Obama's big state secrets win!

The recent U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling shows the five foreigners who were victimized by our government's extraordinary rendition program that the CIA and assisting companies can kidnap, incarcerate and torture without any consequence. The lawsuit against Boeing has been thrown out in the name of securing state secrets. This is a big victory for President Obama justifying his "power to protect wartime actions from judicial scrutiny."

When one looks at our Empire's approach to warfare and the spying on and imprisoning of citizens without due process, seamless continuity links the Bush approach with Obama's.

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Glenn Greenwald considers this Times editorial to be "quite good."

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Jane Mayer on State Secrets:

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ACLU challenges Obama's right to assassinate US citizens overseas

Obama's right to assassinate an American citizen abroad is being challenged by the ACLU. I wonder what percentage of Hope-n-Change supporters agree that the US should legally be able to assassinate ANYONE?

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Meanwhile, a majority of Republicans polled believe Obama plans to one day implement Islamic law in the US.

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quote of the day

"For me, the strangest and most off-putting element of the [Glenn Beck event] was the disjuncture between the anti-authority dimension of the rally - our leaders have disappointed us and must be called to account! - and the whole-hog deference to militarism - we need to thank our soldiers for following orders so honorably and self-sacrificingly. While there were plenty of wounded soldiers on the stage, there was absolutely zero discussion of why these guys were being sent overseas and whether we should expect the same politicians who lie to us on domestic policy to be any better on foreign policy." -Nick Gillespie

Fox News coverage of Bush's gay campaign manager

Ken Mehlman served as the campaign manager for the 2004 re-election campaign of George W. Bush and Chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2005 to 2007. On August 26, 2010, Mehlman came out as gay, making him one of the most prominent openly gay figures in the Republican Party.

In the last 24 hours:
CNN has mentioned Mehlman 19 times
MSNBC has mentioned Mehlman 12 times
Fox News has mentioned Mehlman 0 times

Fox News hasn't mentioned Dr. Laura Schlessinger's "nigger" tirade at all.

quote of the day

"Rather than emphatically stand up to the bankers and other oligarchical thieves, [the Obama administration] coddled and served them, and thus became the face of the elite interests oppressing ordinary Americans rather than their foes. How can an administration represented by Tim Geithner and Larry Summers -- and which specializes in an endless stream of secret deals with corporate lobbyists and sustains itself with Wall Street funding -- possibly maintain any pretense of populist support or changing how Washington works? It can't.

There are few more bitter ironies than watching the Republican Party -- controlled at its core by the very business interests responsible for the country's economic collapse -- now become the beneficiaries of middle-class and lower-middle-class economic insecurity. But the Democratic Party's failure/refusal/inability to be anything other than the Party of Tim Geithner renders them unable to offer answers to angry, anxious, resentful Americans. As has happened countless times in countless places, those answers are now being provided instead by a group of self-serving, hateful extremist leaders eager to exploit that anger for their own twisted financial and political ends. And it seems to be working."

-Glenn Greenwald

graph of the day

Real Estate.

Facebook vs. democracy

This fall California voters get to vote on a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana and apparently Facebook has deemed this unacceptable discourse, unceremoniously taking down the supporters' page.

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