HELLO?? Are you there?? ...your hero has been caught doing the same things that George W. Bush did

Cross-post from Texas Fred
AP Exclusive: Terror suspects held weeks in secret

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — “Black sites,” the secret network of jails that grew up after the Sept. 11 attacks, are gone. But suspected terrorists are still being held under hazy circumstances with uncertain rights in secret, military-run jails across Afghanistan, where they can be interrogated for weeks without charge, according to U.S. officials who revealed details of the top-secret network to The Associated Press.
The Pentagon has previously denied operating secret jails in Afghanistan, although human rights groups and former detainees have described the facilities. U.S. military and other government officials confirmed that the detention centers exist but described them as temporary holding pens whose primary purpose is to gather intelligence.
The Pentagon also has said that detainees only stay in temporary detention sites for 14 days, unless they are extended under extraordinary circumstances. But U.S. officials told the AP that detainees can be held at the temporary jails for up to nine weeks, depending on the value of information they produce. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the program is classified.
The most secretive of roughly 20 temporary sites is run by the military’s elite counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command, at Bagram Air Base. It’s responsible for questioning high-value targets, the detainees suspected of top roles in the Taliban, al-Qaida or other militant groups.
Full Story Here: AP Exclusive: Terror suspects held weeks in secret

I think we ALL know, Democrats in general, and libbers all over this nation are, without a doubt, the most seriously challenged, mentally challenged, individuals that have ever walked the face of this earth.
Does anyone remember the OUTRAGE that the Dem/Libbers let loose against the Bush administration when it was disclosed that they had used ‘secret prisons’? And how the Dem/Libbers totally lost it when it was divulged that the CIA had maybe, possibly used an enhanced interrogation method called water boarding?
The emotions exhibited by the Dem/Libbers was more than outrage, they were incensed, they were out of their minds, they called Bush and Company every name in the book and demanded that Bush free these ‘political prisoners’ and step down from the Presidency.
Now, I don’t hear the hue and cry of the Dem/Libber masses. They are strangely silent on this little factoid regarding the Obamanation having ‘secret prisons’.

The site’s location, a short drive from a well-known public detention center, has been alleged for more than a year.
The secrecy under which the U.S. runs that jail and about 20 others is noteworthy because of President Barack Obama’s criticism of the old network of secret CIA prisons where interrogators sometimes used the harshest available methods, including the simulated drowning known as waterboarding.

Dems?? Libbers?? HELLO?? Are you there?? Are you outraged now that your hero has been caught doing the same things that George W. Bush did? What about Guantanamo? Wasn’t that a big thing for you guys? Closing Gitmo and giving those poor, misunderstood ‘religious warriors’ a break? He didn’t do that either.
Where is the outrage from the left? Anyone?

Human rights advocates say the severest of the Bush-era interrogation methods are gone, but the conditions at the new interrogation sites still raise questions. Obama pledged when he took office that the United States would not torture anyone, but former detainees describe harsh treatment that some human rights groups claim borders on inhumane.

The duplicity of the Dem/Libbers, the utter hypocrisy, that is what has made the Democratic party the pathetic, un-American cretins that Conservatives believe them to be.
And quite frankly, the Republicans aren’t much better. They have their political correctness and the *BIG TENT* idea that says there’s room for everyone in THEIR tent. Well, there’s not. The GOP/RNC has turned into Dem Lite, and lately, I have to wonder just how Lite it really is.
The Dems have gone FAR left, very far to the left, and it appears that the vacuum sucked the GOP/RNC into the abyss.
BOTH parties are arguing over this budget fight and are threatening to shut the Federal government down. I saw an explanation somewhere today that equates the differences in the left and right regarding the compromise needed to keep everything funded as being the equivalent of a family making $100K a year losing it ALL over a $200.00 discrepancy.
Secret prisons, interrogation facilities and government shutdowns be damned, it doesn’t take a lot to keep an angry Jihadist alive while you pick his mind to pieces and leave an empty shell of a human behind. It’s not the Islamic warriors I care about, it’s the hypocrisy of the Democratic party, it’s leader, it’s members and Dem/Libbers all over the United States.
I just want to know WHY the Dem/Libbers aren’t screaming their heads off right now.

__________________________

In other news... 

This is great!  Ann Barnhardt should run for President...

Ann Barnhardt Rips Lindsey Graham and burns Koran

Published April 6, 2011 | By Cato Uticensis

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Ann Barnhardt tears into Lindsey Graham and burn the Koran. She exposes Lindsey Graham for the buffoon he is and exposes the true teachings of the Koran. Ann Barnhardt doesn’t back down from either Lindsey Graham or anyone else as she gives her address and invites anyone to come after her.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Another case of your arrogant government exercising it's dictatorial powers

The Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo decision was wrong!  More importantly the complacency of the American people for allowing this to happen is most disturbing...allowing the Judiciary to become a  Legislator is just another step closer to dictatorship. ~ Norman E. Hooben

Source: Washington Post


In St. Louis, a protest sign meets government arrogance

By George F. Will, Friday, April , 8:26 PM

A dialectic of judicial deference and political arrogance is on display in St. Louis. When excessively deferential courts permit governmental arrogance, additional arrogance results as government explores the limits of judicial deference. As Jim Roos knows.

He formed a nonprofit housing and community development corporation that provides residences for people with low incomes. Several times its properties have been seized by the city government, using “blight” as an excuse for transferring property to developers who can pay more taxes to the seizing government.

The Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo decision legitimized this. It permits governments to cite “blight” — a notoriously elastic concept, sometimes denoting nothing more than chipped paint or cracked sidewalks — to justify seizing property for the “public use” of enriching those governments.

Roos responded by painting on the side of one of his buildings a large mural — a slash through a red circle containing the words “End Eminent Domain Abuse.” The government that had provoked him declared his sign “illegal” and demanded that he seek a permit for it. He did. Then the government denied the permit.

The St. Louis sign code puts the burden on the citizen to justify his or her speech rather than on the government to justify limiting speech. And the code exempts certain kinds of signs from requiring permits. These include works of art, flags of nations, states or cities, and symbols or crests of religious, fraternal or professional organizations. And, of course, the government exempted political signs. So the exempted categories are defined by the signs’ content.

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm defending Roos, notes that signs may be the oldest form of mass communication — Gutenberg made advertising posters — and they remain an inexpensive means of communicating with fellow citizens. St. Louis says that it regulates signs for “aesthetic” reasons and to promote traffic safety, but it admits that it has no guidelines for the bureaucrats exercising aesthetic discretion and no empirical evidence connecting signs with traffic risks. And why would Roos’s mural be less aesthetic and more distracting to drivers than, say, a sign — exempted from any permit requirement — urging the election of the kind of city officials who enjoy censoring Roos?

St. Louis is not the problem; government is. Many people go into it because they enjoy bossing people around. Surely this is why a court had to overturn a decision by the government of Glendale, Ohio, when it threatened a man with fines and jail because he put a “for sale” sign in his car parked in front of his house. The city said that people might be distracted by the sign and walk into traffic.

St. Louis Alderman Phyllis Young is distressed that Roos’s speech might escape government control: “If this sign is allowed to remain, then anyone with property along any thoroughfare can paint signs indicating the opinion or current matter relevant to the owner to influence passersby with no control by any City agency. The precedent should not be allowed.”

The alderman’s horror of uncontrolled speech is an example of what Elizabeth Price Foley, law professor at Florida International University, calls “an ineluctable byproduct of disregarding the morality of American law.” In her book “Liberty for All” (2006, Yale), she says that the growing exercise of legislative power “in the name of majoritarian whims” has eroded America’s “twin foundational presumptions” — limited government and residual individual sovereignty.

The original constitutional structure has, she says, been inverted: Citizens are required to convince the courts that laws restricting liberty are “irrational”; government should be required to articulate justifications for limiting liberty. The Founders’ goal — in John Adams’s formulation, a nation of “laws, and not of men” — has, Foley believes, “been taken much too far.”

She thinks that we have become a nation of laws and not of liberty. We are, she notes, a nation with local laws prohibiting the wearing of hats in theaters or courtrooms, catching fish with one’s bare hands, carrying a slingshot, teaching others about polygamy, having a garage sale for more than two days a year, serving alcohol within a mile of a religious camp meeting. . . .

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit is considering whether St. Louis can regulate what Roos can say concerning what the government has done to him. This case, which arises from unwise judicial deference to city governments wielding the power of eminent domain, demonstrates the dialectic of courts inciting governmental arrogance by deferring to it. So judicial deference often is dereliction of judicial duty.

Numbers Don't Lie...but I do!

Two years ago, Barack Obama was inaugurated as president of the United States.  Are you better off today than you were two years ago?
Numbers don't lie, and here are the data on the impact he has had on the lives of Americans:

	January 2009	TODAY	% chg	Source
Avg. retail price/gallon gas in U.S.	$1.83	$3.104	69.6%	1
Crude oil, European Brent (barrel)	$43.48	$99.02	127.7%	2
Crude oil, West TX Inter. (barrel)	$38.74	$91.38	135.9%	2
Gold: London (per troy oz.)	$853.25	$1,369.50	60.5%	2
Corn, No.2 yellow, Central IL	$3.56	$6.33	78.1%	2
Soybeans, No. 1 yellow, IL	$9.66	$13.75	42.3%	2
Sugar, cane, raw, world, lb. fob	$13.37	$35.39	164.7%	2
Unemployment rate, non-farm, overall	7.6%	9.4%	23.7%	3
Unemployment rate, blacks	12.6%	15.8%	25.4%	3
Number of unemployed	11,616,000	14,485,000	24.7%	3
Number of fed. employees, ex. military (curr = 12/10 prelim)	2,779,000	2,840,000	2.2%	3
Real median household income (2008 v 2009)	$50,112	$49,777	-0.7%	4
Number of food stamp recipients (curr = 10/10)	31,983,716	43,200,878	35.1%	5
Number of unemployment benefit recipients (curr = 12/10)	7,526,598	9,193,838	22.2%	6
Number of long-term unemployed	2,600,000	6,400,000	146.2%	3
Poverty rate, individuals (2008 v 2009)	13.2%	14.3%	8.3%	4
People in poverty in U.S. (2008 v 2009)	39,800,000	43,600,000	9.5%	4
U.S. rank in Economic Freedom World Rankings	5	9	n/a	10
Present Situation Index (curr = 12/10)	29.9	23.5	-21.4%	11
Failed banks (curr = 2010 + 2011 to date)	140	164	17.1%	12
U.S. dollar versus Japanese yen exchange rate	89.76	82.03	-8.6%	2
U.S. money supply, M1, in billions (curr = 12/10 prelim)	1,575.1	1,865.7	18.4%	13
U.S. money supply, M2, in billions (curr = 12/10 prelim)	8,310.9	8,852.3	6.5%	13
National debt, in trillions	$10.627	$14.052	32.2%	14

Just take this last item: In the last two years we have accumulated national debt at a rate more than 27 times as fast as during the rest of our entire nation's history. Over 27 times as fast. Metaphorically, speaking, if you are driving in the right lane doing 65 MPH and a car rockets past you in the left lane 27 times faster . . . it would be doing 1,755 MPH! This is a disaster! The rest of the world is in turmoil and he has made the United States a joke among the international community while the Muslim Brotherhood is cheers him on.

Sources:

(1) U.S. Energy Information Administration; (2) Wall Street Journal; (3) Bureau of Labor Statistics; (4) Census Bureau; (5) USDA; (6) U.S. Dept. of Labor; (7) FHFA; (8) Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller; (9) RealtyTrac; (10) Heritage Foundation and WSJ; (11) The Conference Board; (12) FDIC; (13) Federal Reserve; (14) U.S. Treasury

Worried about high gas prices? This cannot come soon enough...

Do you want to see something really neat?  Click on the link below.

GM Hy-Wire "Car of the Future"

Will the blanket American protection of Saudia Arabia begin to unfold under Obama

Although one should be leery of papers coming out of the Chatham House (Great Britain's equivalent of America's CFR) due mostly for their slant towards world domination, the following article deserves some scrutiny and/or comparisons to some U.S. domestic situations.  Take the sentence, "But the waves of revolution, dissent and sedition are lashing against the fortress's very foundations...". Are we not in the beginning stages of a revolution lashing out at the Obama administration who are destroying America's very foundation, the Constitution?  Although with an almost sickening and blatant complacency Americans are not lashing out in the spirit our Founding Fathers in order to preserve that precious document.  Of course when I got to that sentence referring to Saudia Arabia's "deeper rot" and "corrupt system" it reminded me of that oft quoted line from Cicero, "...He rots the soul of a nation--he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city--he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist." (see full quote below).
Meanwhile, I thought the article was well written and it may give us some incite as to Obama's future plans...especially with any treaties and/or previously agreed to pacts.
And one last thought, as the Saudi government bribed it's people with the mentioned fifteen percent pay raise and other amenities...has not Obama done the same with the unions? ~ Norman E. Hooben  

Source: Chatham House

Saudi Arabia: Guarding The Fortress

Mai Yamani, April 2011
The World Today, Volume 67, Number 4

Saudi Arabia, fortified by its oil wealth, Wahhabi ideology and blanket American protection, finds itself drifting in the uncharted waters of a new Arab awakening fashioned in revolt

Saudi Arabia appears from the outside as a beguiling fortress housing a remote Kingdom guarded by robed, well-oiled royals. This desert fortress is sustained by unlimited hydrocarbon resources, bringing fabulous wealth to its intoxicated rulers and sedating the inhabitants. Minarets serve as watchtowers of orthodoxy and dogma. The fortress has also remained strong because of a protective alliance with a foreign power, the United States (US), that chooses a romanticised vision of a kingdom that offers harmonious exchange and a false sense of security.
But the waves of revolution, dissent and sedition are lashing against the fortress's very foundations, deepening cracks of this political structure built on shifting sand. King Abdullah and his thousands of royal brothers, nephews and assorted hangers-on have watched the fall of fellow dictators, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Others in their death throes, like Muammar Al Gaddafi of Libya and Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, refuse to see the writing on the wall.The Saudi Royals' younger brother King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah of Bahrain, kowtowing to Saudi diktat, has now made his choice by inviting Saudi military into his troubled land. Even the docile Jordanian monarch Abdullah II and his normally forgotten brotherly neighbour Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said of Oman are floundering.
No state in the Arab world is being spared the sudden wrath of its people. The old strategic criteria of dividing the region on the basis of oil versus non-oil states, or of alliances with the United States, now fails to hold water. There are no longer any guarantees, with or without American support, for protecting regional rulers fromthe legitimate demands of their people.The people have made common cause, rising from years of misrule and repression, through the use of new technologies in new media adopted by young people. The demographics of the population are simply too lopsided in favour of younger generations versus the old ruling oligarchy. All these factors are plentiful in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: a youthful majority, an abundance of computers, and deepening social and political resentments and alienation.
The Saudi Kingdom contains within its fortress walls a deeper rot: an arbitrary coercive and corrupt system that denies its subjects its fundamental political rights and social justice. The Saudi royals do not even grasp what it is that their people are demanding. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have all helped bring down the walls of opacity. The seventy percent of the Kingdom's population who are under the age of thirty are predominantly Internet savvy.
They are asking for the creation of a constitutional monarchy, parliamentary elections, the release of thousands of political prisoners being held without trial or representation, an end to the endemic and massive royal corruption, reform of the judiciary and the minimising of perks and privileges afforded the 22,000 members of the House of Saud, as well as meeting demands to= curtail the influence of the religious establishment.
Talk of a 'Day of Rage' scheduled for March 11 captured the world's attention. To stop the increasingly corrosive developments, the Saudi state has equipped itself with the biggest carrot and largest stick in the Arab world. The carrot comprises the king's promise of 37 billion dollars to his country's agitated younger generations - a fifteen percent pay raise for government employees, aid for students and the unemployed, and access to sport clubs - something that only a Croseus-rich monarch likeKingAbdullah could hope to deliver.Nowhere are subjects offered such largess to buy off their loyalties.
Since thousands of voices using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube expressed ingratitude for such a 'benevolent' act, the state then decided to deploy its catch-all religious fall-back to warn its subjects that demonstrations and protests are un-Islamic. Using the pretext of the Saudi Kingdomas the ultimate guardian of the Islamic faith and custodian of the holy mosques, the state claimed to be protecting its population from the sins of other Middle Eastern youth. There have been in recent days mass arrests of those calling for reform, and multiple websites have been blocked. The Saudi bogeyman, thousands of security forces backed by armour on the street and helicopters hovering over city skies, act as an iron-fisted warning against any dissent. The Saudi rulers are beyond the reproach of their people.
Meanwhile the United States, traditional protector and 'custodian of the holy oil fields,' has lapsed into diplomatic torpor. The US has guarded the Kingdom from external threats through the sales of hundreds of billions of dollars of high-tech arms. Since 1945, the stationing of American forces in Dhahran near the critical oil fields have been crucial for Saudi security and are the lifeblood of American and world economy. The US never alluded to the subject of democracy in its support of the Saudi rulers and deliberately did not deal with the people, remaining constant in their policy for the survival of the Al Saud. The pact between Riyadh and Washington was to always protect the Kingdom's fortress and not to get embroiled with the multitude of tribes, sects, regions, and ethnic groups.
The big carrot and stick have bought the Saudi rulers a temporary sense of control. But the faces of millions of screaming, self-liberated Arabs beaming at them on the screens of Al Jazeera have increased the tension. Prince Naif, interior minister and crown prince in waiting, may continue to repeat the Kingdom's slogan: "What we took by the sword, we will hold by the sword." But the traditional sword is dull, limited, and unable to meet the challenges of themoment. The Saudi rulers are also using the sectarian discourse both for the US and for their Sunni populations, portraying the Shi'a as the scary spectre seeking dominance and a dangerous alliance with Iran. They also are using the divide and rule policy to warn their Sunni population against the internal Shi'a enemy.
The most challenging group to the Saudi rulers is currently the Shi'a, who constitute 75 percent of the population in the Eastern Province, the Kingdom's main oil-producing region. The Shi'a were also the first to respond to the eruptions of demonstrations in the Arab region despite the legal ban on demonstrations. The Shi'a have experienced loss of lives and imprisonment since 1979 because of their defiance.
The strategic regional predominance of Saudi Arabia through its oil wealth has allowed the country's rulers to freeze reform. This policy offers temporary political respite for the kingdom, but the frozen body politic is brittle and can easily break. The danger is that continued repression of peaceful protests can lead to violence and radicalisation.At themoment, Islamic extremism and Al Qaeda have no space in the Arab movements of the people, but if this desperation continues to be confined to computer screens while political representation and expression is forbidden, then Al Qaeda will find renewed space.
Dr Mai Yamani is a political analyst and the author of Changed Identities: The Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi Arabia.

___________________________

"A nation can survive its' fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor--He speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation--he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city--he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared."Cicero, 42 B.C., Roman Statesman, orator, and author.

18,421 High Schools Have Gotten Smarter...14 have gotten dumber

But when asked for the numbers, Carney made up a story...

The following from: Fox News see also President Ups Offer For HS Grad Speech Contest, Adds Liquor Store Run at Iowahawk

Commencement Challenged:
Few Applicants Want Obama As Commencement Speaker
By Kelly Chernenkoff


President Obama suggested Tuesday that "winning the future" means investing in good, innovative education for the nation's students. However, not many students have apparently felt inspired enough by that message to enter a contest to have the president speak at their high school's commencement ceremony.
Last year, the White House [1] began an annual ritual in which high schools around the country enter a competition to have the president speak at their graduation. The 2010 applicants for the Race to the Top Commencement Challenge flooded in at more than 1,000-strong.
However, according to an internal White House [1] memo obtained by CBS news, the total so far for this year's applicants is in the double-digits and the White House [1] has extended the deadline to apply from February 25th to March 11. When the extension was announced, there was no mention of the low applicant number.
As CBS reports, the White House wanted it that way. The February 22 internal White House memo noted, CBS says, "As of yesterday we had received 14 applications and the deadline is Friday...please keep the application number close hold."
A memo issued six days later lamented the then 68 applicant number and encouraged members of the cabinet and those with contacts in Congress and other elected positions to push for their local schools to apply. "Something isn't working," said the unnamed memo writer, according to CBS.
As the president continues his very public push for education investment; today even announcing a new agency to head up innovation; his aides are loathe to say openly that his message isn't catching on.
When asked if the administration was embarrassed by the low applicant turnout, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney replied, "I would just say that the Commencement Challenge last year was a fantastic process that led to a terrific event that showcased a school in Kalamazoo, and we expect the same to happen this time."
He added, "We have a large number of applicants and we look forward to a process that will produce a winner and a commencement speech from the President."
But when asked for the numbers, Carney said he didn't know how many applicants there were this time around.
White House Spokesperson Gannet Tseggai told Fox News, "We're pleased by the quality applications that are coming in and the President looks forward to encouraging young people to graduate from high school and pursue college and careers."

Congress is evading the issue...they 'do' have mental reservations

Apparently we have a Congress (both the House and the Senate) that no longer believes or takes seriously their oath of office (see oath below) for all of them have 'mental resverations' ...if they did not, Obama would already be sitting in the hot seat.  Also, this would be an ideal occasion for any one of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff for the Armed Forces to to exercise their power over an obvious law-breaker...Obama  IS NOT above the law! Further, the crimes committed by Obama need not go through the impeachment process...when laws are broken you are tried in a court of law! 

As no action has been taken by any federal authority it goes without saying, Obama has the overwhelming approval to break any law he so desires...the seriousness of Obama's law breaking rampage ranks right up there with armed robbery, murder, rape and any other felony that demands long prison sentences but we have a bunch of cowards afraid of their own shadow that refuse to do the right thing, arrest the traitor...NOW! (Swear me in, I'll do it!) ~ Norman E. Hooben



It is legally possible to arrest a president, because any person elected or appointed to an office of honor or profit in the administration or in the military takes the following oath:

"I, [name], do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

Arresting a president, and or a vice president, who has vilolated and broken that oath, is therefore the solemn duty of any member of the federal administration or of the military who is able to do so.