Chilling legal memo from Obama DOJ justifies assassination of US citizens | Glenn Greenwald
The primary theory embraced by the Bush administration to justify its
War on Terror policies was that the "battlefield" is no longer
confined to identifiable geographical areas, but instead, the entire
globe is now one big, unlimited "battlefield". That theory is both
radical and dangerous because a president's powers are basically
omnipotent on a "battlefield". There, state power is shielded from
law, from courts, from constitutional guarantees, from all forms of
accountability: anyone on a battlefield can be killed or imprisoned
without charges. Thus, to posit the world as a battlefield is, by
definition, to create an imperial, omnipotent presidency. That is the
radical theory that unleashed all the rest of the controversial and
lawless Bush/Cheney policies.
entitled: The unlimited battlefield | posted: 12:00Z
filed: /politics/terrorism | 0 comment(s)
Startpage Web Search
I realised that I was ignoring the DuckDuckGo box in Firefox because
the results just aren't good enough, and was instead banging in
www.google.com into the address bar every time I wanted to search.
Pleased to have discovered this, though frustrated that once again
it's non-Free Software so it could very easily go the way of Scroogle.
entitled: Finally a replacement for Scroogle | posted: 21:59Z
filed: /politics/internet | 0 comment(s)
The Obama Memos: The making of a post-post-partisan Presidency. | The New Yorker
Each night, an Obama aide hands the President a binder of documents to
review. After his wife goes to bed, at around ten, Obama works in his
study, the Treaty Room, on the second floor of the White House
residence. President Bush preferred oral briefings; Obama likes his
advice in writing. He marks up the decision memos and briefing
materials with notes and questions in his neat cursive handwriting. In
the morning, each document is returned to his staff secretary. She
dates and stamps it—“Back from the OVAL”—and often e-mails an index of
the President’s handwritten notes to the relevant senior staff and
their assistants. A single Presidential comment might change a
legislative strategy, kill the proposal of a well-meaning adviser, or
initiate a bureaucratic process to answer a Presidential question. (§3)
A President’s ability to change public opinion through rhetoric is
extremely limited. George Edwards, after studying the successes of
Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan, concluded that
their communications skills contributed almost nothing to their
legislative victories. According to his study, “Presidents cannot
reliably persuade the public to support their policies” and “are
unlikely to change public opinion.”
entitled: An insight into the US president's work | posted: 14:56Z
filed: /politics | 0 comment(s)
April Jones: Matthew Woods jailed for Facebook posts | BBC News
I am stunned; I had no idea we had laws that could jail someone for
this. Time to move to the States? I mean if he'd been got under
inciting violence due to the number of people that came to his house
maybe that'd be something, but the verdict of the judge sounds like
the kind of thing you'd get in a blasphemy hearing to me.
entitled: Jailed for an offensive joke | posted: 19:38Z
filed: /politics/liberty | 0 comment(s)
Inside the Gaijin Dungeon at Narita Airport in Japan | Globalite Magazine
Came across some months back but the author had blanked the page, so I
couldn't link to it here. It's not clear that he's a credible source,
but information in this article from the Economist suggests that
it's probably coming from the right direction. I find the issues
chilling.
entitled: Japanese immigration abuse | posted: 20:35Z
filed: /politics/japan | 0 comment(s)
