@bcglorf
you left out that anwar had worked for the CIA and NSC as a consultant,and that in his earlier days as an imam was critical of al qeada and was very pro-american.

look,i am not arguing the fact that anwar did become radicalized,nor am i denying that his shift in attitudes (which was mainly due to americas handling of the iraqi war) had become not only critical,but had gone from condemnation to calls for violence,and praise for violence.

which brings us to the fort hood shooter nidel hasan who was an avid fan of anwar al awlaki,and DID have a correspondence with awlaki.which when examined,was pretty fucking one sided.it was apparent that hasan was attempting to get in the good graces of awlaki who,evidenced by the email correspondence,had no real relationship with hasan.though awlaki did praise hasan,and his violent actions.

so i do not get where 'the emails are closed".just google nidal hasan and anwar al awlaki emails,and you can go read for yourself.

and as for these emails as justification..i really do not see your logic in this respect.

so if someone becomes a huge fan of mine,and emails me constantly because we met ONCE and now they think we are buddies and share common interests (which,maybe we do),and that person perpetrates a violent act.

am i responsible for that act?

and here is where the crux of the discussion REALLY is:
maybe i AM responsible.
maybe i am guilty of inciting violence.
maybe i should be held accountable,because not only did i keep this mans violent intentions to myself,which resulted in death,but then praised his actions afterwards as being the will of god.

there are ALL possibilities,and they are valid questions.
they are legal questions,and maybe there should be a legal accountability.

should the proper pathway to a legal conclusion be:
a.a remotely piloted drone that targets my phone and launches a missile murdering (assasinating0 me,along with innocent by-standers?

or.

b.working with the yemeni government to bring me into a secure facility to be questioned,and possibly charged with inciting violence and prosecuted in an international court of law?

do you see what i'm saying?

the question isn't if anwar al awlaki,as a prominent imam,was vocally against american foreign policy,or that he openly supported violence in the form of terrorism.

the question is:
how do you address that situation,and prosecute the legalities?

because as scahill posited:how do you surrender to a drone?

could anwar al awlaki be guilty of EVERY charge the US accused him of?
quite possibly.
but we will never know because he was assassinated,as was his 16yr old son.

even your counter argument is speculation based on loose affiliations,and tenuous connections.

you will NEVER be able to supply a concrete,and verifiable accounting of anwar al awlaki's guilt,because you CAN'T..he was assassinated.

and THAT is the point.

now let us take this a step further.
let us examine how this can be abused,and watching trump consolidate executive power by surrounding himself with departmental loyalist,loyal only to him,we can begin to see the beginnings of trumps "soft fascism".

now lets take how you made your argument,and supplant a different scenario,but using the same parameters.

do you SEE how easily the drone program could be used to quickly,and efficiently remove opposing political players from the board? dissenting and opposing voices simply painted as violent enemies of the state that were in need of removal,because of the "possibility" that they may one day actually incite or cause violence?

the state can now murder a person for simply what they say,or write but NOT what they actually DO.

anwar al awlaki didn't actually kill anyone,didn't perpetrate any acts of violence.he simply talked about the evils of american empire,the mishandling of the iraq war (which he was originally in support of) and praised those who DID engage in violent acts of terror as doing the work of god.

should he have been held accountable in some fashion?
i think there is case to be made in that regard,but instead of going through proper channels,and adhering to the protocols of international law,he was outright assassinated.

and just how easily this can be abused is incredibly frightening.

again,i understand we approach things from different angles,but you have to see the danger in this practice,and how easily it can be misused to much darker and sinister purposes.

"well,he said nasty things about us and had a lot of friends who were on the terror watch list"

is simply NOT a valid enough excuse to simply murder someone.

there are protocols and legal procedure for a REASON,and anwar al awlaki may certainly have been in breach of international law and therefor possibly SHOULD have been prosecuted under those terms.

but we will NEVER know,because he was killed.
by an american president.
a nobel peace prize winner and constitutional law professor.

anwar al awlaki was an american citizen,his SON was an american citizen,but due to those abominations:MCA of 2006 and the NDAA of 2012.obama had the power and authority to assassinate them both.

where was there right to face their accuser?
habeas corpus..gone...a legal right that dates back to 1205 a.d by the BRITISH..gone.
innocent until proven guilty....gone.
the right to provide evidence in your defense...gone.

all the president has to do..and DID in this case,is deem you an "enemy combatant" and BOOM..dead.

i really hope you reconsider your attitude in this case my friend,because this shit is fascism incarnate,and now trump has his chubby little fingers on the "fire" button.

god help us all......

@bobknight33
you realize chaos is from new zealand right?
so while the democratic party may be a disgrace,unless the party is GLOBAL,it certainly is not HIS party.

i truly do not understand your (or anybodies for that matter) continued loyalty to this broken,dysfunctional and utterly corrupt two party dictatorship.

i have no issue with you pointing out the rot that has been bleeding out the democratic parties metaphorical ass.during this election cycle the DNC was caught with their hand in the cookie jar.they were exposed as the rotten and corrupt institution we all had suspected,but couldn't prove,rigging the primaries,changing the rules of application to keep people off the primary ballot (laurence lessig),and crushing one of the most promising,and politically energized campaigns by bernie sanders.(who,just like ron paul,raised his war chest on small donations).

hell,even the recent jill stein voter recount exposed even MORE DNC voter manipulations and fraud!

but are you SERIOUSLY going to sit there,and with a straight face,attempt to make the case the republicans are better?

that they are NOT just as vile,rapacious and corrupt as the democrats?

you think the democrats are the ONLY half of this two party duopoly that engages in voter fraud?
see:crosscheck
or crushes any politician that does not tow the party line?
see:ron paul

can you REALLY,without any sense of irony or sarcasm,tell me that the republican party represents YOU?

the one thing that has given me hope during this past presidential election is that my fellow americans seem to finally be getting it,finally understanding that neither the democratic party nor the republican party represent "we the people".

they represent:wall street,big banks,the military industrial complex and multi-national corporations.

and of course....their own continued power and political domination.

binary politics does not work anymore.
this false left/right dichotomy does not work anymore.
this "lesser of two evils" is no longer acceptable..any...more.

but i gather it still works for you bob.
what a waste..
you seem a decent sort,but to continue to identify with a party that has thrown you overboard decades ago....is just sad.

and i guess you will be just like those obama voters who became disturbingly silent while obama:expanded executive powers,NDAA of 2012,zero indictments to the criminals on wall street,prosecuting more whistleblowers than any other president combined,obamacare(the biggest gimme to the health insurance industry and big pharma),assasination programs,kill lists,expanding military operations into 6 other sovereign countries,regime change in libya...

those little pussies became good little apologists,and it appears YOU ...
bob..
will become a good little pussy and do your partisan duty,and turn into a dutiful little apologist for trump and the inevitable atrocities that are most certainly heading our way.

you know,i do not always agree with chaos,but at least he has BALLS.he stands for something.
you are just rooting for a certain team,might as well be rooting for the packers.
it is just so tired and WEAK...

eh..maybe you are just messing with chaos,but if that is the case,could you bring a little more flair and energy?
your technique is a tad..stale.

so step it up BOB!
your putting the audience to sleep.

Yeah, I don't think they get it. This isn't something you fix in four or eight years. There will be way too much damage from a Trump Presidency to fix.

"Oh, so he's going to replace a conservative judge with another conservative judge", but that assumes there will only be the one vacancy during his term... there is a high likelihood that some of the liberal justices will quit soon... or die...

He will push executive powers to a new level.

He will destroy our relationship with our allies in Europe, and put them in more danger as he removes the US from NATO support in order to boost his friends in the Kremlin.

His actions against ISIS is exactly what ISIS wants to happen, because it makes lone wolf attacks far more likely. He'll be putting American lives, in our borders in far more danger.

There is way too much at stake to allow Trump to win.

It is far easier to build Bernie's movement with Hillary in office than with Trump. If nothing else, that is the fact they should be taking away.

Hilarious!!!
Love the Rand Paul shirts all through the crowd that they had to avoid with his camera like the plague, the 'when will this be over' look on most of their faces, the 'I'm going to ask you to break a rule' from the law and order candidate, the 'just text your information to my secret info-grab computer for my later use because I'm the transparency and privacy candidate', the insinuation that a president can erase legislation day one with the swipe of a pen (but Obama can't make any executive decisions including treaties without congress' pre-aproval or he's "over-reaching his authority and abusing executive powers"), the 'imagine' speech from someone with an insanely limited imagination, and the attempt at being president by this Canadian!

Show me the birth certificate!!! If being born in Kenya to a non-citizen father would have made a whit of legal difference for Obama, then actually being born in Canada as a naturalized Canadian to a Cuban father should disqualify him...explain how that's not true please. ;-)

For any red staters...keep in mind that this smarmy socialist Canadian (he just denounced his Canadian citizenship-and trying to tell people they must fully support another individual financially and with their bodies (forced continued pregnancies) is insanely super socialist) for'nur is trying to infiltrate our gubmn't...HE'S TAKIN ER JERBS!

Had to upvote for the hilarity of his 'announcement'...not as support for him.

So, you can't argue against my points, so you change your argument?
You said we are sliding into socialism...I showed you that's wrong and now you say 'sliding to more government' is the same thing. They are not.

You are listening to talking heads. The republicans may promise to 'undo what was done' but in reality they don't do that (they don't really even try, they just try to look like they are, how many 'votes' to 'repeal' the ACA?) but instead increase their control at every turn.

1) Wow! A point we agree on!
2) Um...so you want to say the minimal wall street regulations were 'screwing corporations' and removing them is 'unscrewing them'? Well, lets just leave it at 'I totally disagree' that going back to reasonable rules (rules the republicans removed before, causing the insanity in the market for 25 years) is 'screwing business', it's forcing business to not screw everyone else by fraud.
3) If the government IS in charge of the program (and it is, because states failed miserably to do it themselves) there should be reasonable 'rules' on how to do it. Those 'rules' in this case should be determined by nutritionists, not politicians. Catchup is not a vegetable. It's really just one more swipe at the Obamas for no logical reason in my eyes.
4) It's hilarious that when it's for something you like, you are all pro-federal power to override the states/local laws, but when it's not (like a federal lunch program) they shouldn't be involved.
Socialism and corporatism are the reverse of each other. I should not have to be the one to teach you that.
We disagree as to which party is running faster towards 'oligarchy'. We disagree because you think Faux actually shows NEWS, but they ONLY have propaganda on Faux, not news, not reporting, only editorializing. Those who watch Faux are consistently less informed than those who watch NOTHING. Repeatedly proven fact.

Both parties have failed, so you think we should go for the crazed, farther right splinter party...you know the Naz....oh...sorry...I got confused....teabagger party. They might not all be lynching nuts, but most certainly are. I've seen and talked to them, and walked through rallies. It's not a myth.
Because they were not registered republicans does not make them either democrat or independent, most of them just think the republicans don't go far enough to the right...kind of like a certain German party from the 30's I can mention.

EDIT: I guess since it's OK for the republicans to off hand legislate against the known wishes and vote of the people because they 'control the laws in DC', you would have no problem with Obama using executive powers to bypass congress and to line veto the budget to remove all the superfluous BS the republicans added to it? The president has that power and can executive order and line item veto all day long...but you would be having a fit if he did, no?

I'm trying to point out the dilemma posed by stateless criminals operating in parts of the world where they are not liable or accountable to anybody. They are not within your own borders, so domestic law and order can't reach them. They are not operating within an extradition country, so that is out too. They in truth are not operating in a region where any country can bring it's own rule of law to bear on them, so even a declaration of war on Pakistan or Yemen doesn't really even fit.

When criminals operate from these regions, demands they be treated like a regular suburbanite, with a reading of Miranda rights before a bail hearing and formal trial including a state funded defends attorney is ludicrous. Acting like that extreme is mandatory is akin to rejecting the real world and demanding we all just pretend hard in some fictional world that is possible. I'm not advocating unlimited executive powers, I'm just observing that stateless criminals can NOT be dealt with through the same channels as domestic thugs.

@VoodooV
worst...analogy...ever.

@bcglorf
how does your analysis of the situation in pakistan defend or excuse the execution of american citizens abroad?

@Yogi made the clear example of Anwar al-Awlaki,an innocent 16 yr old american citizen living with his respectable grand-parents,who was executed by a drone strike.

are you suggesting we should just trust the executive branches decisions to murder citizens because the political/religious situation in a certain country?

i am trying to understand your correlation between a political climate and abusive executive powers.

@lantern53
ill agree with the sentiment of your comment if not the wrongful use of certain words.

bush was a big business president.
perma tax breaks anyone?
to use the term "progressive" in describing bush is being inaccurate at best and dishonest at worst.

the bush admin pushed through some of the most extreme expansions of executive powers (thanks addington and woo).they are guilty of war crimes.they are guilty of spying on american citizens.they are guilty of perpetrating an illegal war based on total fabrication.
and all of it.every last bit...retroactive immunity.

now here comes obama.
and while his rhetoric is beautiful and poetic,having a strong populist flavor,the facts remain that not only did the obama admin CONTINUE the bush executive powers,his admin EXPANDED them!

/waves to the NSA

so i do not know where you get this "fundamentally changing" this country when it has been business as usual.
unless you are speaking of oabamacare and i would point out that obamacare is a health care provider bail out.

bush bails out the banks.
obama bails out big pharma and health insurance industry.

and we get to pick up the tab.

the rhetoric may have a progressive tilt but the reality is business as usual.socialism for the rich,capitalism for the poor.

and it bothers me that some people i know who were ultra critical of the bush admin are relatively silent in regards to obama.

this is such a multi-faceted issue and soo many pieces on the board.
we can use history as a guide but history is nothing like math i.e:2+2=4 always.
people can read the same historical text and come to a different conclusion.

so i use a basic meter that helps me navigate difficult and complex situations.
1.governments lie
2.cue bono-who benefits
3.watch corporate media to taste the direction the government is pushing for i.e:propaganda
4.watch independent news to get a flavor of whats actually happening and possible solutions.

i am still sifting through the information but there are emerging more and more troubling aspects to this conflict.

what bothers me even more is how many people i know are totally ok with military aggression.
my facebook page was alight with my right wing friends (mostly HIGHLY educated) chastising obama for "allowing" congress to decide.

never ONCE questioning the fact that the president never HAD that power to use military force without congressional approval until addington and woo came along and started rewriting the executive powers charter.

if we are going to use history as a template,then it would behoove the powers that be in this country to tread lightly.

well look at my optimism showing!
thats not going to happen.
i read a book years ago and i have been watching the details unfold in real time over the past 15 yrs.

i suggest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard

this book laid out the reasons for a destabilized arab spring.

wish i could be more optimistic but governments lie.

@VoodooV
i agree that the president is not a dictator.
hence the usage of "administration" and yes, many people tend to pin it on the presidency alone.

i appreciate your note of caution.i wish i was as optimistic.
the obama administration has expanded the executive powers the bush administration started.the difference is that the obama administration has made it legal.

which i find even more distressing.

but not surprising.
governments lie

HA! miss you ya goober.

i dont subscribe to everything this video pontificates on.i thought it was an interesting point of view from a christian perspective.

ya know what i find even MORE interesting?
that during the bush years all my liberal/progressive friends needed medication for the rage and offense they took to the :illegal wars,wiretapping,torture etc etc.

even here on the sift the politics channel was busting with video after video of the malfeasance and outright destruction of civil liberties perpetrated by the bush administration.

and rightly so i might add.

go look at the politics channel now.
notice anything?
its dead jim.
empty and devoid of any real substantive discussion concerning obama.(or anything for that matter,its a ghost town)
who..lets be honest..is on his way to surpassing bush jr on:destruction of civil liberties,assasinations,expansion of more illegal wars.

now why is that?
when bush did it everybodies panties got knotted up but when obama not only expands executive powers but starts killing amreican citizens abroad.no trial.no jury..executes them.
and not a peep.
not even a slight foot note.(i may have just made that up but i havent seen much,and thats the truth)

so here we have a former constitutional lawyer.smart and photogenic pushing through some of the most heinous legislation and my liberal friends are silent.

so lets be clear here.obama is a product.
just like the pilsbury dough boy or the MGM lion.
and he has OWNERS.
they tell him what to do and what is in THEIR best interest.

our government has been purchased and is now a owned subsidiary of the multi-nationals and the financial industry.
and obama is the face of that subsidiary.

do i think a "new world order" is the goal?
well..naw....i think it is a select few who wish to perpetuate their own dominance and the rest of the world be damned.
they are only interested in governments in order to get what they want and what they want is to commodify everything.
they want to own it and sell it as they see fit.
water,air,food,energy...the whole kaboodle.

so if they have to purchase a government to make stealing legal or pay off a commitee in order to be able to sell poison as medicine or make GMO foods secret and non-litigious.
thats what they will do.

some right wing folks call it oligarchy.
i find that to be inaccurate.

the correct term is plutocracy.

so if you think the government under obama has become some benevolent uncle who just wishes to pass out smiles and hugs.
well....i dont think you have been paying attention.

obama is smarter and his administration far more clever but this government has EXPANDED on what bush did years ago.

so where the FUCK are my liberal friends????
has our society become so polemic that we root for "our" team like slacked jawed zombies?
look at how those teams are voting!
they are practically indistinguishable from each other!
republican..democrat..pffft..same fucking cookie.

are we so enamored with the IDEA of american politics that we cant see the reality?
its broken kids.
busted and banged up and rotten to its core.

i just dont get the silence..i really dont...
because i think thats what bothers me the most.
the silence.

/rant off

@GeeSussFreeK

yeah you're right - basically unlimited executive power.

and the language is kept purposefully unclear. In law (and speaking as an ex-lawyer) - where there is an ambiguity in language, those ambiguities are almost always construed in favor of powerful interests.

what is even harder is when the entire area of law is framed by an ambiguity - such as - a War on "Terror" - or "corporations are semi-people". Once there is an ambiguous foundation, it opens the door to all sorts of rampant and radical interpretations of that language that are inevitably against the interests of the people.

@NetRunner
right on. true enough, it is certainly where we are at.
I'm not an obama hater. (dissapointed, yes!), but i spent many years as a lawyer, working inside the system, trotting on the hamster wheel and even spending some time in the fed judiciary. I could go on a long tirade about how things are done in the legal world, but i'll just say that i'm an ex-attorney for a reason. Obama, like all presidents before him, has gladfully continued executive power-grabs created by the prior presidents. Balance of power is a joke. And the people have been completely left out of the political process. Decisions are made, and then the propaganda machine goes to work.

There is really no doubt we are in violation of international laws. but we do it all the time, cause hey, we're america and we do whatever the fuck we want.
legalities.... meh. the law is for sale.

i'm looking more at the overall mindset and complacency of a populace that is arguing about the legal semantics of killing it's own citizens in sovereign nations, while the rulers of this country blatantly run it into the ground.

and doesn't anyone recall how our government lied its way into Iraq? Have things really changed?

thanks for the well thought and written posts.

>> ^Januari:

When it comes to Ron Paul what always really turns me off is the idea that regulation is the cause of all our woes... and that the free market cures all.
For everything i love to hear him say... ending wars... foreign occupations... basses overseas... etc... there is something that just makes me go... Yikes... really?...


Think about it this way. If he was elected, he'd have the executive power to end all the wars. He'd have a hard time affecting the market in any profound way. To me it's about priorities. And I think cutting defense spending is the most important step in the right direction.

Da wiki sez: Section 4 confirmed the legitimacy of all United States public debt appropriated by the Congress. It also confirmed that neither the United States nor any state would pay for the loss of slaves or debts that had been incurred by the Confederacy. For example, several English and French banks had lent money to the South during the war.[48] In Perry v. United States (1935), the Supreme Court ruled that under Section 4 voiding a United States government bond "went beyond the congressional power."[49] Legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen has argued that Section 4 gives the president unilateral authority to raise or ignore the national debt ceiling, and that if challenged the Supreme Court would likely rule in favor of expanded executive power or dismiss the case altogether for lack of standing.[50] Erwin Chemerinsky, professor and dean at University of California, Irvine School of Law, has argued that not even a "dire financial emergency" could the President raise the debt ceiling as "there is no reasonable way to interpret the Constitution that [allows him to do so]". [51] The issue of the 14th Amendement and the debt ceiling has been categorized as an unsettled question in the legal community.[52]