I have some mixed feelings on this one, i think that the sick pup should be put out it's misery. But there is a thing called due process, if it is denied to him, what makes me think it won't be me in the future. You need to quite being naive.
Obama argues his assassination program is a "state secret"
At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims. That's not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is "state secrets": in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are "state secrets," and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.
A very intense case of food poisoning in New York on Thursday, combined with my traveling home all night last night, prevents me from writing much about this until tomorrow (and it's what rendered the blog uncharacteristically silent for the last two days). But I would hope that nobody needs me or anyone else to explain why this assertion of power is so pernicious -- at least as pernicious as any power asserted during the Bush/Cheney years. If the President has the power to order American citizens killed with no due process, and to do so in such complete secrecy that no courts can even review his decisions, then what doesn't he have the power to do? Just for the moment, I'll note that The New York Times' Charlie Savage, two weeks ago, wrote about the possibility that Obama might raise this argument, and quoted the far-right, Bush-supporting, executive-power-revering lawyer David Rivkin as follows:
The government's increasing use of the state secrets doctrine to shield its actions from judicial review has been contentious. Some officials have argued that invoking it in the Awlaki matter, about which so much is already public, would risk a backlash. David Rivkin, a lawyer in the White House of President George H. W. Bush, echoed that concern.
"I'm a huge fan of executive power, but if someone came up to you and said the government wants to target you and you can't even talk about it in court to try to stop it, that’s too harsh even for me," he said.
Having debated him before, I genuinely didn't think it was possible for any President to concoct an assertion of executive power and secrecy that would be excessive and alarming to David Rivkin, but Barack Obama managed to do that, too. Obama's now asserting a power so radical -- the right to kill American citizens and do so in total secrecy, beyond even the reach of the courts -- that it's "too harsh even for" one of the most far-right War on Terror cheerleading-lawyers in the nation. But that power is certainly not "too harsh" for the kind-hearted Constitutional Scholar we elected as President, nor for his hordes of all-justifying supporters soon to place themselves to the right of David Rivkin as they explain why this is all perfectly justified. One other thing, as always: vote Democrat, because the Republicans are scary!
* * * * *
The same Post article quotes a DOJ spokesman as saying that Awlaki "should surrender to American authorities and return to the United States, where he will be held accountable for his actions." But he's not been charged with any crimes, let alone indicted for any. The President has been trying to kill him for the entire year without any of that due process. And now the President refuses even to account to an American court for those efforts to kill this American citizen on the ground that the President's unilateral imposition of the death penalty is a "state secret." And, indeed, American courts -- at Obama's urging -- have been upholding that sort of a "state secrecy" claim even when it comes to war crimes such as torture and rendition. Does that sound like a political system to which any sane, rational person would "surrender"?
Marcy Wheeler has more on other aspects of the DOJ's arguments, and I'll have more tomorrow as well.
UPDATE: As a reminder: Obama supporters who are dutifully insisting that the President not only has the right to order American citizens killed without due process, but to do so in total secrecy, on the ground that Awlaki is a Terrorist and Traitor, are embracing those accusations without having the slightest idea whether they're actually true. All they know is that Obama has issued these accusations, which is good enough for them. That's the authoritarian mind, by definition: if the Leader accuses a fellow citizen of something, then it's true -- no trial or any due process at all is needed and there is no need even for judicial review before the decreed sentence is meted out, even when the sentence is death.
For those reciting the "Awlaki-is-a-traitor" mantra, there's also the apparently irrelevant matter that Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution (the document which these same Obama supporters pretended to care about during the Bush years) provides that "No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court." Treason is a crime that the Constitution specifically requires be proven with due process in court, not by unilateral presidential decree. And that's to say nothing of the fact that the same document -- the Constitution -- expressly forbids the deprivation of life "without due process of law." This one sentence from the Post article nicely summarizes the state of Obama's civil liberties record:
The Obama administration has cited the state-secrets argument in at least three cases since taking office - in defense of Bush-era warrantless wiretapping, surveillance of an Islamic charity, and the torture and rendition of CIA prisoners.
And now, in this case, Obama uses this secrecy and immunity weapon not to shield Bush lawlessness from judicial review, but his own.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/25/secrecy/index.html
Europe's central banks halt sales of gold reserves
Europe's central banks have all but halted sales of their gold reserves, ending a run of large disposals each year for more than a decade.
The central banks of the eurozone plus Sweden and Switzerland are bound by the Central Bank Gold Agreement, which caps their collective sales.
In the CBGA's year to September, which expired on Sunday, the signatories sold 6.2 tonnes, down 96 per cent, according to provisional data.
The sales are the lowest since the agreement was signed in 1999 and well below the peak of 497 tonnes in 2004-05.
The shift away from gold selling comes as European central banks reassess gold amid the financial crisis and Europe's sovereign debt crisis.
In the 1990s and 2000s, central banks swapped their non- yielding bullion for sovereign debt, which gives a steady annual return. But now, central banks and investors are seeking the security of gold.
The lack of heavy selling is important for gold prices both because a significant source of supply has been withdrawn from the market, and because it has given psychological support to the gold price. On Friday, bullion hit a record of $1,300 an ounce.
"Clearly now it's a different world; the mentality is completely different," said Jonathan Spall, director of precious metals sales at Barclays Capital.
European central banks are unlikely to sell much more gold in the new CBGA year, according to a survey by the Financial Times.
Although many central banks declined to detail their sales plans, the responses of some, along with numerous interviews with bankers and consultants, suggest it is unlikely there will be a return to the trend of the past decade, when CBGA signatories sold on average 388 tonnes a year.
The central banks of Sweden, Slovakia, Ireland and Slovenia said they had no plans to sell, while Switzerland reiterated a previous statement to the same effect.
The CBGA was first signed after gold miners protested that central banks' rush to sell was depressing prices.
In previous years signatories haggled for individual allowances to sell under the CBGA, but the most recent renewal of the agreement in 2009 contained no such quotas, according to Darko Bohnec, vice governor of Slovenia's central bank.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/09/27/ ... A+World%29
It Is Not A Matter Of If With Hyperinflation, But When
Interview With Marc Faber: It Is Not A Matter Of If With Hyperinflation, But When
HRN: What would you recommend that the Federal Reserve do differently?
Dr. Marc Faber: The first action Mr. Bernanke should take is to resign. If I had messed up the system so badly, as he has done, I would have to resign. He has talked constantly about the Great Depression and what caused the depression but the problem is that he really doesn't understand what caused the depression, which was also excessive leverage at that time. I have to stress that in 1929 the debt to GDP ratio was of course minuscule in comparison what it is today. It was 186% of GDP but you didn't have Social security, Medicare and Medicaid and unfunded liabilities for Social Security and so forth. So, debt today, as a percent of GDP, is 379% and if you add the unfunded liabilities we are at over 800%. The Federal Reserve should pay attention to that.
HRN: With debt levels and liabilities so high, what solution is there for the United States?
Dr. Marc Faber: The solution is, basically, for the government to move out and not intervene in the economy. There are economists who will dispute that the Federal Reserve is partially responsible for the crisis and there are economists that will still tell you that debt doesn't matter, that deficits don't matter and they want to continue to intervene in the free market constantly. To these economists I respond: What about Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac? It was an intervention by the government into the housing market and into the mortgage market and the biggest bankruptcies�bigger than Citigroup and all the banks'are Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac� government-sponsored enterprises. The same economists will tell you that the gover'ment has to intervene and to these economists I say: Well, you have made so many mistakes already with interventions do you think that in the future your interventions will improve anything? Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, but these economists and the Federal Reserve think that by more interventions with fiscal measures and more money printing they will improve things. No, they won't. They will make things worse.
(you can read the rest at)
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=32252
Just because this is already too long i will give you a couple of headlines and links and you can click them if you want;
U.S. Economy "Close to a Destructive Tipping Point," Glenn Hubbard Says
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/u.s.-economy-%22close-to-a-destructive-tipping-point%22-glenn-hubbard-says-535457.html
Consumer confidence drops to lowest since Feb.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100928/D9IGVOGG0.html
Dollar Trades Near Five-Month Low Before U.S. Housing, Sentiment Reports
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-28/dollar-trades-near-five-month-low-before-u-s-housing-sentiment-reports.html
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