Today is the 11th anniversary of the day the first prisoner arrived at the United States’ military prison at Guantanamo Bay. As reported by, among others, Mary Shaw at Intrepid, two days after taking office in 2009, President Obama. … issued an executive order calling for the Guantanamo prison to be closed within a year, [...]
Tag Archives | NDAA
Queer Talk: A New Congress, and We’re Still Talking About Marriage and Military Matters
DC has been very busy the last few weeks, and LGBT folks are among those who have been the focus of some of the busy-ness. A selective overview follows. DOMA House Republicans just can’t stop spending money to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. They aren’t representative of all Republicans, as the statement from Log [...]
President Obama’s “Whining” Statement Attached to Signing NDAA 2013 [Video]
OSAMA bin Laden is dead, but politicians continue to allow the blood thirsty terrorist to strangle our democratic republic from the grave. President Obama signing the NDAA, which codifies indefinite detention into the American fabric, is a capitulation to the right and all that’s unholy about the “war on terror,” which now a Democratic president [...]
We Can Use Torture Because We’re Exceptionally Special
You remember the George W. Bush administration word play which turned “torture” into “enhanced interrogation.” Not that Bush was the first, or the last, to do such things, of course. Two things happened yesterday, related to this. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the CIA’s rendition program employed “torture,” and the Senate Intelligence [...]
Senators, Advocacy Groups Challenge NDAA
Challenges to the National Defense Authorization Act came this week from a group of senators and from a coalition of advocacy groups. From Michael McAuliff at HuffPo: A bipartisan group of senators made a bid Wednesday to end the indefinite military detention of Americans in the United States. Declaring that a provision of the National [...]
The ‘Disposition Matrix’, the ‘Kill List’ Upgrade: Just How Much ‘Lesser Evil’ is Acceptable?
The Washington Post article from a couple of days ago continues to spark conversation. Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists, by Greg Miller, begins: Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called [...]
Court Upholds NDAA With Extended Stay
The National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 has been upheld by a federal appeals court. At Politico, Josh Gerstein: A federal appeals court has extended a temporary stay of a district court judge’s order barring the government from using an indefinite detention provision in a defense bill passed by Congress and signed by President Barack [...]
Police State, Part III: It’s Really Happening, and the State Thanks Those Ignoring It
Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer. There’s absolutely nothing like a presidential election year to dominate media attention. And even when an unrelated story gets some time, if the presidential hopefuls can find a way, they’ll use it in their campaigns. For that reason, it’s a fairly safe bet that as [...]
Police State, Part II: The Nation’s ‘Biggest Spy Center’
Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer. The first post of this three part series, The Bipartisan NDAA, focused on The National Defense Authorization Act, and some of the arguments included in the lawsuit challenging it. To understand the consequences of NDAA, a bigger context is helpful. So today I turn to [...]
Police State, Part I: The Bipartisan NDAA
Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer. Begin with this: Police State questions and concerns are far bigger than Barack Obama, as they were far bigger than George W. Bush. The questions are larger than Republicans vs. Democrats party fights. In general, as long as we play by the Us / Them [...]
The “right to be secure” doesn’t mean what it use to
Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer. Bill of Rights, Amendment IV: Right of search and seizure regulated: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported [...]
Newt Gingrich Can’t Beat Barack Obama
NEWT GINGRICH WINS SOUTH CAROLINA Memo to GOP Star Chamber. RE: Not Losing the *(&#! House and Senate GOP Majority w/ Newt Disaster. Time for a Secret Meeting. – Mike Murphy tweet UPDATE (10:00 p.m.): Once again I want to make it very clear, I do not have a candidate in the race in 2012. [...]
No Wonder People Support Ron Paul
He huffed and he puffed, then Barack Obama did what he always does, he signed conservative legislation. The NDAA is now law of the land. The head of the Democratic Party believes indefinite detention for terrorism suspects and that they deserve to be locked up without trial. Oh, but not to worry, Pres. Obama has [...]
Recent Comments