Or is it EVERYONE???
WHY is Obama giving this ANY play, AT ALL? WHO GIVES A FUCK WHERE BIG DICK LITTLE BRAIN CHENEY IS WAITING. Let him wait ON a wing if he wants. IT IS OVER OLD MAN. GO FUCKING HOME YOU MURDERING, TORTURING MOTHERFUCKER.
Since WHEN does a POTUS dignify a GODDAMN MADMAN???
Has OBAMA LOST IT?? OR more and more is this just part of the sinister police state??
Who dignifies a murderous old varmint like cheney by DRAWING ATTENTION TO HIS INSANITY BY DEBATING HIM ON A NATIONAL STAGE?????
Let him go back to WTF he was doing before he slithered into OUR GD White House and started murdering and torturing and MURDERING the civil rights of the American people and OTHERS AROUND THE WORLD.
OBAMA HAVE YOU LOST YO MIND?????????????????????????
STRAIGHTEN UP AND FLY RIGHT OR YOU GO HOME WITH DICK TOO @!!!!
We won't WILL NOT HAVE IT. The American people will NOT stand for any more fucked up bullshit.
It's OVER. Be the gd President of the United States and stop showboating.
Just uphold the Constitution. Get us DA FUCK out of all these ILLEGAL WARS.
PROSECUTE THIS SONOFABITCHIN BUNCH OF MURDERERS AND DO YOUR JOB.
WHO THE HELL DEBATES SOMEONE THAT OVER SEVENTY PERCENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THINK SHOULD BE IN PRISON???
Obama gets MUCH BETTER WACKY THAN I DO.
This is truly a moment I must say, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention...."
The stunning plan Barack Obama slipped into his speech Thursday, a speech filled with "the rule of law" is PROLONGED, or PREVENTIVE DETENTION.
The President said he will "develop an appropriate legal regime" to indefinitely imprison people without charges based on what he thinks they might want to do, on their speech, or their associations. He admitted that there are people now detained who cannot be prosecuted because evidence against them is tainted by torture, or because there simply IS no evidence against them. He implied this could go on for a decade or more.
The Bush regime thought about this, but never tried it. This has never been done by the US in its history. What does it mean that Obama stated flatly that habeas corpus -- the right to know charges against you, and be able to defend yourself - will be indefinitely denied to a class of people.
Here are 2 key paragraphs of Glen Greenwald's piece: Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal.
"It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention" authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite imprisonment not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people because the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the future because they are alleged to be "combatants."
Once known, the details of the proposal could -- and likely will -- make this even more extreme by extending the "preventive detention" power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in the world, alleged to be a "combatant." After all, once you accept the rationale on which this proposal is based -- namely, that the U.S. Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain "dangerous" people even when they can't prove they violated any laws -- there's no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no trials all allegedly "dangerous" combatants, whether located in Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S."
There was also plenty to be outraged about in Dick Cheney's blood-thirsty, fascist speech at the American Enterprise Institute. He meant to have the final word, clearly acts as if he's still in power, and is determined to set terms for Obama. While in California this week, I've talked to a number of people who heard Cheney's raving, and were relieved to hear Obama uphold the "rule of law". But check out the Utube of Rachel Maddow on Obama's "two speeches." And David Swanson in: Does Cheney Make Obama Look Good?
The debate cannot be between Cheney's vision of permanent war for empire, unbound by constitutional niceties like due process, and Obama's "re-branding" of the same. But I don't buy the argument that those of us who opposed the Bush program should now accept the Obama proposals, and not fight them, because Cheney is waiting in the wings.
The people, represented now by relatively and admittedly small numbers of us who are outraged, and see where this is going, have to come into the argument by taking a stand against US torture, indefinite & preventive detention, and soon, visibly. We need to bring more people with us, and not stop, given the stakes.
Right now, the demand to Release the Torture Photos and Prosecute the War Criminals is right on time. Where the US goes on torture is not yet decided, will be a central issue in the Obama presidency and the conduct of the "war of terror" occupying the people of the Middle East. We cannot depend on the courts to do the right thing. The US Senate has entered in, profoundly on the wrong side. See Dennis Loo: Senate Votes to Block Release of [Torture] Photos for 5 Years
But there's a lot more here than the fate of the Guantanamo detainees, as profound a moral question for humanity as that is. I wrote about the appointment of Stanley McChrystal to lead the US occupation of Afghanistan. More and more is coming out on him. See Tom Engelhart, Obama, McChrystal, and Expanding the War in Afghanistan and Pakistan
He's a protege of Rumsfeld, protected by Cheney, heading an assassination squad under the Joint Special Operations Command, which Seymour Hersh says is the shadowy assassination squad operating in Iraq as part of the surge.
When McChrystal was brought into Afghanistan two weeks ago, he was at an Oval Office meeting was held where Obama agreed not to release the torture photos.
It's thought some of the photos being covered up are of abuse directly under McChrystal's command.
West Hollywood CA City Hall Hangs "NO TORTURE" banner Thursday with Guantanamo lawyer, former Mayor, & Hollywood artists
As I watched the Obama and Cheney speeches yesterday, I was rushing to a press conference called by the West Hollywood City Hall where they hung a "NO TORTURE" banner. Former West Hollywood Mayor John Duran hosted Actor John Heard, Guantanamo lawyer Michael Rapkin, Paul Haggis, Mark Ruffalo and myself in calling for the torture photos to be released, and the war criminals prosecuted. This kind of thing should be happening in as many places as possible. Write me if you want to learn how.
Paul Haggis, Screenwriter & Director: "Torture is torture. This is something that debases us, to hell with everybody else. It debases us as Americans. It shames us. And they're going to hide these pictures? Because they might upset someone? We need to see these pictures, Mr. President, and we need to see them now!"Michael Rapkin, Guantanamo Lawyer, described in painful detail what was, and is being done to detainees in Guantanamo. "Some say that President Obama will end torture, so why deal with the past? I say, don't believe that torture will end. Because already our president has said, through his lawyers' court filings, through his choice of a CIA director, who has at the Senate confirmation hearings, supported the use of the "ticking bomb" scenario. These are concerns that the public should have over whether torture will come to an end under Obama. Finally, we are a nation that lives under the rule of law. Laws are to be enforced not just when it is convenient to do so. Prosecutions require evidence, and the photos are the best evidence of what happened" Mark Ruffalo, Actor and Director: "This is not the time to walk away.This is the time to shed some very bright light into the dark corners of Abu Ghraib, the CIA secret rendition sites, Guantánamo Bay and, lord knows, how many other hideous and dark-filled places where bold-faced torture was carried out in the name of decent American people...Each day that we and you, President Obama, refuse to face what has been done, and bring those responsible to justice, the more those images of torture become our identity, each day that we try to move away from these crimes the more burdened by them we become. Torture is a crime. The people who carried out that crime are called criminals...Don't allow that orange uniform and black hood to be our new flag. Investigate and prosecute..."
WLS Radio Host Has Himself Water-Boarded to Prove It's Not Torture: Watch Out What You Try for the Wrong Reasons! Via Raw Story
May 22: Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided he'd get himself waterboarded to prove the technique wasn't torture.It didn't turn out that way. "Mancow," in fact, lasted just six or seven seconds before crying foul. Apparently, the experience went pretty badly --- "Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop," according to NBC Chicago.
"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "
The upshot? "It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow told listeners. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."
Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait
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