HEDGES V. OBAMA LAWSUIT CHALLENGING NDAA BEGINS IN FEDERAL COURT. Activists & Journalists Sue President, Defense Secretary, Over Chilling Effect on Constitutional Protections [NEW YORK, NY] The first round of statements from seven high-profile plaintiffs suing President Barak Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, House and Senate leaders, and DOD Representatives seeking injunctive relief barring the implementation of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)'s "Homeland Battlefield" provisions of indefinite detention and suspension of Habeas Corpus was heard in federal court last week.
The first hearing took place in front of Hon. Kathryn B. Forrest at the U.S. District Court in New York City on Thursday, March 29th, 2012. During the 3/29 hearing, Alexa O’Brien of U.S. The plaintiffs are challenging that the vague, over-broad, language is so nebulous that it creates a space where their journalism or non-violent activism may be threatened by the provisions. The Julian Assange Show: Rafael Correa. Mr. President, Focus here, not over there. By Michael Collins The United States of America is struggling with economic problems that leading economists call a depression. When you count all of those without jobs seeking one, unemployment is 22%. That figure defines a serious crisis. While we wait for the Obama administration to do something for the people, we can be comforted to know that the president is wasting his time meddling in Syria by supporting rebels who count al Qaeda among their comrades.
This was all a secret until Reuters told us about it yesterday. (Image) (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said.This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad's armed opponents - a shift that intensified following last month's failure of the U.N. Mr. What could the function of that center be? Wait! War Is A Crime .org | formerly AfterDowningStreet. War Is A Lie. See right column for purchasing -----> British version: Chinese version: and sample chapters in Chinese. War Is A Lie youth study group is on FaceBook. You can help supply peace groups, schools, libraries, and elected officials with copies of this book here. WAR IS A LIE is a thorough refutation of every major argument used to justify wars, drawing on evidence from numerous past wars, with a focus on those wars that have been most widely defended as just and good.
This is a handbook of sorts, a manual to be used in debunking future lies before future wars have a chance to begin. "David Swanson’s War Is A Lie (Charlottesville, VA, 2010) may be the most comprehensive antiwar statement available in the English language. " — Kevin Young, ZNet “David Swanson despises war and lying, and unmasks them both with rare intelligence. Table of ContentsIntroduction 71. Click for very large PDF of front cover: Thomhartmannviolence.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object) Petition: Rescind Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize-WarIsACrime « FACT – Freedom Against Censorship Thailand. Petition: Rescind Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize War Is A Crime: March 1, 2012 SIGN THE PETITION! Endorse as an organization. Endorse as an individual. Dear Members of Stockholm’s County Administrative Board: The signers of this petition include an array of peace groups and peace activists based in the United States.
The undersigned non-profit peace organizations and activists base their endorsement of your inquiry on the following facts: Alfred Nobel’s will, written in 1895, left funding for a prize to be awarded to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
After only a few years, however, a disastrous trend was begun of awarding the prize to government officials and political figures who had done more to promote war than peace. In 1953 the Nobel went to General George Marshall. Endorse as an organization. Undersigned: Dr. List of war crimes. Since many war crimes are not ultimately prosecuted (due to lack of political will, lack of effective procedures, or other practical and political reasons[2]), historians and lawyers will often make a serious case that war crimes occurred, even if there was no formal investigations or prosecution of the alleged crimes or an investigation cleared the alleged perpetrators.
War crimes under international law were firmly established by international trials such as the Nuremberg Trials and the Tokyo Trials, in which German and Japanese leaders were prosecuted for war crimes committed during World War II. For purpose of selectivity, only war crimes since the customary laws of war were clarified in the Hague Convention of 1907 are included, because in the judgment at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945, it was stated that "by 1939 these rules laid down in the Hague Convention of 1907 were recognised by all civilised nations, and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war".[3] Upcoming Events. Occupy Monsanto. Coalition to March on the RNC 2012. Crossing the Line: A Call to Revolutionary Love | 14th Annual 2012 Kateri Tekakwitha Peace Conference. U.S. Peace Caravan Route. Home :: Veterans for Peace.
The Rutherford Institute :: Welcome. When the World Outlawed War. This is a masterful account of how people in the United States and around the world worked to abolish war as a legitimate act of state policy and won in 1928, outlawing war with a treaty that is still on the books. Swanson's account of the successful work of those who came before us to insist that war be outlawed points us toward new ways of thinking about both war and political activism. Ralph Nader puts this on his list of 11 books everyone should read. Buy the paperback at Better World Books, 100Fires, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powells, other sellers, or your local independent bookstore, which can order it through Ingram. (The list price is $15.) (If you order from Amazon it will ship right away even if Amazon says it won't ship for weeks; it is print-on-demand.) Or you can get 10 copies for $60, or 50 copies for $200, or more (all with free shipping) here. Donate free books to nonprofit educational groups here.
Buy the iPad/iPhone version at the iBookstore. Kindle: Epub: America a Democracy? Really? By Dave Lindorff This article was originally written forPressTV We Americans are taught it in school. The propaganda put out by Voice of America repeats the idea ad nauseum around the globe. Politicians refer to it in every campaign speech with the same fervor that they claim to be running for office in response to God’s call: America is a model of democracy for the whole world.
But what kind of democracy is it really that we have here? Forget that only half of eligible voters typically vote in quadrennial presidential elections (less than 30% in so-called “off-year” elections for members of the House and a third of the Senate, and less than 25% in municipal and state elections). The US government doesn’t even do what the majority of the citizens want. Consider the polls, and what they show public sentiment to be on key issues, and then look at what the government, composed of supposedly elected representatives and an elected president, actually does: 1. Health Care. Stepped Up Media War on Syria. Stepped Up Media War on Syria by Stephen Lendman When America goes to war or plans one, media scoundrels march in lockstep. Journalism is the first casualty. Managed news misinformation substitutes for truth and full disclosure. Cheerleading propaganda is relentless. Only replacing independent regimes with pro-Western puppet ones matters.
NYT and Washington Post editorials discussed below reflect the latest White House statement on Syria. "The United States strongly condemns the outrageous targeted killings of civilians including women and children in Al-Qubeir in Hama province as reported by multiple credible sources. " "This, coupled with the Syrian regime’s refusal to let UN observers into the area to verify these reports, is an affront to human dignity and justice. " "The future of Syria will be determined by the Syrian people, and the international community must come together in support of their legitimate aspirations. " Fact check According to Reuters, UN monitors visited Qubeir. Hopelessly Devoted. You'd never know it from watching television, but there are many thousands of people in the United States who take peace, justice, environmental protection, and government of the people so seriously that they don't censor themselves whenever the president is a Democrat.
While many others are still debating whether it would be appropriate to criticize or protest President Obama after a mere three and a half years of disaster, the people I have in mind have been openly and honestly resisting the latest Wall Street war monger since before he was elected. Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank have collected 56 essays from prior to, from early on in, and from quite recently during the Obama presidency. The collection, just published as Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, has a consistent approach to its topic. Reducing the charges against Obama developed in detail in this book to a Declaration of Independence-like list of grievances might look something like this: St. Coming: Big Austerity Cuts. Coming: Big Austerity Cuts - by Stephen Lendman The congressional August Budget Control Act of 2011 established the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction - aka Supercommittee.
Doing so was extralegal. The Constitution's Article 1, Section 8 explains congressional powers. None of them include supercommittee authority to resolve America's debt crisis. Article 1, Section 8, Sub-section 18 lets Congress "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution (of its other listed Powers), and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department Officer thereof.
" Even though government authority is limited only by the boundaries of possibility, no constitutional principle gives 12 members more power than others, let alone in secret. Composed of six House and six Senate members from both parties, Supercommittee authority ran until November 23 to agree on $1.2 - $1.5 trillion in budget cuts over the next 10 years. Obama Crowned Himself on New Year's Eve. These were among the complaints registered the last time this nation had a king: "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. "He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. "He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. " To prevent the U.S. government from behaving like a king, the drafters of the U.S. The bill just signed into law, as sent to the President, said this: And this: Kucinich Organizes Congressional Call to Protect $3 Trillion of Afghan Wealth. 17 Members Define Specific Goals for Dec. 5 Bonn International Conference Washington D.C. (November 29, 2011) – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and 16 of his colleagues wrote to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton urging leadership to secure a commitment from the international community to protect the people and natural resources of Afghanistan.
These resources are worth an estimated $3 trillion, and if managed properly, could provide for a prosperous, stable Afghanistan following the withdrawal of U.S. troops. See the full letter here. “The U.S. has an obligation and the opportunity to address this core issue which has profound implications for Afghanistan’s economic development, its social development and its stability at the upcoming December conference in Bonn. We urge you to secure a commitment from the international community and the Government of Afghanistan to the sound management of these critical resources over the medium and long term at this conference,” wrote Kucinich et al.