it doesnt matter how many times you explain the future moves and their potentials to accomplish certain ends. they dont get that normally those ends wouldnt even be on the table.

we are getting deeper and deeper into it because, like the unresponsive revolutionaries of history, we are going to be reasonable and give them every possible benifit of the doubt, till there is no more doubt.

but when the others are on board and there is no doubt, there is also no escape from the inevitable any more… which is why there is no need to obfuscate and create doubt to hide in.

(if you go way back… i said that every revolutions key problem is the people who are part of the [R]evolution jump the gun and take off their masks before they have what they think they have. which has happened too.. like seiu head explaining that now they are trying persuasion not power, but later if that doesnt work, they are going to use power to persuade… )

You’re right. What a fantastic display of statesmanship: “in all due deference to the separation of powers, let me publicly attack and undermine our Supreme Court, who reached a decision of constitutional import. To demonstrate my lack of understanding of what the Supreme Court does, I’ll ask Congress to pass a law striking down the ruling”

A fool. An absolute fool.

Anyone who really understands the tenuous grip “the law” has on any society knows better than to drag the court into the arena of opinion. The court’s ruling have to be regarded as sacrosanct, or we risk “jury nullification” writ large. Very large. We flirted with anarchy during Gore v. Bush, and Obama wants to try that again.

Like I said, a fool.

The entire Supreme Court should’ve walked out

For a man who self-proclaimed diplomacy skills – he certainly didn’t showcase those skills in this last year.

The decision didn’t overturn a century of law, and it didn’t open any floodgates to foreign money that Obama hasn’t already found a way around.

It was BS, it was unseemly, and it deserved a stronger calling-out than Alito gave it.

I can only hope Sotomayor was offended by being mocked by Obama, she apparently wasn’t too happy when the White House wouldn’t even let her choose her own clothes for her hearings. She certainly didn’t look happy sitting there next to Alito.

I think the prickly, anti-corporate, speech-code writing, “ram it down the people’s throats!” president and party have great respect for the separation of powers, free speech and respect for corporations as legal entities. They clearly understand the “firewalls” and regulations governing US Subsidiaries of multinational corporations.

The president and his party don’t rush important legislation, do not attempt to “legislate from the bench” and you can trust them not to impose regulations against the will of the people. I think Cap and Trade is an excellent example of their wisdom and deliberation: the legislators in favor of it, along with the president, have shown a full understanding of the underlying science, natural phenomena and the long-term effects on our economy and way of life.

Manju is certainly right: as the voice of the level-headed, contemplative congressional majority, Nancy Pelosi can be counted on to balance corporate interests with free speech and…..

(hahaha! I couldn’t keep a straight face anymore! I did pretty good for a while there….)

These are precisely the kinds of things that are most disturbing about Obama’s tenure. They are also the kinds of things some of us have in mind when we contemplate the possibility that he has revolution and the establishment of a tyranny in mind. Others of us focus on his abysmal legislative record, think he is already an accomplished failure, and are more-or-less sanguine about this country’s ability to weather the storm–not without damage, but at least short of destruction. I tend to be in the more alarmist group, I guess, while hoping to be wrong. But his legislative train-wreck doesn’t even begin to be the whole story of the damage he is doing or the of the power he is positioning himself to exercise. Regulation and EOs are not subject to legislative approval. The Congress is going to have to be more alert than it has so far shown itself to be for some of this stuff to be stopped.

I agree, furthermore, that his approach resembles a kind of Blitzkrieg, and seems based on a strategy to overwhelm “the system”–Cloward-Piven, anyone? You can’t fight him everywhere if it’s not even clear where-all “everywhere” is.

However, there are some actions that are so unusual, actions that make no ordinary sense—but make very much and ominous sense, if seen and understood as possible building blocks, laid to construct a Tyranny, actions that stand out and erupt, like a magnesium flare in the night.

One such very early flare was Obama & Co.’s attempts, in the first few weeks of his administration, and continuing today, to get control over the Census, whose population counts are used to apportion Congressional Districts—and thus affect voting power in Congress–and to direct Federal funds to states and localities.

Now come two other major cases in point—both executive orders signed by Obama with little fanfare, that stand out, that make no sense, but that—if you believe that Obama & Co. are striving to institute some form of Tyranny–have very ominous implications for every American’s freedom.

The first, the one paragraph Executive Order 12425, signed December 16, 2009, without any signing statement or justification (subsequent media requests for the justification for this EO have not been answered) and quietly placed on the White House website, exempted INTERPOL, the international police force, from all U.S. laws; they can now operate in the U.S. without any restraints on them whatsoever, without being subject to, for instance, the restraints placed upon all U.S. law enforcement organizations—local, State and Federal police, Federal Marshals, police of various federal agencies, and the FBI–by the Constitution and our laws. EO 12425 also makes INTERPOL property and records exempt from all search and seizure laws, and also exempts INTERPOL from having to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests.

INTERPOL, by the way, has its U.S. headquarters located in our Justice Department so that, it would seem, any documents that might be in INTERPOL section of the Justice Department cannot now be ordered to be produced or be examined by any U.S. authorities. Gee, I wonder what would happen if some Justice Department files—say, for instance, those files pertaining to the DOJ’s decision not to go forward with the Black Panther’s voter intimidation prosecutions–somehow got into the INTERPOL offices?

Moreover, it would also seem that, post EO12425, if the International Criminal Court were to rule that some U.S. citizen or official were, say, a “war criminal,” it appears that INTERPOL could hunt him down and arrest him here within the U.S. and transport him overseas for detention and trial, and there is no way to stop them.

The other E.O., one that was also issued very quietly and that has drawn hardly any notice, was a January 11, 2010 EO establishing the “Council of Governors,” supposedly “…to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State Governments to protect our Nation against all types of hazards.”

The EO signing statement points out that the Council was created pursuant to a mandate to do so contained in language in the FY08 DOD Authorization bill. However many such Congressional “mandates” are routinely ignored by both the White House and by DOD, so I believe Obama & Co. decided to heed this mandate to give them cover for something they already wanted to do.

Says the White House signing statement, “When appointed, the Council will be reviewing such matters as involving the National Guard of the various States; homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.”

The EO says that the Council is to be composed of ten governors selected by the President (no more than five Governors from one party) and the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and America’s Security Affairs, the Northern Command Commander, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau. The Secretary of Defense will designate an Executive Director for the Council.

With Obama there are no “innocent explanations.” One would think that with all the various exiting connections and interactions between Federal, State and local agencies, with a National Guard Bureau in each and every state, and the existing National Guard-DOD connections, there would already be enough consultation about the National Guard and any internal policing issues in the U.S., so this seems very duplicative.

But, when viewed in the context of steps taken to build a tyranny, given Obama’s bizarre call for a “Civilian National Security Force… that is just as big and well funded as our [current] military, ” (given that among the other members of this new Council, the current Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs, is the very dangerous and odious Valerie Jarrett), given that the justification for this EO talks of internal policing in the U.S., given that the Posse Comitatus Act very strictly forbids the use of U.S. military forces within the U.S., and that the Council, which will have a predominance of Federal military and few State i.e. National Guard members, and will be directly concerned with such internal policing, this, too, has a very ominous ring.

We have been told ad nauseam Baraq is so very intelligent- he has those Ivy League degrees and that’s proof positive, right? Nope. He and MyBelle are where they are because of Affirm Action….And they are not alone. They are part of a wave of incompetence. Like Cornel West being called a “scholar” by the AP.

Baraq is not smart. But he is an accomplished weasel. And weasels don’t know what manners are.