Category: Threats

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Eagle: Department of Justice Defendes Controversial Unlimited Military Detention

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call
300 Million Talons…

DOJ Defends Controversial Military Detention Provision

As presidential election returns rolled in Tuesday night, the U.S. Justice Department filed its opening brief defending a controversial military detention provision that a trial judge in Manhattan declared unconstitutional earlier this year.

The suit, filed in Manhattan federal district court by a group of journalists and activists, challenges a section of the National Defense Authorization Act that DOJ lawyers said reaffirms presidential detention authority under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF. That authorization was passed in response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Government lawyers said in the papers filed last night in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that the plaintiffs “are in no danger whatsoever of being subject to capture and detention by the U.S. military.” The provision in question allows the detention of people who “substantially supported” al-Qaeda or “associated forces.”

“The district court nonetheless issued an extraordinary and sweeping injunction at their behest,” DOJ lawyer August Flentje of the Civil Division said in the brief filed last night. Flentje said the trial judge, Katherine Forrest of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, “entered a sweeping and permanent injunction against the president.”

Continue reading “Eagle: Department of Justice Defendes Controversial Unlimited Military Detention”

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Lou Dobbs: Bloomberg “Talk to the Hand” and Obama/Panetta Fail to Perform — Where are the GP Tents with Heaters, the Field Kitchens, the Medical Triage?

07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, DoD
Lou Dobbs

Speaking on Fox News today Lou Dobbs blasted the Obama Administration and Mayor “Talk to the Hand” Bloomberg.  While he exaggerates in relation to Katrina and Bush being blasted (Sandy is 40,000 displaced persons, Katrina was 700,000), he does make the obvious point upon which we elaborate–where is the US military with General Purpose (GP) tents, cots, oil stoves, field kitchens, medical triage, and Internet cafes (many of the displaced have no power for their cell phones and their home phones are gone).

If Leon Panetta wanted to be useful today, both to the public and to the President facing defeat tomorrow, he could order the service chiefs to put every single displaced person under a warm GP tent before nightfall.  If he and they cannot do that, we will have taken the measure of DoD here at home, and found it wanting.

We are waiting for a Situation Report from Col GI Wilson, USMC (Ret) and Team Rubicon, which received on demand mapping support from our network, instantly.

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Dolphin: Sandy Dislocates 40,000 (Katrina was 700,000)

03 Environmental Degradation
YARC YARC

To put Sandy in perspective, the number of mid- to long-term dislocated is 40,000, as compared to 700,000 for Katrina.

NYC Needs Housing for 40,000 as New Storms Bear Down

Damage from Hurricane Sandy means New York may need to find shelter or new homes for as many as 40,000 people, at least half of whom live in public housing, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

That total, a worst-case scenario, may get reduced by half as power is restored, he said at a news conference.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Meanwhile, Haiti appears for help after Sandy, and there has been no accounting from the Red Cross for all the money it collected, ostensibly for Haiti, the last time around….roughly $248 million is the amount not accounted for, our of $354 million donated.

See Also:

Is Occupy Wall Street Outperforming the Red Cross in Hurricane Relief?

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Tom Atlee: Systemic Causation & Sandy

03 Environmental Degradation
Tom Atlee

Sandy notes 1: Systems and the language of causation

Dear friends,

It's so tempting to say “Global warming caused superstorm Sandy.”  And it is so easy to counter with “Storms like Sandy happen.  You can't say that global warming caused a particular storm!”

Much human folly nowadays comes from believing that identifying a direct cause for some social or environmental problem tells us what we need to know to “fix” it.

Unfortunately, when we're dealing with problems in a complex system – like a society or our global climate – its causes (and “fixes”) are not simple, linear and direct.  They are numerous, nonlinear, indirect, many-faceted, contextual.  And they almost always include us and many aspects of our lives, individually and collectively.

So how do we talk about “causation” when we're dealing with complex systems?

In the article below, George Lakoff introduces the term “systemic causation” as an alternative to “direct causation”.  Megastorm Sandy gives us good occasion to explore this new term.  So what does systemic causation look like in the case of Sandy?

Human economic and energy systems work in concert with the sun to add an estimated 400,000 Hiroshima bombs of heat into the global climate system every day ( http://bit.ly/400kHiroshima ), thanks largely to our carbon emissions and the feedback dynamics they trigger.  That heat, working with weather and water systems makes superstorms like Sandy much more likely.  Not only superstorms, but tornadoes, floods, droughts, mega wildfires, record setting temperatures, giant hail, and other extreme weather phenomena, as well strange climate-related disorders in crops, forests, oceans, insects, wildlife, glaciers, populations, economies…

Continue reading “Tom Atlee: Systemic Causation & Sandy”

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Mini-Me: WIll De-Classified Watergate Archives Document CIA Orders to Murder US Citizens Including Jack Anderson, and CIA Break-Ins Within the USA?

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government
Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

Judge Orders DOJ to Justify Secrecy of Watergate-era Wiretaps

The BLT Blog of Legal Times, November 02, 2012

A federal judge in Washington today ordered the U.S. Justice Department to justify the continued need for secrecy over certain Watergate-era wiretap and grand jury records that remain sealed in a high-profile criminal prosecution.

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia told the government to send him copies of documents placed under seal in the criminal case against G. Gordon Liddy, charged in connection with the burglary at the Watergate Hotel in Washington. The sealed records include grand jury information and “documents reflecting the content of illegally obtained wiretaps.”

Government lawyers oppose the public disclosure of any papers about illegally obtained wiretaps tied to the Watergate scandal. The Justice Department this summer, in response to a demand for those records, argued there's no First Amendment or public right of access to illegally obtained wiretaps. Historical or scholarly interest, the government said, doesn't justify discretionary disclosure.

DOJ lawyers said in their brief to Lamberth that “we are unaware of any court that has unsealed previously undisclosed illegal wiretap content for reasons for historical interest.”

Lamberth's ruling today was issued in a case in which a historian of the presidency of Richard Nixon requested access to court documents that were sealed in the Liddy case in Washington's federal trial court. Liddy was convicted in 1973 on charges that included burglary and conspiracy rooted in the Watergate Hotel break-in.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: WIll De-Classified Watergate Archives Document CIA Orders to Murder US Citizens Including Jack Anderson, and CIA Break-Ins Within the USA?”

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NIGHTWATCH: Tunesian Emergency, Attack on US Facilities in Tunisia Next?

07 Other Atrocities, IO Deeds of War

Tunisia: Reacting to wave of violent protests by Islamic fundamentalists, President Moncef Marzouki on Wednesday extended a state of emergency, which grants police special powers of intervention, until 1 February 2013, the official TAP news agency reported.

Comment: The security situation is deteriorating again in Tunisia. President Marzouki is using the same tactics that Ben Ali did to suppress and kill the Islamist opposition. US support of the overthrow of Ben Ali only achieved a delay in the continuing violent internal instability, interrupted by an election that brought the Islamist Ennahda party to power. Ben Ali got out alive, but Marzouki might not.

US diplomatic facilities in Tunisia need more protection.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: Tunesian Emergency, Attack on US Facilities in Tunisia Next?”

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