‹ War Is an Economic Policy, Senator McCain •
In late 2006, Congress revised the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act to make it far easier for a president to declare martial law. Those changes were repealed at the end of this January as part of Public Law 110-181 (HR 4986), the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (signed into law by President Bush on January 28, 2008).
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), who championed the opposition to the original law, was also the hero of the repeal. It helped that all the nation’s governors opposed the 2006 law.
Boise State Professor Charlotte Twight, the author of the excellent Dependent on DC, alerted me to the change last night. I checked on Nexis and the only news coverage I found regarding the repeal was a 322-word Gannett News wire story from February 1 that focused on how the repeal made governors happy.
I first wrote about the Posse/Insurrection peril for American Conservative a year ago. My most recent piece on the subject was an article for the January issue of the Future of Freedom Foundation’s (FFF) Freedom Daily. The law was changed between the time the piece was published and when FFF posted the January article online on April 9.
No matter - Bush will take care of that with another ’signing statement’.
Yup.
Don’t stop buying ammunition just because the pigs in DC undid a mistake.
The law can always be re-written. Bullets do their job once and can’t be undone.
IMMA CHARGIN MAH LAZOR!
Agreed. Everyone should have at least two or three CASES of ammo for every caliber of firearm you own, because bullets can only be used once. Reloading should also be encouraged. I think it is going to take a second armed American Revolution to return this nation to the control of We The People.
While conventional small arms are needed. People really do need to learn the design and making of EFPs and invent/design things for handling helicopters and armored vehicles. You won’t last long with just a rifle these days.
Nice to see people prepared to fight. That’s how we got our freedom to start with. “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition”.
If you seriously believe you can go up against the US Army with your little guns, you must not think much of our military.
Dream on. Last I heard, our guys and gals had just a few bigger weapons, designed to take out anything from a motorcycle to a tank to a steel-armored bunker to the deepest cave you could even imagine.
You don’t need to defeat the US military for god’s sake. It only takes a couple hundred letters to a large cooperation threating boycott to effect policy change. In the same way, a few people fighting back per city per state etc is enough to effect change in Government.
It’s similar to polling, pollsters may only select 1500 people. From that tiny number they are able to extrapolate how millions of people feel about a given issue.
The government know that if 10,000 people are protecting themselves their families and their property with guns, another 10 million are thinking about doing the same thing.
Israel with all of their military might has not been able to stop the Palestinians from fighting back for the last 40 years. Heck, The US military is losing in Iraq against sticks and stones and home made bombs.
F**king REDNECKS! After all that your country has put the world through you can only think about your goddamn guns. Are you really that paranoid? I suppose in a way you have a point though, I would be more scared of the people around the world that your government has pissed ofi than your government itself though. My suggestion is to stay at home and polish your guns. The world is a very dangerous place for Americans right now. You and your guns is what has turned your country into what it is right now and the way the world feels about you!
Could you BE any more ignorant ?
Samson, you are naive..blind. Our nation consists of checks and balances. Guns are a check on the power of government to become tyrannical. “Most dictators agree…gun control works!!”
Yes. Keep your eyes on District of Columbia v. Heller, the 2nd Amendment now in the U.S. Supreme Court. The oral arguments are online. It appears that the Court is now looking at the 2nd with the frame of reference of self-defense, as opposed to straight militia.
F**king REDNECKS!
–No. College educated professional.
After all that your country has put the world through you can only think about your goddamn guns.
–No. I’m thinking about my freedoms, my liberty, my rights.
Are you really that paranoid?
–Yes. With good reason.
I suppose in a way you have a point though, I would be more scared of the people around the world that your government has pissed ofi than your government itself though.
–Both.
My suggestion is to stay at home and polish your guns.
–I take care of everything I own.
The world is a very dangerous place for Americans right now.
–Yes.
You and your guns is what has turned your country into what it is right now and the way the world feels about you!
–We and our guns are what earned this country a unique kind of freedom. I fear in few decades we will have to do it again.
Well Pay attention to Jeremiah 50-51 (which see KJV), seems civil war precedes the destruction of endtime Babylon:
51:45 My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every
man his soul from the fierce anger of the LORD.
51:46 And lest your heart faint, and ye fear for the rumour that shall
be heard in the land; a rumour shall both come one year, and after
that in another year shall come a rumour, and violence in the land,
ruler against ruler.
Prepare Your minds and Hearts and Protect the Body that God Gave You! With all Due Respect, Even Jesus Told the Apostles to get a sword to Protect themselves. Obey the Laws of Man when they Agree with That of the word of God! Romans 13. ,Luke 22:36… Self Defense is a God given Right! Everybody in their God Given Mind should Read: En Route To Global Occupation by Gary Kah and Planet Earth 200 AD by Hal Lindsey
At least they are finally waking up and seeing the truth. How they could ever pass the law to begin with is unreal. I hope this is a new beginning for Congress.
A new beginning? Thanks for the early morning chuckle.
The drift toward authoritarianism results from the deteriorating capabilities of the American state. Don’t expect this process to reverse.
Not a Republic, but an oligarchy…since about 1896. A fascist
military dictatorship with a fourth estate turned into a fifth column.
You can say that again. The black hole of power that must accelerate trying to control every aspect of our lives until they implode. Its impossible to accomplish what they are doing without destroying what they say they are trying to protect. Turn off the TV unless you just want to see what they’re using to distract the slaves.
More like 1868 with the fraudulent 14th Amendment. Lincoln was opposed to that, which was a reason why he was shot.
Congress actually did something–how shocking.
Something productive, that is. Truly, a once in a lifetime event.
So, the Posse Comitatus Act is back in effect, more or less?
This is newsworthy.
The signing statement is interesting in that is he claiming the law was not effective prior to the previous revision, which last some 100+ years?
Thanks for your role in this, Jim.
David
Thanks, David!
Just in case anyone has forgotten, it is an election year …
And here is 8Ball to bring us back to Earth.
It’s inevitable :D. If you’re not pro-revolution you are not anti-war brother.
If it is a Paul Revolution, it will be as bad as or worse than a McCain Revolution or Clinton Revolution, and any of them will fail and be utter disasters.
You simply have failed to smell the wind or gauged the direction of the America people. They will simply not stand for more oppression or dissection of the Constitution. It’s not a candidate revolution it’s America’s and your inaction and failure to even address the issue with your vocabulary and lack of logic seems utterly sad. A form of autism on the other spectrum I would suspect. Utter dissapointment if your only purpose is to be a shill
for pro-war candidates. LOL :D
Another Paulist right?
Paul stands by with two criminals as Chief Executive and Vice President, and initially opposes impeachment and then hides in proper procedure.
He defuses the anti-war vote.
He goes to New Hampshire and runs commercials about immigration.
Ten to one you can’t even tell me where the big influx of Brazilians is.
Instead he blabbers on about self-ownership, immigration, the Federal Reserve (by the way I agree that it is a monster).
The “American People” don’t have one age or mind or direction, and are not even one people, but many, and to say they do and to smell that wind shows the provincialism of the people you are standing too closely behind.
Giraldi has it right about Obama–all “mights”. But all the others are “no way Jose”.
To stop an attack on Iran, impeachment now.
To stop a new king, impeachment now.
To open the possibility of a quick exit from Iraq impeachment now.
Trying to save the Republican Party that brought the United States the biggest disaster in its history, as Paul is evidently trying to do, is almost as lunatic as what the Neo-Cons are up to.
“He defuses the anti-war vote.”
It’s “diffuses”, not “defuses”. With that out of the way…
Huh? Paul -is- the antiwar vote. The other supposed antiwar candidates would not change our foreign policy one bit, and would continue to promote war.
“Instead he blabbers on about the Federal Reserve…”
The Federal Reserve system is the very thing that enabled bloated government to maintain its warmongering foreign policy. Paul goes after the root causes of these problems. The other candidates go after the symptoms only.
As for impeachment… I’m a fan of the idea, but it isn’t practical. The proceedings would take long enough that it won’t matter one bit at this point. It’s too late for that approach.
“Defuses” is correct.
The Federal Reserve is a complex issue and it is a symptom rather than a cause.
There are other ways the same effects might have been obtained, and in any “reform”, one has to be careful not to stumble into them by being too naive, as Paul is.
Structurally, impeachment is absolutely necessary for even a remnant of Constitutional government to survive.
The Constitution is quite simple on the subject, and indeed, during Clinton’s impeachment, Paul for one read it correctly, but has not done so since.
Wrong. It is the cause and the enabler. BTW, it is also unconstitutional.
“Enabler”? To a degree. But “enablers” also have crises when they reach the level of their own incompetnece.
“Cause?”. No. There is no one cause, but many working in synergy.
There is no easy solution, and even thinking in terms of “one” solution, as Paul and the Paulists do, is simplistic and unworkable.
One thing to ponder–the putative “debt” run up by Bush and Cheney by the war in Iraq, added on to what preceded, cannot possibly be paid–financially, economically, socially, politically, or even by war.
In fact, I may be wrong, and it is too early to tell–but I suspect there is now not even a mode of getting to the point of paying it.
If so, it is merely a question of what the next song and dance of Greater Fool Theory will be.
“Subprime mortgages” were themselves a desperate measure, even before the collapse.
Ponder another item that never appears in the press–the “Patriot Act” is, from the point of view of most banks, and especially the smaller ones, very much analagous to unfunded mandates, and have helped do them in.
corr:”has helped”
The panic in those small circles who think they are running things financially in the US is much greater than the controlled media is allowed to give out.
They are still thinking in terms of finding even bigger fools than most of the US population has to offer–to wit, somehow arrange matters so that these fools pay for their mistakes over the next thirty years.
I believe that if you do a little more reading, Eugene, that you will find Scott and sheLoves to be absolutely right; you are underestimating the role played by the Fed in maintaining what you oppose.
Not underestimating its “role” as agent and tool and, indeed, as enabler, but, just as an actor is not the character played, a role is not a cause.
You are, to an astronomical degree, underestimating the Fed. It is a private bank with 51% ownership held by the Rothschilds families of London, England and Paris, France, as well as a large percentage held by the Warburg family in Germany. It has no oversight, only putting the Chairman in public view as a show of responsibility. You’ll find it listed in the yellow pages, not the government pages, of any phone book in which it is listed. In 1913, during the Christmas holiday, when most members of Congress were home with their families, the Fed was created but was still limited to the gold-backed money supply. When gold and silver were dropped as a conditional restraint on the money supply, the Fed was free to issue currency at will and inflate the dollar beyond repair. This is a globalist tactic to replace the dollar with the Amero and unite the U.S., Canada, and Mexico into the NAU. If you look at the top of any U.S. paper money, it says, “Federal Reserve Note.” “A note is a promise to redeem later for some other object of value.” - Wikipedia So the Fed issues money with the promise of a backing that has an indefinite amount of time to manifest as value. That means that anyone who has a price can be bought, and anyone who can’t be bought could face an opponent in an election with nearly unlimited funds used against them. It IS the source of all corruption in our government. The effects of that corruption are the loss of liberty and the disregard for our people and our Constitution. Those effects, and everything that follows, are only a symptom of the problem. The Fed isn’t a player in the play, but the theater owner, director, acting coach, script editor, publicist, and ticket sales office of nearly every talking head in America. Oh, yeah, and the money they print for the government has an interest charge attached to it. They pass that cost on to you in the form of the income tax and hidden costs in gasoline prices and other excise taxes.
Some one actually –wants war??? Could you put a name on him ??
Its called McCain, Obama, and Clinton…
the man who wants to be dictator, why George bush of course
I thought we were all anti-war and pro-revolution!
Yes, I supported Paul and Kucinich the only viable anti-war candidates running.
Attack both their campaigns all you will, yet again they were the only two viable anti-war candidates. As I’ve stated twice already to you the majority of Congress in both parties as well as the President are complicit in crimes that would be at focus in impeachment trial. Why are you still pushing impeachment when the leadership of both parties will not implicate themselves in Congress? The American people that I know in my state are seething about what is going on with the Constitution. If they are in my state, you can bet your ass they are in all states. We care about America, the Constitution and the direction of America. With both parties in collusion? What else but revolution?
Worrying about Presidential “signings” and suspensions of Posse Comitatus is valid.
But it is worrying about the symptoms rather than the disease.
The disease in this case is the continuing claim, Left and Right, to unrestricted Executive Power.
The cure for that is impeachment of both Bush and Cheney–and, after Kucinich, Cheney first.
Impeachment also provides the possibility of an exit strategy from Iraq. Not the only one perhaps, but possibly the only one that it is not catastrophic to whatever is left of the United States and the Constitution.
Is this the only disease? No. The ailments are so numerous and deep and chronic that just curing one improves the prognosis only marginally. But one also has to be careful not to cure one ailment with a remedy that produces ten new diseases.
For the moment a Congress of incompetent and venal clowns, at one another’s throats, is far superior to an autocratic and incompetent King.
Incidentally, the argument can be made that Shaw and many of the Fabians were not “Socialist” at all, save contingently. That was how bad their diagnosis was.
Also calling “Liberals” or Clintonites “Progressive” is nonsense.
The Democrats and Republicans are both now Fascist, with a slightly different makeup, and with only a few exceptions.
The addition to the mix of a thoroughly coopted “mainstream” media and key Zionist groups, Left and Right, makes this an unprecedented and highly combustible mixture.
Don’t just impeach Bush, Cheney, et al. Convict them of war crimes, then send’em for jail for 50 years, no time off. Fifty years of boredom would be worse than death.
One of the interesting consequences of impeachment is the matter of whether Bush and Cheney would lose not only their various perquisites of office in retirement, as well as their Secret Service Protection, but also whether it would facilitate prosecution for war crimes, and other obvious criminal acts, by stripping them, in effect, of arguments based on immunity of office.
So too the effects it would have on the matter of ownership of private papers and records connected with their offices.
Then there is also the matter of the pardons Bush can dangle or hand out to impede investigation of his and his administration’s conduct.
For the moment, impeachment is the last and most powerful Constitutional remedy available.
The presidential election is insignificant by comparison.
Indeed, it is part of the traditional circus act, now mostly in control of the “mainstream” media, and designed to distract and lull.
Mr. Paul is a disappointment. He now seems a lot less intelligent and principled than one once gave him credit for.
The people around him, for the most part, are a sad and incompetent lot, so far as one can see.
Two pleasant surprises are Kucinich and Paul Craig Roberts.
Instead of attacking people and people who are supportive of that person, why not explain your disagreements with their ideas?
Dislike and intolerance towards honest, hardworking people for no honest reason is not communicating anything of value or of anything that anyone would care to read here. It would be better off left untyped.
The internet makes it too easy to spread disinformation around the world.
“Dislike and intolerance towards honest, hardworking people”?
Come again? You mean Mexican immigrants, legal and not so legal, right?
How much in campaign contributions did Paul collect from anti-war supporters?
How many Democrats crossed over in the primaries to vote for him while he was running campaign commercials against immigration?
Then he suspends his campaign, and promises never to leave the Republican Party?
All that is still not comparable to his sell-out on the matter of impeachment, first opposing Kucinich’s motion and then talking about “proper procedure” when shunting it to judiciary.
Merely, by the way, what’s hardworking and honest about most obstetricians, especially the male variety?
“Then he suspends his campaign, and promises never to leave the Republican Party?”
I don’t know where Eugene gets his information (it HAS to be TV!) but Ron Paul has NOT suspended his campaign, and is actively working towards gaining delegates in the nine states that have yet to have their Primaries!
And you have the AUDACITY to make a personal attack on obstetricians!?! Maybe you should speak with any of the 4000 humans Ron has brought into this world and see if they are appreciative of the help they were given in the act of being born.
I’m suprised you did’t call him a racist because of the newsletter. It’s the last bastion of mud you can sling in his direction that uninformed people can immediately demonize him for without doing any ‘research’ to confirm or deny your cheap accusations.
What next? Are you going to call Carol overweight!?! I wouldn’t put it past your type. Moron.
“The disease in this case is the continuing claim, Left and Right, to unrestricted Executive Power.”
Do you honestly think the “disease” is limited to the executive branch? Congress has voted in favor of unconstitutional bill after unconstitutional bill. The problem is far larger than “Bush and Cheney”.
You are not reading closely.
It is inevitable. I talk to relatives in the military and once they understand the situation they agree.
Good news — that one was worrying me. Are you sure there was no signing statement?
You have a criminal elite who performed a nearly complete coup d’Etat, on 11-09-01. Were it not for one renegade, fighter squadron pilot (USAFR), the plane downed in PA was likely head for the congressional bldg. Any congress”person” worth a damn (that’s not many) knows this. Congress has lived in fear, with Cheney/Bush in the Whitehouse after two stolen elections in a row. The congress criters know this too. YET, congress has gone along with it all. The tiny flicker of courage during the final months of the Cheney/Bush Regime, is NOT a sign of a turnaround, yet.
Cheney/Bush/Neocons/Pentagon/Et Al, the entire cabal, should have been arrested, impeached, jailed, and hanged in a public display. Instead, congress, those who themselves didn’t deserved to be arrested, have cowered down and gone along with this junta.
They deserve no accolades. Not even for this legislative turnaround.
Spot on! Not only do these cowardly criminals NOT deserve praise for finally doing something just and legal, as is their sworn mandate, but they deserve censure and reprimand, at a minimum, and removal from office, ideally, for failing consistently over the last seven years (if not the last seven decades, or longer) to uphold the Constitution that is their sole purpose of office. OTOH, since the bulk of the Amoricon sheeple are by turns ignorant or contemptuous of and apathetic about the Constitution and the concept of limited federal powers, they too deserve mass censure and condemnation.
Not only is failing to uphold the Constitution a violation of their sole purpose as government officials, it undermines their sole source of legitimacy to hold office and power. Only the Constituion gives legitimacy to the current government, and system of government, in the US. Executives who aggrandize to themselves extraconstitutional powers, and legislators who supinely allow these usurpations, effectively are crushing the sole legitimate basis for their holding office in the first place. They would certainly deny it, and in some cases may not be fully cognizant of the implications of their failure to uphold the constitutional order, but every act that undermines the constitution, every failure to defend it, quietly advances a creeping coup of unaccountable tyranny against the constitutional principles of democratic republicanism.
wel said! although I still hope and pray they are seeing the light- and repenting for their collective cowardice (with a few- very few exceptions)…
I don’t believe it! Something good for a change!!
However, Posse Comitatus only protects US Citizens from US Troops, not United Nations or Canadian Troops. And we just signed an agreement with Canada that will allow Canadian troops to deploy here on US Soil in a peace keeping role!
Hmmm, Maybe they’ll send the French Canadian troops!?
And we just signed an agreement with Canada that will allow Canadian troops to deploy here on US Soil in a peace keeping role!
The rounds from my assault rifle will be just as effective against Canadian, Mexican, or other foreign mercenaries as they will be against domestic criminals in the State’s employ.
Yes, it won’t protect us from the likes of Blackwater, etc. either.
Now you’re getting close to the point. Remember the role of Blackwater in post-Katrina New Orleans. No reason that sort of privatized militarization couldn’t be universalized, and libertarians will have difficulty criticizing it, because it would be a tyranny imposed by private sector, profit-making businesses, which every libertarian believes should be exempt from any andall oversight and regulation. thus when these businesse4s in arms seize your city, your neighborhood, a libertarian will perforce be required ideologically to justify the Blackwater takeover.
Not at all. Remember who will be paying this supposedly “private” company. Remember where the money will come from. A “private” contractor doing the bidding of the government is something that I as a libertarian can quite easily criticize without compromising my principles.
LMAO, it sure sounds like a bunch of Americans are fixin’ to shoot people. Yehaaaa!
What was it Thomas Jefferson said about the right to revolution again?
Fixin to be able to prevent tyranny from rearing its ugly head. Wake up.
These “Signing Statements” have no validity in the law making process, the CONSTITUTION mandates that the President either sign the bill into law or return it to congress with his objections, the President has NO OTHER AUTHORITY to say that he/she will only enforce a part of a law…………..read the Constitution………..”anything which is repugnant to the constitution is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.”
Exactly so.
Bottom line here folks.
Everybody who figured that when the Democrats came into power a) would impeach Bush b) would pull us out of Iraq and c) would restore some of the lost liberties were absolutly WRONG and will always be wrong about that. Democrats were only “using” and “taking advantage of” the anti war feeling, the impeachment feelings and loss of liberty feelings so THEY could get INTO POWER. If a Democrat is elected President, he or she will expand those powers and abuse of authority and hardly anybody will say anything about it “because our guy is in office..”
The Republicans did the exact same thing and all the so called conservatives who howled and yelled about Clinton expanding government were silent when Bush proposed Budgets that dwarfed what Clintons proposals were going to be. All we have to understand is Congress is not afraid of the executive branch. Quite the opposite. They in essence are enabling it.
There will never be an impeachment of Bush/Cheney because the Democrats want their guy to have all the power and authority, plus whatever other power and authority he or she can grab on to.
You are correct that so called signing statements are absolutly worthless. The problem with that is the Democratic controlled congress ultimatly goes along with them, which means if Hillary or Obama gets elected, then their guy will be dropping signing statements all over the place as well.
Even though something may be unconstitutional, not legal, invalid, as long as Congress and the Courts in essence recognize it as being legal those arguments go down the drain.
People blah and yack about how they are going to do this or that. Remember the so called Trucker strike of April 1st. Blabbed to absolute death. We heard tales about when truckers lose money every trip because of the cost of fuel, how they are nearly bankrupt, blah blah blah. What happened? Traffic was slowed down on the New Jersey turnpike for a day and a few other areas and other then that NOTHING. Likewise the so called truckers complaining about how they were losing money every time they got into their rigs turned around and got into their rigs on April 2 and forward. Since that time Diseal has gone up more.
In a nation with 600 million people, you have 600 million different agendas, with very few cohesive forces. All people care about is a) a paycheck b) benifits so they won’t lift a finger from status quo if their paycheck is on the line. Especially where people are losing homes across the country. The people losing their homes only care about themselves and where their next meal is coming from. They don’t care about issues of freedom, the plight of the truckers or anybody else for that matter.
Likewise most of the people blogging about issues of freedom. Everybody talks and blabs, but if you ask them if freedom was important enough to quit their job to go and do “something” you would have FEW takers if any. Sure you might have a one day disruption, but then everybody will go back to work the next day. I find it ironic that some freedom orientated people are trying to line something up on May 1st, a known communist day of celebration. Ironic isn’t it?
The truth is simply this. If a Democrat gets elected, and takes a bunch of unconstitutional power and authority, most of the bloggers and liberals that were wanting to impeach Bush/Cheny for that reason will suddenly be quiet about the abuses of power and authority. Now on the other side of the isle, it will be “some” of the Republicans that haven’t been howling and yelling about budgets, unconstitutional power and authority blah blah blah for 8 years, will suddenly start howling and yelling about it. Watch and see.
Cheers,
Robert
Leahy would sanction dirty wars just like Clinton, Reagan et. al. if he had his finger on the red button. They all want the same thing. They all turn my (fit n’ trim) stomach. Don’t vote. Don’t speak to xenophobic uncles. Channel Ghandi and the best Roman Catholic Poets. Channel booze, coffee and British cigarettes. Be chic. Be righteous. Be now.