Where in the World is Jose Padilla?

December 13 – Bush signs the Domestic Security Enhancement Act

December 18 - The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals said the president does not have the power to detain Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant, and ordered that he be released or transferred to the civilian justice system in 30 days. The government is seeking a stay of the order, and is planning further appeals, so it's not over yet.

The appeals will certainly rely on Section 501 of the newly signed DSEA. Before DEC 13, “accusations do not give the President the authority to lock someone away, however. According to the laws and traditions of the U.S., the way to determine who gets imprisoned is through the due process of a trial by jury.” http://www.chargepadilla.org/

In Acts, Chapter 25, Paul invokes his right as a Roman citizen to a trial. In the Pax Romana in which he lived, his right was acknowledged:

Acts 25: 11-12: For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar.
Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? unto Caesar shalt thou go.

Jose Padilla may be a traitor and a terrorist. But he was not captured in Afghanistan with a gun in his hand. He was arrested at Chicago O'Hare airport. If Jose Padilla can be held without criminal charges, strictly on the say-so of the President, then any American can be. That is tyranny. We must put an end to it.

Section 501: Expatriation of Terrorists.
Under 8 U.S.C. § 1481, an American can lose his citizenship by voluntarily, and with the intent to relinquish nationality, taking any of a number of actions, including: (1) obtaining Nationality in a foreign state; (2) taking an oath of allegiance to a foreign state; and, most importantly, (3) serving in the armed forces of a foreign state that are engaged in hostilities against the United States. The current expatriation statute does not, however, provide for the relinquishing of citizenship in cases where an American serves in a hostile foreign terrorist organization. It thus fails to take account of the myriad ways in which, in the modern world, war can be waged against the United States.
This provision would amend 8 U.S.C. § 1481 to make clear that, just as an American can relinquish his citizenship by serving in a hostile foreign army, so can he relinquish his citizenship by serving in a hostile terrorist organization. Specifically, an American could be expatriated if, with the intent to relinquish nationality, he becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United States has designated as a "terrorist organization," if that group is engaged in hostilities against the United States.
Patriot Act II is Step Three in Bush’s “Dictatorship for Dummies”

After he became Chancellor in January 1933, Hitler transformed his democratic position into dictatorial power. Calling an election - and taking advantage of the Reichstag fire - he got the Reichstag to pass the Enabling Act. Then, using the power this gave him to make his own laws, he set up the Gestapo, banned Trade Unions and opposition parties and (on the Night of the Long Knives, July 1934) removed even the opposition within the Nazi Party. When Hindenburg died, Hitler declared himself Fuhrer.

Enabling Act of 1933:
On 5 March, 1933 Hitler held a general election, appealing to the German people to give him a clear mandate. Only 44% of the people voted Nazi, so Hitler arrested the 81 Communist deputies, which did give him a majority.

On March 23, 1933, the newly elected Reichstag met in Berlin to vote on Hitler's Enabling Act, officially called the 'Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich,' the 'distress' having been caused by the Nazis themselves in order to create a crisis atmosphere that would make the law seem necessary to restore order. (A month earlier, they had burned the Reichstag building, blaming it on Communist ‘infiltrators’.)

On the day of the vote, Hitler told the Reichstag, "The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures." Nazi storm troopers gathered in a show of force chanting, "Full powers - or else! We want the bill - or fire and murder!!" They also stood inside in the hallways, glaring menacingly at anyone who might oppose Hitler's will.

The vote was taken - 441 for, only 84, the Social Democrats, against. The Nazis had achieved what Hitler had wanted for years - to tear down the German Democratic Republic and end democracy, thus leading to the complete Nazi takeover of Germany. The legislation took power away from the Parliament and handed that power over to Hitler and his administration for a period of four years. The Nazis took over local government and the police. They replaced anti-Nazi teachers and University professors. Hitler set up the Gestapo (the secret police) and encouraged Germans to report opponents and 'grumblers'. Tens of thousands were arrested and sent to concentration camps for 'crimes' as small as writing anti-Nazi graffiti, possessing a banned book, or saying that business was bad.

Most people don't realize the similarities between Hitler's "Enabling Act" and present day Homeland Security legislation. Most people who watch documentaries or movies about Hitler have no problem admitting what a horrible man he was. They often ask questions such as, "How could the German people give him so much power?" These same people are the ones that give you the "crazy look" when you try and tell them what a horrible piece of legislation that the Patriot Act is.

George Bush is the worst president in the history of the United States.
Pay no attention to that bill-signing man behind the curtain!

Do not arouse the wrath of The Great and Powerful Saddam Capturer! I said come back tomorrow! The Great Saddam Capturer has spoken!

Magicians and illusionists use slight of hand and distraction to pull off challenging tricks. In his San Antonio Current article, David Martin exposes the distraction used in signing a major bill into law while the entire country was watching the Capture of Saddam Hussein: Bush signs parts of Patriot Act II into law — stealthily

On December 13, when U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein, President George W. Bush not only celebrated with his national security team, but also pulled out his pen and signed into law a bill that grants the FBI sweeping new powers. A White House spokesperson explained the curious timing of the signing - on a Saturday - as "the President signs bills seven days a week." But the last time Bush signed a bill into law on a Saturday happened more than a year ago - on a spending bill that the President needed to sign, to prevent shutting down the federal government the following Monday.

By signing the bill on the day of Hussein's capture, Bush effectively consigned a dramatic expansion of the USA Patriot Act to a mere footnote. Consequently, while most Americans watched as Hussein was probed for head lice, few were aware that the FBI had just obtained the power to probe their financial records, even if the feds don't suspect their involvement in crime or terrorism.

The Bush Administration and its Congressional allies tucked away these new executive powers in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, a legislative behemoth that funds all the intelligence activities of the federal government. The Act included a simple, yet insidious, redefinition of "financial institution," which previously referred to banks, but now includes stockbrokers, car dealerships, casinos, credit card companies, insurance agencies, jewelers, airlines, the U.S. Post Office, and any other business "whose cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory matters."

Congress passed the legislation around Thanksgiving. Except for U.S. Representative Charlie Gonzalez, all San Antonio's House members voted for the act. The Senate passed it with a voice vote to avoid individual accountability. While broadening the definition of "financial institution," the Bush administration is ramping up provisions within the 2001 USA Patriot Act, which granted the FBI the authority to obtain client records from banks by merely requesting the records in a "National Security Letter." To get the records, the FBI doesn't have to appear before a judge, nor demonstrate "probable cause" - reason to believe that the targeted client is involved in criminal or terrorist activity. Moreover, the National Security Letters are attached with a gag order, preventing any financial institution from informing its clients that their records have been surrendered to the FBI. If a financial institution breaches the gag order, it faces criminal penalties. And finally, the FBI will no longer be required to report to Congress how often they have used the National Security Letters.


It makes one wonder what Bush, Rove and the rest of the GOP have up their sleeves in the coming year.

Alterman & Greider on Howard Dean

Eric Alterman has made a good, quick read of which pundits are attacking Howard Dean and why in "Washington Goes to War (with Howard Dean)."

I've been hearing a lot of anti-Dean rhetoric from friends on the right and the left lately. Depending on who you listen to, either Dean is the next George McGovern, the candidate whom Karl Rove thinks will be the easiest to beat, or he is a Republican in disguise, or worse, a waffling, insincere fascist in populist's clothing who will say anything to get elected. Alterman writes:
The question of the Democratic nomination has come down to this: Will this election be about turningout your base, or winning over swing voters? Gore did the latter but not the former. He won the election, but, thanks to Ralph Nader's megalomania (with an assist from the SCLM--So-Called Liberal Media--and Gore's own crappy campaign), not by enough to prevent the Supreme Court from handing it to Bush. Today, the nation remains no less divided than four years ago, with about 20 percent of the vote up for grabs. The punditocracy has chosen its side. Perhaps it's time the rest of us choose ours.

William Greider made similar observations about anti-Dean sentiments two weeks ago, in "Why I'm for Dean."
First, the rivals saw him as a McGovernite lefty from the 1960s. When that didn't take, they decided to depict him as a right-wing clone of Newt Gingrich who wants to dismantle Medicare and Social Security. Finally, opponents sold political reporters on the story of Mr. Malaprop, an oddball from tiny, liberal Vermont so insensitive to the nuances of American politics his mouth will destroy him. Howard Dean surged ahead through all this. The other candidates and witting collaborators in the press got him wrong every time.

Whether the nominee ends up being Dean or Clark or Gephardt or Kerry, I hope the Democrats can rally quickly around their party's candidate. I for one will be happy to see them focusing more energy on Bush&Co than on each other.

Kurds Captured Hussein, Not US?

Don't expect this story to get any traction in the US press, but Kurds may be responsible for capturing Saddam Hussein, not US troops as was widely reported.

On the face of it, this story seems even more outlandish than the fictionalized Jessica Lynch rescue, which turned out to be a cunning media campaign conducted by the Pentagon to boost the war's (and George Bush's by association) ratings. But a little digging makes it sound plausible, and lord knows there was motivation for such a deception.
Claims that US troops captured Saddam Hussein have been challenged by reports that he was discovered only after Kurdish forces had taken him prisoner.

The deposed president was drugged and abandoned ready for the American soldiers to recover him, a British tabloid newspaper reported yesterday.

Saddam came into the hands of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) after being betrayed by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, quoting an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.

You'll have to dig pretty deep to find this story on the web, but the following piece does a good job of distilling the details and sources.
A Nation of Usama's bitches
Or; How I learned to stop worrying and love the color orange.

With the latest elevation in the Terror Alert Level (tm), the fifth since the September 11th attacks, Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft have once again graphically demonstrated how they have pimped the nation out to Usama and his crew. I don't know about you, but when my ass gets sold I want more than a brightly colored square in the corner of the TV set - hell, throw me a pack of Marlboro's or something.

On this occasion, as in the past four, we are informed that the elevated level is due to increased 'communications chatter'. This indicates that we are at the highest threat since September 11th, just like the last four times. This 'communications chatter' may or may not be encrypted, may or may not be understood, and may or may not pertain to new attacks. However, suspected al-Qaeda leadership is talking more than usual - and that can't be good. So the level gets bumped, the malls loose some last minute business, we burn a billion dollars a week, and a bunch more people go on Zoloft. And this happens why, exactly? Because al-Qaeda finally got that corporate rate at AT&T Wireless and each manager has 1200 minutes to burn?

The creation and world-wide reporting of a Terror Alert Level (tm) provides an easy mechanism for the measurement of success in creating fear, an instant feedback mechanism that allows the manipulation of the American psyche and economy. It's like a global terrorist applause-O-meter, and they can watch the colored boxes on CNN from the comfort of any South Florida sports bar - and raise the level by drunk dialing ex-girlfriends in Syria. If we think that Usama and gang haven't figured this out, we are deluding ourselves. As a group of fugitives running from the richest and most technology savvy country in the history of the world, they have to assume that their communications are monitored and compromised. Making that assumption, there are two obvious courses of action for the Jihad-ist on the run; (1) don't use electronic communications for anything important without the implementation of a one-time pad cipher system or code book and (2) use the knowledge that your pursuer is conducting traffic analysis as a tool of misdirection.

So, while I'm standing at the airport with my shoes in an x-ray bin and my pants around my ankles (because that Kenneth Cole belt _really_ could be a Stinger missile) Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin is using a sat phone from a camp in Pakistan.

Usama: ' Wazzzzzup....'
Saif al-Adel: 'Wazzzup.....'
Abu Musab Zarqawi: 'Wazzzzzzzzuppppp......'
....
....
NSA Analyst: 'Sir, we are reporting increased communications chatter
from operation X012 in sectors 14 and 28....'
....
....
Transportation Security Administration employee: 'Please take off
your shoes and put them in the X-Ray machine....'

(If this is globalization, I for one don't like it one bit.)

The problem with writing a piece like this is that at some point, something will happen that will make me look callous or uninformed. Let me make this clear - I am not trying to make light of the threat. We are still vulnerable, and as a free nation we always will be. The threat is still real and dangerous, and possibly always will be in some form or another. We will be attacked again, no one knows when or where or how, but innocent people will die and we as a nation will mourn. But instead of a terror warning level let's just get this out of the way once and for all - EVERYONE, REPEAT AFTER ME: Keep aware of your surroundings, notify the authorities if appropriate, and bum rush anyone who gets within 10 feet of the cockpit door. We, as a nation of individuals, don't really need to know the volume of terrorist radio communications - there is fuck-all we can do about it. If we all just keep a base level of awareness we can ignore the CNN creep, and regain some control and dignity in the process.

Have a safe and happy holiday --
War and Conflict are Good Business for Neo-Cons

Part of the neo-conservative evil genius lies in their willingness to speak and act in such a way as to further their own objectives while deliberately jeopardizing US foreign policy goals and risking the lives of American soldiers. How many more will have to die before these guys are removed from power?

Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times:
Mr. Wolfowitz's official rationale for the contract policy is astonishingly cynical: "Limiting competition for prime contracts will encourage the expansion of international cooperation in Iraq and in future efforts" - future efforts? - and "should encourage the continued cooperation of coalition members." Translation: we can bribe other nations to send troops.

But I doubt whether even Mr. Wolfowitz believes that. The last year, from the failure to get U.N. approval for the war to the retreat over the steel tariff, has been one long lesson in the limits of U.S. economic leverage. Mr. Wolfowitz knows as well as the rest of us that allies who could really provide useful help won't be swayed by a few lucrative contracts.

If the contracts don't provide useful leverage, however, why torpedo a potential reconciliation between America and its allies? Perhaps because Mr. Wolfowitz's faction doesn't want such a reconciliation.

These are tough times for the architects of the "Bush doctrine" of unilateralism and preventive war. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their fellow Project for a New American Century alumni viewed Iraq as a pilot project, one that would validate their views and clear the way for further regime changes. (Hence Mr. Wolfowitz's line about "future efforts.")

Instead, the venture has turned sour - and many insiders see Mr. Baker's mission as part of an effort by veterans of the first Bush administration to extricate George W. Bush from the hard-liners' clutches. If the mission collapses amid acrimony over contracts, that's a good thing from the hard-liners' point of view.
George Bush is the Worst President in the History of the United States

But don't take my word for it. Research this for yourself.

Do a Google search for "miserable failure" and click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.

Here, just click this link. Enjoy.
Bush&Co Snub Europe, Then Ask for Debt Relief

The Washington Post quotes President Bush as stating: "The expenditure of U.S. dollars will reflect the fact that U.S. troops and other troops risk their life ... It's very simple. Our people risk their lives. Coalition -- friendly coalition folks risk their lives. And therefore, the contracting is going to reflect that. And that's what the U.S. taxpayers expect."

A day later the White House announced that it was sending Saudia Arabia's defense attorney in the 9-11 case, Carlyle Group counsel, former Secretary of State and "Bush family friend" James Baker on a trip to Europe to seek relief for Iraq's $125 billion debt.

Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "We all share the same goal of helping the Iraqi people build a better and brighter future and they should not be saddled with the debt of a brutal regime."

I suppose that sharing goals doesn't mean sharing profits?

San Francisco Could Make History on December 9th

The future is now in San Francisco.

The city is on the verge of electing current President of the Board of Supervisors and Stanford Law graduate Matt Gonzalez. Gonzalez will become the city's youngest mayor in over 100 years, and he just happens to be a member of the Green Party.

The Democratic Party sent Al Gore to the city last week to stump for their candidate, Gavin Newsom. Bill Clinton will be arriving today, but at this point it doesn't matter if the Democrats send in the ghost of John F. Kennedy.

This race is about progressive politics, not partisanship. John Nichols writes in The Nation.
Unfortunately for Newsom, San Francisco is not merely a bastion of Democratic politics. It is a bastion of progressive politics -- particularly the sort of anti-war, anti-corporate politics that is most likely to appeal to disenfranchised young people. And Gonzalez, who quotes Sartre and Camus, helped start a small press that publishes poetry, rents a room in an apartment, does not drive a car, hangs out in the city's music clubs and the Beat Generation's City Lights bookstore, and regularly opens his City Hall office for art installations, is the cool candidate in this year's race. Beneath the bohemian image, of course, beats the heart of a sound politician; indeed, Newsom backers suggest that Gonzalez, who is backed by some of the developers he has criticized, is a more of a typical political than he lets on.
Nichols is right, although Joan Ryan and others at the San Francisco Chronicle seem to think otherwise. For more on Matt Gonzalez and the future of progressive politics in America, go to Matt Gonzalez for San Francisco.

[Note: It was a close election, but Gavin Newsom was the eventual winner.]

Wag the Turkey, or Turkeygate?
Business as Usual with Bush&Co.


Guess what? The Bush Administration has been lying to us, again! Yeah, I know it's pretty trivial that they staged a top-secret Thanksgiving Day stunt just to keep Hillary Clinton out of the news, who was at the same time making a trip to Afghanistan and Iraq. (Hillary, who was in Austin on Friday, said, "This administration is in danger of being the first in American history to leave our nation worse off than when they found it.")

The White House lied to the press, and they took the bait without checking the facts, believing the silly story that Air Force One was spotted by a British Airways pilot, who called out, "Was that Air Force One?" to which the US pilot said, "Gulfstream Five," to which the Brit replied, "Ah." It simply didn't happen.

Now we also find out that the turkey spread, which Bush was shown displaying to the troops, was just a prop. Newsweek is calling the story "Wag the Turkey."

I like to say that not a day goes by that a new lie doesn't come out of the Bush White House. Well, I don't particulary enjoy saying it, but it bears repeating.
Army Reservists Protest Redeployment

It's bad enough that Bush is using the US military to serve the interests of his old buddies in the oil business. His Pentagon is consistently breaking the promises it makes to our men and women who put themselves in harm's way on our behalf. A few brave Army reservists in New York are making their disapproval heard, and may suffer the consequences for exercising their right to free speech.
This week, Capt. Steve McAlpin, who spent most of last year deployed in Afghanistan, learned he is facing insubordination charges that could abruptly end his 25-year military career.

His breach of discipline: questioning the legality of a waiver his battalion was asked to sign that would put his unit back in a combat zone after just 11 months at home. Under federal law, he pointed out, troops are allowed a 12-month "stabilization period."

Members of the 401st will be deployed for duty overseas next Wednesday. The commander, Lt. Col. Phillip Carey, charges in his memo that McAlpin had a "negative attitude" and was being "insubordinate towards the leadership" of the 401st.

"We signed up to fight our nation's enemies and we are fully prepared to do that. But if they're going to usurp the laws of this country at the expense of our most precious asset, our soldiers, then I will not stand for that, not for a minute," McAlpin said.