones come home to roost.

Well, well. This:

could certainly help to explain this:

Occupy protests picking up steam.

Someone has to do something pretty heinous to get doxed by Anonymous and Dees’d by David Dees all in one day.

That someone is NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony V. Bologna. And that something would happen to be aggressively macing protesters at the Occupy Wallstreet protest yesterday.

Here’s a breakdown of the incident in question:

The result has been a growing sense of outrage, with Anonymous publicly pastebinning the deputy inspector’s personal details, and prompting David Dees to whip up one of his famous illustrations.

For once Dees didn’t have to apply creative license to get his point across.

Predictably, the mainsteam media has largely been ignoring the protests and this incident in particular. Hats off to Lawrence O’Donnell for taking this on and telling it like it is.

Just in case there’s any doubt as to whose behalf Rick Perry is running.

Fucking bingo. The Bought Congress, and the enabling Bought Supreme Court, have got to go.

And of course Ratigan seems to not see the whole Bought President problem.

Simon Black over at Sovereign Man posted an interesting one today: H.R.2411 – Reduce America’s Debt Now Act of 2011.

HR 2411 is a ridiculous piece of legislation that would give U.S. citizens the honor of voluntarily helping to pay down the spiraling national debt.  Of course, any voluntary debt reduction payments would not be tax deductible; never mind that income taxes are most likely voluntary in the first place.

I have another idea for how we could reduce the debt:  End the wars, and the graft, End the Fed, and get Washington out of Wall Street’s pocket.

What the hell. What’s next?

These days Dr. Paul’s conservative platform comes across as being liberal. Time to register as a Republican I guess.

This two party system has got to go.

Go Ron Paul!

Remember when reporters actually used to, you know report.. rather than trying to spin the testimonial of credible professionals?