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Iceland Poppies. Longwood Gardens. May, 2013. Photo by: joanneleon
The Friends of Distinction - Grazing in the Grass (Can you dig it?)
News & Opinion
What's really unfortunate is that this was not streamed or covered by C-SPAN. I'm wondering if there is any video at all. It's more than unfortunate actually. It's unbelievable. Anyway, there is one testimony that was done by video so we can watch that.
Progressive Caucus Holds Hearing on Implications of U.S. Drone Policy
Washington, D.C. – Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Peace and Security Task Force Chair Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and CPC Co-Chairs Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) and members of the Progressive Caucus, held a hearing today on United States drone policy.
The hearing focused on lethal drones operations abroad, questions of due process, the implications for executive and congressional war making authority, and the precedent being set as other nations rapidly adopt drone technology.
The members heard testimony from Former House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Ron Dellums, Director of Amnesty International USA’s Security with Human Rights Campaign Zeke Johnson, international human rights lawyer and New York University Professor Sarah Knuckey, Regional Policy Initiative at Open Society Foundation Program Officer Chris Rogers, counterterrorism and human rights lawyer Professor Naureen Shah, McClatchy News reporter Adam Baron and received video testimony Baraa Shiban, aYouth Representative in Yemen’s National Dialogue and Reprieve Project.
“America ought to set an example for the world to follow on protecting civil liberties and respecting human rights. It’s time our actions live up to our values,” Rep. Ellison said. “This is a national security issue—we cannot allow drones to end up in the hands of our enemies or create a political rallying point for the very people who seek to harm us. Congress and the Obama Administration should work together to write a legal framework that makes sure any drone use has adequate oversight, avoids civilian casualties, and sets an example for the world to follow.”
“No military or intelligence program should kill innocent people or create more problems than it solves,” Rep. Grijalva said. “The drone program has, in many cases, done both. We need to know more about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and where we go from here. Blundering forward and hoping for the best is what got us where we are now. We have a rightly skeptical public and an international community tired of our excuses. It’s time we got some answers.”
“I’m proud to stand with my colleagues in the Progressive Caucus on this issue, and am especially grateful for their efforts in calling this hearing. We need to ensure that both chambers publically debate the implications of drones and drone warfare. We cannot retreat from our Congressional duties of oversight and accountability, especially on issues like this where the stakes are so high,” said Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
Reps. Lee, Grijalva, and Ellison recently sent a letterto the president asking the administration to explain the legal basis for drone strikes. “It is far past time that the White House openly discuss the drones program,” the authors wrote. “The President has full reign to protect the United States as Commander in Chief, but Congress has a vital oversight role in this issue, and we cannot shy away from those responsibilities.”
Baraa Shiban Testimony -- May 8 Progressive Caucus Hearing on Drones from tarek ismail on Vimeo.
Kevin Gosztola did a post about the hearing, and he is always worth reading.
Congressional Progressive Caucus Holds Hearing on US Drone Policies
Shiban told congressional members he wanted to explain what “the secret air war has meant to the people of Yemen.” He said strikes send a message that the “US either can’t or doesn’t bother to sift friend from foe.”
Last summer, a strike in Kashmir in southeast Yemen killed an anti-al-Qa’ida imam Salem bin Ali Jaber, and his 21-year-old nephew Waleed. Just days before he was killed the imam had denounced al-Qa’ida’s hateful ideology.
I spoke to the imam’s relative Faisal, who said the family had feared Salem might be assassinated by militants. They had no idea he’d be killed by a US drone. And while Salem’s family only want justice, others will certainly exploit this sad story and persuade desperate Yemenis that revenge is the only way.
He told another powerful story related to an attack that occurred on September 2, 2012. At least twelve civilians were killed “by US drones or jets” in a “botched attack on an alleged senior militant,” according to a summary by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Eleven died immediately. One person died from injuries. Three children were killed.
An excellent post by DS Wright.
Obama On The Verge Of Supporting End Of 4th Amendment On The Internet
The FBI has long been searching for a way to bypass the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which they have claimed makes their job difficult, increasingly so in the information age. Previously the FBI just broke the law and hoped it would not get caught, now the agency wants a patina of legality to cover its transgressions against liberty.
[...]
Now it is reported that President Obama is on the verge of supporting the FBI’s plan to expand surveillance power to the point of virtually ending the 4th amendment on the internet.
The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations…
While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.
[...]
That seems unfair. The Chinese police state actually stops criminals along with political dissidents.
Republicans Sean Duffy, Phil Gingrey Oppose Obama's Social Security Cut
WASHINGTON -- Two House Republicans have told constituents they oppose proposed cuts to Social Security and veterans benefits by reducing the cost of living adjustment, according to letters they sent to constituents. President Barack Obama included the plan, known as chained CPI, in his annual budget, but specified that he was only offering it as a concession to entice Republicans into a compromise. For Reps. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) and Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), however, the concession is itself objectionable.
When Obama offered the chained CPI proposal, Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, charged with electing Republicans to the House, slammed it as "a shocking attack on seniors." In general, though, the response has been muted.
Social Security's Explosive Injustices
People over 65, a growing share of the US population, are suffering a crisis-ridden capitalist system. High unemployment, reduced private pensions, fewer job benefits, less job security, high personal debt levels, and falling real wages make Social Security payments more important than ever. Yet President Obama and Congress recently agreed to bargain over how much to reduce Social Security payments from current levels. That would not only hurt seniors - but also the children who help them.
Consider these statistics covering 2010 [New York Times, April 20, pp B1 and B4]. Married and single people over 65 earning $32,600 or less per year relied on Social Security for between 66% and 84% of their total annual income. That is the majority - 60% - of all US citizens over 65. Cutting Social Security payments seriously damages their lives. An additional 20% of the over-65 population, earning between $32,600 and $57,960, count on Social Security for 44% of their annual income. Cutting Social Security benefits is a cruel "thank you" for a lifetime's work, a default on the payroll taxes they paid into the Social Security system.
Cutting Social Security is an outrageous injustice that may provoke historic shifts and splits in the political landscape. A new left political movement may emerge driven less by students and the young than by their parents and even grandparents. Planned Social Security payment cuts would force many in the older generation to ask the younger for more help just when crisis capitalism distresses them both. Politically explosive pressures are building.
What President Obama Gets Wrong About Citizenship and Tyranny
He urged Ohio State graduates to trust their fellow Americans to exercise "awesome authority." Mistrust is more prudent.
"You've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems," he said. "They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted .... The founders trusted us with this awesome authority. We should trust ourselves with it, too ... when we don't, when we turn away and get discouraged and cynical, and abdicate that authority, we grant our silent consent to someone who will gladly claim it."
Almost no one in America actually believes that government is "nothing more" than a sinister entity, or that it is "at the root of all our problems." Obama erected that strawman for rhetorical convenience. Even setting that aside, his history is mistaken and his analysis is flawed.
The founders did not trust anyone with awesome authority. They built institutions predicated on the core belief that men are not angels, and that no one should be "trusted," including the citizenry itself. The founders began with a loose confederation of sovereign states. When it proved insufficient, the central government they established was restrained by a written constitution. That constitution limited the federal government's role to specific, enumerated powers. Obama believes, rightly or wrongly, the federal government should exceed that limited role.
Obama Embraces Plutocrats Again With His Billionaire Commerce Secretary Choice
Picking Penny Pritzker is a clear message that Obama's priorities are not what's in the public interest.
President Obama has let the public down once again with his pick for Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, the billionaire businesswoman who led the national 2008 fundraising effort that kept the Obama campaign’s hopes alive and catapulted him to the White House.
Loyalty and trust are prized political values—and clearly Obama trusts Pritzker, whom he has known for two decades. But Obama’s fealty is going to be tested because her record as a businesswoman shares similarities with Mitt Romney’s. Her massive wealth is kept in tax-avoiding offshore accounts. Her family’s best-known business, the Hyatt hotel empire, is known for bitter and ongoing disputes with labor unions. Her resume includes running a bank that pioneered high-interest subprime loans and then failed miserably, leaving uninsured depositors with losses averaging $6,000.
Since 2008, when Pritzker was said to have wanted the Commerce post, she apparently has disentangled her assets from her family’s portfolio. But there is no escaping that her nomination highlights the biggest schism in the Democratic Party: it cannot be a party that embraces both workers and the wealthy without large doses of hypocrisy.
Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
Evening Blues
Warren wants the Fed to invest in our Students like it invests in Big Banks
May '70: 9. Violent Backlash
Big Pharma CEOs Rake in $1.57 Billion in Pay
Sequester takes its toll on long-term unemployed as benefits are slashed
Denying the Data Today Won't Make President Obama's Austerity Go Away
Livestream at Noon: Summit on Protecting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans' benefits
The Friends of Distinction - "Love or Let Me Be Lonely" (1970)