loveabadgirlme
Then, in August 2009, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, told Mr. Brennan that the agency had Mr. Mehsud in its sights. But taking out the Pakistani Taliban leader, Mr. Panetta warned, did not meet Mr. Obama’s standard of “near certainty” of no innocents being killed. In fact, a strike would certainly result in such deaths: he was with his wife at his in-laws’ home.
“Many times,” General Jones said, in similar circumstances, “at the 11th hour we waved off a mission simply because the target had people around them and we were able to loiter on station until they didn’t.”
But not this time. Mr. Obama, through Mr. Brennan, told the C.I.A. to take the shot, and Mr. Mehsud was killed, along with his wife and, by some reports, other family members as well, said a senior intelligence official.
”President Obama and the Secret Kill List
Look at that Nobel Peace Prize winner. Executing people without trials and not even caring about collateral damage (or, as we might call them, murdered innocent civilians.)
(via fearandwar)
In case anyone was confused about how the Executive works (because apparently, according to Tumblr, Obama isn’t to blame but “institutions which can’t be changed”):
Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.
“He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go,” said Thomas E. Donilon, his national security adviser. “His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the United States in the world.” He added, “He’s determined to keep the tether pretty short.”
[…]
In interviews with The New York Times, three dozen of his current and former advisers described Mr. Obama’s evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shadow war with Al Qaeda.
They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda — even when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was “an easy one.”
Read that last sentence again.
(via mohandasgandhi)
CISPA Update of the Day: CISPA, the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act that passed the House in April, likely is headed for a Senate vote in early June.
To drum up opposition to the legislation, which would create “a ‘cybersecurity’ exemption to all existing laws,” Fight for the Future, Democrats.com, The Liberty Coalition, and the Entertainment Consumers Association have created a new website called Privacy Is Awesome. The site outlines the top five ways to help defeat CISPA:
- Call your senators and tell them to oppose the Lieberman-Collins bill (CISPA), and ask for a constituent meeting during the Memorial Day recess to help change their mind.
- Email senators offices about CISPA, expressing your opposition.
- Keep calling senators until they plan a constituent meeting.
- Donate to anti-CISPA organizers — the same teams that helped defeat SOPA/PIPA.
- Share your opposition online — Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is spearheading opposition to the legislation, concluding a recent Senate floor speech with:
I believe these bills will encourage the development of a cyber security industry that profits from fear and whose currency is Americans private data. These bills create a Cyber Industrial Complex that has an interest in preserving the problem to which it is the solution.
Watch the full video here. It’s terrific.
Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama?
Hint: believe it.
What everyone who uses the internet needs to know about CISPA
Here’s a quick look at the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, with the full details at ThinkProgress.
- CISPA’s broad language will likely give the government access to anyone’s personal information with few privacy protections.
- The bill completely exempts itself from the Freedom of Information Act.
- CISPA gives companies blanket immunity from future lawsuits.
- Companies can already inform the government and each other about incoming cybersecurity threats.
- Most Republicans support CISPA, while most Democrats oppose it, and President Obama threatened to veto it.
- The internet is fighting back.
31 Republican men voted against the Violence Against Women Act in the Senate today. All 5 Republican women voted for it.
Surprise.
The YWCA weighs in on the importance of the Violence Against Women Act. There are three reasons some Republicans are trying to block the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act: Gays, immigrants, and Native Americans.
Okay, an answer to that food stamp question
As of June 2011 there were 45,183,931 people on food stamps.
Of that:
- 35% are white or 15,814,375 white people.
- 22% are African American, or 9,940,264 black people.
The full breakdown is:
35% are White
22% are African American
10% are Hispanic
2% are Asian
4% are Native American
19% are UnknownFurther breakdowns aside from race:
- 49% of all participants are children (17 or younger), and 49% of them live in single-parent households.
- 15% of all participants are elderly (age 60 or over).
- 20% of all participants are non-elderly disabled people.
- The average gross monthly income per food stamp household is $731; The average net income is $336.
All information is from the US Department of Agriculture.
stfuconservatives:anglophonic-blog:
“If the health care mandate is unconstitutional, then just what in the hell is the Patriot act?”
GOOD FUCKING QUESTION
Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush took the symbol of the Trayvon Martin protests from the street to the Capitol on Wednesday, getting ejected from the House floor for wearing a hoodie.
For those who don’t know, Rep. Rush’s district includes the south side of Chicago, a heavily black area that sees a lot of violence and very few city resources.
The City of Chicago as a whole has already reached 100 homicides for the year, the majority of whom were young black men. [See: The RedEye’s Chicago Homicide Map]
TL;DR: This is important.
