The Occupy Movement and the Stinking Rich
Patrick McCarthy, a Microsoft VP of Sales, took the proverb "Dress for Success" to its logical extreme that in order to get money, you should smell like money.
Here’s the perfume that will make you smell like a million bucks (literally):
"I really feel that people who wear this will feel more confident," McCarthy told AOL News. "I got the idea after reading a story about a Japanese study that showed a significant increase in worker productivity when the smell of money was pumped through vents into factories."
And when McCarthy went to his ATM and noticed how much he enjoyed the scent of fresh, crisp bills, he really smelled the potential for making a mint.
"[The odor of money] is a unique fragrance," he said.
"Occupy Oakland is rousted by fascist police state goons with military hardware and riot gear but the people have returned tonight in the thousands. I support you Oakland! All for the rich nothing for everybody else by all politicians. They are all weasels and asses. Obama may be the worst though as he stabs you in the back repeatedly then gets out a tiny bandage and offers it to you. They all make me sick. Jobs plan nonsense, mortgage plan; too little too late useless. All the rest are just inhuman caricatures. I'm sick of it and hope Occupy occupies everything and shuts down the whole stinking mess."
WARNING !!! TRUTH Being Told Here. !!! The "Stench of Truth" F-bomb WARNING !!! TRUTH Being Told Here. !!!
Congress about to undermine our basic constitutional rights
Congress about to undermine our basic constitutional rights
December 1, 2011, by Jay Bookman
It is a question that in a rational world should not have to be asked, because the answer is so damn obvious:
Should the U.S. military be given the power to arrest U.S. citizens, here on U.S. soil, and to detain those citizens indefinitely in military prisons, without access to legal counsel or due process, and without trial in civilian court?
The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights say hell no. Holding U.S. citizens in military prisons without right to trial or counsel? Really?
Centuries of American liberty also say hell no. The CIA, FBI and the entire U.S. intelligence system say no, as does the military. They do not want the power to arrest and detain U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, and any legitimate reading of our nation’s traditions, beliefs and founding documents says they should never have it. It is antithetical to a free people.
Yet a majority of the U.S. House and Senate says otherwise. Despite a stern veto threat by President Obama, Congress is about to pass such language into federal law as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. I hope and pray that Obama has the guts to carry out his veto threat, and I hope freedom-loving Americans of all ideologies rally to support him in that cause.
The theory behind the proposed law is that the United States is part of the battlefield against the war on terror, and that the military must be given free rein to fight that war, even here in the United States itself. Sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA say that the military can arrest and detain anybody “who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.”
Look, if U.S. citizens are suspected of aiding and abetting terrorists, they should of course be arrested and tried. If convicted, they should be put away for a long long time. But there is no reason to suppose that civilian courts are not capable of handling such cases competently and fairly. And without access to our civilian system of justice, what agency or body is supposed to determine whether a citizen has “directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces?”
Would Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield, for example, have been tossed into a military brig without a lawyer under such a law? If so, he might still be there, despite the fact that the FBI was later forced to acknowledge that he was absolutely innocent. What about the people falsely accused of terrorism as documented here and here? What about the million or more people whose names have somehow ended up on the government’s “terrorist watch list?”
Some advocates of the proposed change in federal law claim that it would not apply to U.S. citizens. They are either wrong or deliberately misleading. Any lawyers out there can confirm that claim by reading the provisions in question. They contain no language protecting U.S. citizens on U.S. soil from being swept into military custody.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, an advocate of the provisions, certainly understands that they apply to U.S. citizens. As he said on the floor of the Senate:
“But we need to let this president know, and every other president, that if you capture someone in the homeland, on our soil — American citizen or not — who is a member of al-Qaida, you do not have to give them a lawyer or read them the rights automatically. You can treat them as a military threat under military custody, just like if you captured them overseas…. Under domestic criminal law, you cannot hold someone indefinitely without giving them a lawyer or reading them their rights, nor should you. But under military law, if you have evidence that the person is a military threat, you don’t have to give them a lawyer.”
This is not some temporary provision. As Graham said, he expects the war on terror to continue long after he is dead. Nor is there any compelling need for such legislation. It tears a huge hole in the U.S. Constitution, and for what reason?
Earlier this week, a group of senators attempted to strip the provisions in question from the defense bill. By a vote of 38-60, they failed. Two Republicans — Mark Kirk of Illinois and Rand Paul of Kentucky — voted to kill the change, while 15 Democrats voted in favor of it. Since the bill has already passed the House of Representatives, it seems almost certain to end up on the president’s desk.
Again, I hope that he has the courage to veto it. And in an era when some Americans claim to see a dire threat to their liberty in some health-care reform law, I hope the American people are still wise enough to recognize a very real threat to their freedom when one arises.
SOURCE– Jay Bookman
