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RoyalLion07 liked a video
(2 days ago)
To learn more, visit http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
For years, government spending and the mounting U.S. debt have been central to several State ...
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To learn more, visit http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
For years, government spending and the mounting U.S. debt have been central to several State of the Union addresses, but unfortunately, these words have not translated into action.
Our latest video takes a look back at what our president's have had to say about our spending and deficit problems and calls for action on our fiscal issues.
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RoyalLion07 favorited a video
(1 week ago)
NDAA Floor Speech January 18, 2011
18 January 2012
Mr. Speaker: I rise today to introduce a very simple piece of legislation to repeal the infamous S...
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NDAA Floor Speech January 18, 2011
18 January 2012
Mr. Speaker: I rise today to introduce a very simple piece of legislation to repeal the infamous Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, quietly signed into law by the president on New Year's Day.
Section 1021 essentially codifies into law the very dubious claim of presidential authority under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force to indefinitely detain American citizens without access to legal representation or due process of law. Section 1021 provides for the possibility of the US military acting as a kind of police force on US soil, apprehending terror suspects -- including Americans -- and whisking them off to an undisclosed location indefinitely. No right to attorney, no right to trial, no day in court.
This is precisely the kind of egregious distortion of justice that Americans have always ridiculed in so many dictatorships overseas. A great man named Solzhenitsyn became the hero of so many of us when he exposed the Soviet Union's extensive gulag system. Is this really the kind of United States we want to create in the name of fighting terrorism?
Some have argued that nothing in Section 1021 explicitly mandates holding Americans without trial, but it employs vague language radically expanding the detention authority to include anyone who has "substantially supported" certain terrorist groups or "associated forces." No one has defined what those two terms mean. What is an "associated force"?
Sadly, too many of my colleagues are too willing to undermine our Constitution to support such outrageous legislation. One senator even said about American citizens picked up under this section of the NDAA, "When they say, 'I want my lawyer,' you tell them, 'Shut up. You don't get a lawyer.'" Is this acceptable in someone one who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution?
Mr. Speaker, of course I recognize how critical it is that we identify and apprehend those who are suspected of plotting attacks against Americans. But why do we have so little faith in our justice system? Have we not tried in civilian court and won convictions of hundreds of individuals for terrorist or related activities? I fully support our continuing to do so, but let us not abandon what is so unique and special about our system of government in the process.
I hope my colleagues will join my effort to overturn the shameful Section 1021.
http://paul.house.gov/index.php?optio...
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RoyalLion07 liked a video
(1 week ago)
NDAA Floor Speech January 18, 2011
18 January 2012
Mr. Speaker: I rise today to introduce a very simple piece of legislation to repeal the infamous S...
more
NDAA Floor Speech January 18, 2011
18 January 2012
Mr. Speaker: I rise today to introduce a very simple piece of legislation to repeal the infamous Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, quietly signed into law by the president on New Year's Day.
Section 1021 essentially codifies into law the very dubious claim of presidential authority under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force to indefinitely detain American citizens without access to legal representation or due process of law. Section 1021 provides for the possibility of the US military acting as a kind of police force on US soil, apprehending terror suspects -- including Americans -- and whisking them off to an undisclosed location indefinitely. No right to attorney, no right to trial, no day in court.
This is precisely the kind of egregious distortion of justice that Americans have always ridiculed in so many dictatorships overseas. A great man named Solzhenitsyn became the hero of so many of us when he exposed the Soviet Union's extensive gulag system. Is this really the kind of United States we want to create in the name of fighting terrorism?
Some have argued that nothing in Section 1021 explicitly mandates holding Americans without trial, but it employs vague language radically expanding the detention authority to include anyone who has "substantially supported" certain terrorist groups or "associated forces." No one has defined what those two terms mean. What is an "associated force"?
Sadly, too many of my colleagues are too willing to undermine our Constitution to support such outrageous legislation. One senator even said about American citizens picked up under this section of the NDAA, "When they say, 'I want my lawyer,' you tell them, 'Shut up. You don't get a lawyer.'" Is this acceptable in someone one who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution?
Mr. Speaker, of course I recognize how critical it is that we identify and apprehend those who are suspected of plotting attacks against Americans. But why do we have so little faith in our justice system? Have we not tried in civilian court and won convictions of hundreds of individuals for terrorist or related activities? I fully support our continuing to do so, but let us not abandon what is so unique and special about our system of government in the process.
I hope my colleagues will join my effort to overturn the shameful Section 1021.
http://paul.house.gov/index.php?optio...
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RoyalLion07 favorited a video
(1 week ago)
"War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death"
http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/...
The conflicts may change, ...
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"War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death"
http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/...
The conflicts may change, but the verbiage remains the same in "War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," a depressing look at political manipulation and news media compliance.
Based on Norman Solomon's 2005 book, Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp's nonpartisan documentary is less about propaganda than our news media's role in its dissemination. Referring to multiple American conflicts, Mr. Solomon — who appears on screen to connect the sound bites — presents a litany of journalistic pandering and critical laziness. Bellicose speeches by presidents from Lyndon B. Johnson to George W. Bush reveal frighteningly similar locutions that are then parroted by news organizations fearful of appearing unpatriotic.
Unsubtle, condensed and bullet-point simple, "War Made Easy" avoids fancy visuals for a uniformly drab and dispiriting aesthetic. Sporadically narrated by Sean Penn (evincing all the personality of a potato), the movie is cinematically inert if ultimately persuasive. Many of its arguments have been made before — most recently by the excellent four-part "Frontline" series, "News War" — but Mr. Solomon digs deeper and hammers harder, comparing European and American coverage and lambasting cable news networks for their unquestioning reliance on the White House message of the day. "We should have been more skeptical," the CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer admits. You think, Wolf?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1015246/
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/war-ma...
In real time, officials have explained and justified these military operations to the American people by withholding crucial information about the actual reasons and potential costs of military action again and again, choosing to present an easier version of war's reality; a steady and remarkably consistent storyline designed not to inform, but to generate and maintain support and enthusiasm for war. War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.
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