Usa Thread

[Steve]

Going back to guns and especially inner city gun crimes. I find that a lot of this stuff is not using the media properly and not exposing this stuff on relevant shows.

Don't know what the problem is in doing so, its a no brainer. It would gather lots of support from all strata of society. The left would like it and the suburban, non urban folks would applaud and support ANY action that keeps inner city young people from having access to illegal guns.

The fight for proper gun policies is enact the doable ones first. The kinds of policies that everyone would support and the NRA would look silly for being against such as the new law that says if you buy a gun for a person who shouldn't have one its a federal crime. Curtailing guns to the inner city is a no brainer.

ATF has a somewhat bad reputation since Ruby Ridge and the Davidian thingy. However, the administration can change some of that by saying it is going to restructure and re-organize the department into fighting specific issues like the urban gun access, appoint a person who has the reputation of being pro gun ownership but willing to enforce the laws on the books and then they can fund it and if any pol opposes it they can be labled accordingly to one who blocks ways to cut down on the high inner city crime rate.

[Flashermac]

Barack Obama 'has authority to use drone strikes to kill Americans on US soil'

 

 

 

President Barack Obama has the authority to use an unmanned drone strike to kill US citizens on American soil, his attorney general has said.

 

Eric Holder argued that using lethal military force against an American in his home country would be legal and justified in an "extraordinary circumstance" comparable to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

 

"The president could conceivably have no choice but to authorise the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland," Mr Holder said.

 

His statement was described as "more than frightening" by Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, who had demanded to know the Obama administration's position on the subject.

 

"It is an affront the constitutional due process rights of all Americans," said Mr Paul, a 50-year-old favourite of the anti-government Tea Party movement, who is expected to run for president in 2016.

 

Mr Holder wrote to Mr Paul after the senator threatened to block the appointment of John Brennan as the director of the CIA unless he received answers to a series of questions on its activities.

 

Mr Paul on Wednesday evening took to the floor of the Senate to launch an old-fashioned filibuster in an effort to delay a vote on the approval of Mr Brennan for CIA director. “I won’t be able to speak forever, but I’m going to speak as long as I can,†he said, before embarking on several hours of criticism of Mr Obama's compliance with the US constitution.

 

Mr Obama has been sharply criticised for the secrecy surrounding his extension of America's "targeted killing" campaign against al-Qaeda terrorist suspects using missile strikes by unmanned drones.

 

The secret campaign has killed an estimated 4,700 people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. A quarter are estimated to have been civilians prompting anger among human rights campaigners.

 

According to research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, drone strikes killed between 474 and 881 civilians – including 176 children – in Pakistan between 2004 and last year.

 

Criticism within the US has focused on the implications for terror suspects who are also US citizens, after Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric born and educated in the US, was killed in Yemen in 2011.

 

The administration claims it has the legal authority to assassinate Americans provided that they are a senior al-Qaeda operative posing an imminent threat and it would be "infeasible" to capture them.

 

This justification emerged only last month in a leaked memo from Mr Holder's department of justice. Mr Obama this week agreed to give Congress his full set of classified legal memos on the targeting of Americans.

 

Civil liberties campaigners accuse the president and his aides of awarding themselves sweeping powers to deny Americans their constitutional rights without oversight from Congress or the judiciary.

 

Mr Holder stressed in his letter that the prospect of a president considering the assassination of an American citizen on US soil was "entirely hypothetical" and "unlikely to occur".

 

Yet "it is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorise the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States," he wrote.

 

Appearing in front the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, Mr Holder reiterated that "the government has no intention to carry out any drone strikes in the United States".

 

Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, told him his reference to "extraordinary circumstances" such as September 11 or the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbour were "extremely concerning".

 

"It is imperative that we understand the operational boundaries for use of such force," Mr Grassley said. "American citizens have a right to understand when their life can be taken by their government absent due process."

 

Daphne Eviatar, a senior counsel at Human Rights First, said: “It’s hard to see how authorities could not be in a position to arrest someone yet be able to kill them.

 

“The administration should publish all its legal memos on targeted killing. Classified information can be redacted if necessary. There is no reason for legal opinions justifying ongoing US programmes to be kept secret.â€

 

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/9913615/Barack-Obama-has-authority-to-use-drone-strikes-to-kill-Americans-on-US-soil.html

[dean]

Anyone else receive this email? Who knows whether this came from Warren Buffet...but it makes sense:

 

 

 

 

 

Winds of Change....

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward

this email to a minimum of twenty people on their

address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

 

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have this message.

This is one idea that really should be passed around

 

*Congressional Reform Act of 2013

 

1. No Tenure / No Pension.

 

A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office.

 

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.

 

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

 

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

 

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

 

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

 

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

 

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective12/31/13. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women.

 

Congressmen/women made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

 

 

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Don't you think it's time?

 

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!

 

If you agree with the above, pass it on. If not, just delete.

You are one of my 20+ - Please keep it going, and thanks.

[unit731]

Thank you GW Bush!

 

"It was ten years ago this month, on February 4, 2002, that the CIA first used an unmanned Predator drone in a targeted killing. The strike was in Paktia province in Afghanistan, near the city of Khost. The intended target was Osama bin Laden, or at least someone in the CIA had thought so. Donald Rumsfeld later explained, using the passive voice of government: “A decision was made to fire the Hellfire missile. It was fired.†The incident occurred during a brief period when the military, which assisted the CIA’s drone program by providing active service personnel as operators, still acknowledged the program’s existence. Within days of the strike, journalists on the ground were collecting accounts from local Afghans that the dead men were civilians gathering scrap metal. The Pentagon media pool began asking questions, and so the long decade of the drone began."

 

 

LINK

[Flashermac]

Why not blame Woodrow Wilson?

 

"During World War I, the Navy hired Elmer Ambrose Sperry, the inventor of the gyroscope, to develop a fleet of “air torpedoes,†unmanned Curtis biplanes designed to be launched by catapult and fly over enemy positions. A secret program was run out of a small outfield in central Long Island, New York. A New York Times report from 1926, when the secret was revealed, said that the planes were “automatically guided with a high degree of precision†and after a predetermined distance were supposed to suddenly turn and fly vertically downward, carrying enough TNT to “blow a small town inside out.†The program ran out of steam because the war ended in 1918. In reality, according to a Navy history, the planes rarely worked: they typically crashed after takeoff or flew away over the ocean, never to be seen again."

[Flashermac]

Berkeley Councilman Proposes Email Tax To Fund Postal Service

 

 

BERKELEY (CBS SF) – A Berkeley city councilman has suggested that a tax on email may be wise way to help fund the United States Postal Service, according to the blog Berkeleyside.

 

District 8 Supervisor Gordon Wozniak, who represents an area that includes the Claremont Hotel and the eastern end of the UC Berkeley campus, made the comments Tuesday as city officials moved to halt the sale of a Post Office building on Allston Way due to a decline in business.

 

...

 

 

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/03/07/berkeley-councilman-proposes-email-tax-to-fund-postal-service/

[Flashermac]

Officials: 80 Percent Of Recent NYC High School Graduates Cannot Read

 

 

 

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — It’s an education bombshell.

 

Nearly 80 percent of New York City high school graduates need to relearn basic skills before they can enter the City University’s community college system.

 

The number of kids behind the 8-ball is the highest in years, CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer reported Thursday.

 

When they graduated from city high schools, students in a special remedial program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College couldn’t make the grade.

 

They had to re-learn basic skills — reading, writing and math — first before they could begin college courses.

 

They are part of a disturbing statistic.

 

Officials told CBS 2′s Kramer that nearly 80 percent of those who graduate from city high schools arrived at City University’s community college system without having mastered the skills to do college-level work.

 

In sheer numbers it means that nearly 11,000 kids who got diplomas from city high schools needed remedial courses to re-learn the basics.

 

To meet the needs of the students, City University has launched a special program called CUNY Start. It provides low-cost immersion classes. Sherry Mason teaches a writing class.

 

“They get lost sometimes in the classrom and in CUNY Start we give them a lot more one-on-one attention, small group work. It helps them achieve more in a short amount of time and so they’re able to get on with their credit classes,†Mason said.

 

Nicholas Gonzalez, a graduate of New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, participated in the CUNY Start program. He said he would never had been able to face college credit classes without it.

 

“I was nervus about how hard it was going to be, how much of a chnage it was going to be from high school,†Gonzalez said. “I knew I needed to take remedial, If I started right away with credit classes it wasnt going to be so well, so it’s better off starting somewhere.â€

 

In its defense, the NYC Department of Education said it has raised high school graduation rates by 40 percent over the last seven years. And that the number of students needing remedial courses to do college work has declined slightly — by half a percentage point overall.

 

 

http://newyork.cbslo...es-cannot-read/

[Plainsdrifter]

Nothing new there. I remember registering for classes at City University of NY about 35 years ago. Most of the students that graduated from city high schools needed to attend remedial and remedial bilingual classes first before being allowed to take regular classes.

[Flashermac]

Looks like we should stop criticising the Thai education system.

[Flashermac]

Pentagon Says 'Drone Medal' Beats Purple Heart, Bronze Star

 

 

 

 

The Pentagon says there are no plans to downgrade the recently-created Distinguished Warfare Medal, which would be awarded to military drone pilots, despite a recent push from lawmakers who say it should not be considered more prestigious than the Purple Heart.

 

In a bipartisan letter written to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina and Democratic Rep. Susan Davis of California write that they "cannot support the [medal] taking precedence above the Bronze Star and Purple Heart," which is awarded to servicemen who are injured in combat.

 

"The current order of precedence for the DWM is a disservice to Purple Heart recipients who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country or were wounded while serving in combat," they write. "We also feel it is a disservice to our service members and veterans who have, or who currently are, serving overseas in hostile and austere conditions."

 

But Nathan Christenson, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense, says the new medal is here to stay.

 

"The medal was unanimously recommended by the Chairman and Joint Chiefs to the Secretary of Defense," he says. "While we understand the concerns of veterans groups, there are no plans to change its order of precedence."

 

The Distinguished Warfare Medal, or "Drone Medal" was announced by former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on February 13 as an "avenue to recognize appropriately extraordinary direct impacts on combat operations warranting recognition above the Bronze Star Medal."

 

According to the Department of Defense, the medal "may not be awarded for valor in combat under any circumstances" and will be given to service members "directly impacting 'hands-on' employment of a weapons system, including remote employment … that had direct, immediate, and on-site effects on the outcome of an engagement."

 

Most Air Force drone pilots, for example, fly their planes over Afghanistan and Pakistan from air conditioned trailers at a base in Nevada. So far, the medal has not yet been awarded to any troops.

 

Christensen says he's unsure whether Hagel will respond to the lawmakers.

 

"The secretary handles his own correspondence," he says. "It'd be inappropriate to comment on whether he'll respond directly or not."

 

Caroline Delleney, communications director for Rep. Wilson, wrote in an email to U.S. News that they had not heard back from Hagel, but that they "hope he will respond in the next few weeks."

 

 

http://www.usnews.co...art-bronze-star