THE THREAT OF BECOMING AN AUTHORITARIAN THEOCRATIC OLIGARCHY IS REAL, DO NOT BE DECEIVED 4MAI25 & Karoline Leavitt Refuses to Rule Out Arrest of Supreme Court Judges, 28APR25

H.R.1526 - NORRA of 2025119th Congress (2025-2026)

Bill

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Sponsor:	Rep. Issa, Darrell [R-CA-48] (Introduced 02/24/2025)
Committees:	House - Judiciary | Senate - Judiciary
Committee Meetings:	03/05/25 10:00AM
Committee Reports:	H. Rept. 119-40
Latest Action:	Senate - 04/10/2025 Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.  (All Actions)
Roll Call Votes:	There have been 2 roll call votes
Tracker: Tip	This bill has the status Passed House Here are the steps for Status of Legislation: Introduced Passed House Passed Senate To President Became Law

This is absolutely chilling. DEMAND Progress and other organizations are mobilizing the American electorate to e mail our senators to oppose and defeat the No Rogue Rulings Act. In plain language this law would allow a president to issue an executive order that would apply to the entire nation but the only way the executive order could be challenged in court would be by each individual opposed to it filing a challenge in a court in the judicial district they live in. If  the challenge is successful the executive order would be overturned in the judicial district of the court issuing the ruling but would remain in effect in the rest of the nation. The No Rogue Rulings Act would destroy the system of checks and balances the founding fathers created when our democratic Republic was established. The Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of our government have specific responsibilities and powers, no branch has the authority or power to impose actions or regulations not granted to them in the U.S. Constitution. NOT MY pres drumpf / trump, NOT MY pres musk, and NOT MY vp vance want to eliminate our government's system of checks and balances and so create an authoritarian theocratic oligarchy. The gop / greed over people-republican party that controls congress has passed this legislation in the U.S. House and is aggressively pushing it for passage by the U.S. Senate. Please e mail your senators telling them they must use whatever tactics necessary to stop and defeat the No Rogue Rulings Act, and be sure to share this with family, friends and coworkers. From Demand Progress and The New Republic..... 

First, House Republicans passed a bill to strip federal district judges of the power to block Donald Trump's most blatantly illegal executive actions.1 Then the FBI arrested a county judge in Wisconsin for defying Trump's wishes in court, and on Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt refused to rule out the possibility that Supreme Court justices could be arrested next.2 It's all part of a coordinated attack on the judiciary in order to sweep away any remaining limits on Trump's power. Demand Progress is mobilizing tens of thousands of people to stop the so-called No Rogue Rulings Act and defend the independent judiciary. The Act is now going to the Senate for a vote, and we need to make more noise than ever. Since the moment Donald Trump was sworn in, he's been on an illegal and unconstitutional rampage. The one meaningful thing standing in his way so far has been the federal judiciary. But if the so-called No Rogue Rulings Act passes the Senate and is signed into law, even that check on his power would be removed. It's absolutely chilling. This is not a partisan issue. Both Democratic and Republican presidents have been held in check by federal court injunctions. It's absolutely fundamental to the system of checks and balances at the core of our system of government. Demand Progress is sounding the alarm and flooding Capitol Hill with petition signatures and e mails to help stop the No Rogue Rulings Act, and we're counting on your help to ensure we have the resources we need to win. With gratitude, The team at Demand Progress Action Sources: 1. NBC News, "House votes to rein in federal judges amid Trump's attacks on the courts," April 9, 2025. 2. The New Republic, "Karoline Leavitt Refuses to Rule Out Arrest of Supreme Court Judges," April 28, 2025.  Karoline Leavitt Refuses to Rule Out Arrest of Supreme Court Judges The White House press secretary is quietly warning the Supreme Court. The Trump administration is open to arresting Supreme Court judges, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told it on Monday morning. “You guys arrested a Milwaukee County Circuit judge for allegedly helping illegal immigrants get away,” Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked Leavitt. “As you guys look at other judges, would you ever arrest somebody higher up on the judicial food chain, like a federal judge or even a Supreme Court justice?” “That’s a hypothetical question, again I defer you to the Department of Justice for individuals that they are looking at or individual cases. But let’s be clear about what this judge did: She obstructed federal law enforcement who were looking for an illegal alien in her courthouse. She showed that illegal alien the door to evade law enforcement officials. That is a clear-cut case of obstruction,” Leavitt replied. “And so anyone who is breaking the law or obstructing federal law enforcement officials from doing their jobs is putting theirselves at risk of being prosecuted, absolutely.” The Department of Justice on Friday arrested Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan, on charges of obstruction after she allegedly “intentionally misdirected federal agents away” from Eduardo Flores Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant. He was later arrested outside the courthouse. The Trump administration is showing open and direct hostility toward the judicial branch, identifying any judge who dares to defy them as an “activist judge.” The arrest of Judge Dugan, the numerous court orders ignored by the administration, the eight immigration judges who have now been fired or put on leave, and now, Leavitt’s alarming answer are all clear indications that Trump has no plans to reel back his abuse of executive power.

Ben Carson's Pants on Fire claim that no signer of the Declaration of Independence held office & 6 of 4,129 Ben Carson is furious that CNN quoted Ben Carson 8&9NOV15

ben carson r tb won't be with us much longer, politically speaking. I wish him health and longevity, and really really hope he finds some extremely remote, isolated place to spend the rest of his days once his campaign collapses and the only known to be true fact about him is he is one crazy s.o.b! Let's start with this piece from +PolitiFact on carson defending his lack of experience hold an elected office, followed by Daily Kos Recommended loaded with ben carsonisities.......

"Every signer of the Declaration of Independence had no federal elected office experience."

— Ben Carson on Wednesday, November 4th, 2015 in an edited Facebook post

Ben Carson's Pants on Fire claim that no signer of the Declaration of Independence held office

By Louis Jacobson on Sunday, November 8th, 2015 at 10:30 a.m.

John Trumbull's 1819 painting of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence depicts the five-man drafting committee presenting their work to the Congress. The original hangs in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.

This is the revised version of Ben Carson's Facebook post, with the edited line highlighted.

Ben Carson -- currently the top-polling Republican presidential candidate -- posted a message on Facebook on Nov. 4 to rebut critics who say his lack of experience in elected office would be a serious obstacle to his serving as an effective president.
Soon after it was posted, we began hearing from readers asking us to check one of his claims.
"You are absolutely right — I have no political experience," Carson wrote in the initial version of his post. "The current Members of Congress have a combined 8,700 years of political experience. Are we sure political experience is what we need. Every signer of the Declaration of Independence had no elected office experience. What they had was a deep belief that freedom is a gift from God. They had a determination to rise up against a tyrannical King. They were willing to risk all they had, even their lives, to be free."
After our friends at the Washington Post Fact Checker reviewed Carson’s claim that "every signer of the Declaration of Independence had no elected office experience" and gave it Four Pinocchios -- the column’s worst rating -- the quote was changed. It now reads, "Every signer of the Declaration of Independence had no federal elected office experience" (emphasis added).
We were already looking into Carson’s initial Facebook comment when the wording change was made. We’ll address both versions here.
The signers had 'no elected office experience'
Many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had held elective office before joining the Continental Congress, which produced the declaration. We found a long list, so take a deep breath before you start reading.
They include:
• John Adams. Elected to Massachusetts Assembly, 1770; attended First Continental Congress, 1774-1776.
• Thomas Jefferson. Represented Albemarle County as a delegate in the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1769-1775
• Benjamin Franklin. Philadelphia councilman, 1748; elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly, 1751.
• John Hancock. Elected to the Boston Assembly, 1766; president of the provincial congress of Massachusetts, c. 1773; elected to the Continental Congress, 1774, and then president of the congress in 1775.
• Samuel Adams. Elected to Massachusetts Assembly, 1765; delegate to the First Continental Congress, 1774.
• Elbridge Gerry. Elected to Massachusetts Legislature, 1773; provincial Congress, 1774.
• Roger Sherman. Elected to Connecticut General Assembly, representing New Milford, 1755-1758 and 1760-1761; elected to various offices representing New Haven in the 1760s and 1770s; elected to the Continental Congress starting in 1774.
• Caesar Rodney. Elected to Delaware Colonial Assembly, 1758-1770 and 1771-1776; delegate to the Stamp Act Congress, 1765; elected to the Continental Congress, 1774.
• George Taylor. Elected to Pennsylvania provincial assembly, 1764-69; elected to Continental Congress, 1775.
• John Morton. Elected to Pennsylvania provincial assembly, 1756-1775; delegate to the Stamp Act Congress, 1765; president of the provincial assembly, 1775.
• George Ross. Elected to Pennsylvania provincial assembly, 1768-1776; Elected to Continental Congress, 1774.
• James Wilson. Elected to Pennsylvania provincial congress, 1775; elected to the Continental Congress, 1775.
• Thomas McKean. Member of the Delaware Assembly, 1762-79; Delegate to the Stamp Act Congress, 1765; delegate to the Continental Congress, 1774.
• Matthew Thornton. Member of the New Hampshire provincial assembly, 1758-1762.
• William Whipple. Elected to New Hampshire provincial congress, 1775 and 1776.
• Stephen Hopkins. Speaker of the Rhode Island Assembly,1750s; member of the Continental Congress beginning in 1774.
• Lewis Morris. Member of New York provincial legislature; delegate to the Continental Congress, 1775.
• Philip Livingston. Alderman, New York City.
• Carter Braxton. Virginia House of Burgesses, 1770-1785; delegate to the Continental Congress, 1774-75.
• Thomas Nelson Jr. Member of the House of Burgesses, 1774; Virginia provincial convention, 1775.
• Francis Lightfoot Lee. Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses 1758-1775; elected to Continental Congress, 1775.
• Benjamin Harrison. Elected to Virginia House of Burgesses, 1764; member of the Continental Congress, 1774.
• George Wythe. Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1755-65.
• William Hooper. Elected to general assembly of North Carolina, 1773; member of Continental Congress, 1774-1776.
• Joseph Hewes. Member of the colonial assembly of North Carolina, 1766-1775; member of new provincial assembly, 1775; elected to Continental Congress, 1774.
• John Hart. Member of the New Jersey Assembly, 1761-1771; member of provincial assembly, 1775; elected to the Continental Congress, 1776.
• William Williams. Town clerk, selectman, provincial representative, elected state legislator, delegate to colonial conferences, 1770s.
• William Paca. Delegate to the Maryland Legislature, 1771; elected to Continental Congress, 1774.
That’s at least 28 of the 56 signers -- about half, and we were conservative in who we counted. The real number may be higher.
Either way, Carson’s original claim, that "every signer of the Declaration of Independence had no elected office experience," is way, way off.
The signers had 'no federal elected office experience'
The edit Carson made to the Facebook post doesn’t help his case, since there was no federal government before the Declaration of Independence was signed. This makes his entire claim illogical, experts say,
"Of course they did not have federal elected office experience because there was no federal government at the time -- we were a British colony," said Michael Gerhardt, scholar in residence at the National Constitution Center and professor of constitutional law at the University of North Carolina.
"It does not make sense to use the term ‘federal’ when no federal government existed," agreed Danielle Allen, a political theorist and author of Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. "The signers of the declaration very often had leading political experience in their colony or, as they called them, in their ‘countries.’ "
Jan Lewis, a professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark and the author of The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson’s Virginia, finds Carson’s claim ridiculous.
"It makes about as much sense as saying none of them had been to the moon," Lewis said. "Of course they hadn't, because it was an impossibility at that time. No one could possibly serve in the federal government before there was a federal government, at least in the absence of time travel."
Carson’s staff did not respond to an inquiry for this article.
Our ruling
Both the initial and the revised versions of Carson’s claim are far off base. About half or more of the declaration’s signers had held elective office previously, a reality that severely undercuts Carson’s overall point that the drafting of the Declaration of Independence showed how a lack of political experience can produce landmark political achievements. As for his later addition of "federal" to the comment, this makes the claim nonsensical, since there was no federal government prior to the signing of the declaration.
We rate Carson’s claim Pants on Fire.

About this statement:

Published: Sunday, November 8th, 2015 at 10:30 a.m.
Researched by: Louis Jacobson
Edited by: Angie Drobnic Holan
Subjects: History

Sources:

Ben Carson, Facebook post, Nov. 4, 2015
USHistory.org, Signers of the Declaration of Independence, accessed Nov. 6, 2015
Washington Post Fact Checker, "Ben Carson’s absurd notion that the Founding Fathers had ‘no elected office experience,’ " Nov. 5, 2015
Email interview with Emily Sneff, research manager of the Declaration Resources Project at Harvard University, Nov. 6, 2015
Email interview with Andrew J. O'Shaughnessy, vice president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and professor of history at the University of Virginia, Nov. 6, 2015
Email interview with Michael Gerhardt, scholar in residence at the National Constitution Center and professor of constitutional law at the University of North Carolina, Nov. 6, 2015
Email interview with Jan Lewis, professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark and the author of The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson’s Virginia, Nov. 6, 2015
Email interview with Danielle Allen, political theorist and author of Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, Nov. 6, 2015

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Ten True Facts Guaranteed to Short-Circuit Republican Brains 4SEP12

FACTS, those truths repiglicans and tea-baggers and the like can't accept, but here they are....
Richard Riis

As a public service to those who find themselves inextricably cornered by aggressively ill-informed Republicans at work, on the train or at family gatherings, presented here are ten indisputably true facts that will seriously challenge a Republican’s worldview and probably blow a brain cell or two. At the very least, any one of these GOP-busters should stun and confuse them long enough for you to slip quietly away from a pointless debate and allow you to get on about your business.
1. The United States is not a Christian nation, and the Bible is not the cornerstone of our law.
Don’t take my word for it. Let these Founding Fathers speak for themselves:
John Adams: “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” (Treaty of Tripoli, 1797)
Thomas Jefferson: “Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.” (Letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814)
James Madison: “The civil government … functions with complete success … by the total separation of the Church from the State.” (Writings, 8:432, 1819)
George Washington: “If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.” (Letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789)
You can find a multitude of similar quotes from these men and most others who signed the Declaration of Independence and/or formulated the United States Constitution. These are hardly the words of men who believed that America should be a Christian nation governed by the Bible, as a disturbingly growing number of Republicans like to claim.
2. The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist.
The Pledge was written in 1892 for public school celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas. Its author was Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, Christian socialist and cousin of socialist utopian novelist Edward Bellamy. Christian socialism maintains, among other ideas, that capitalism is idolatrous and rooted in greed, and the underlying cause of much of the world’s social inequity. Definitely more “Occupy Wall Street” than “Grand Old Party” by anyone’s standard.
3. The first president to propose national health insurance was a Republican.
He was also a trust-busting, pro-labor, Nobel Peace Prize-winning environmentalist. Is there any wonder why Theodore Roosevelt, who first proposed a system of national health insurance during his unsuccessful Progressive Party campaign to retake the White House from William Howard Taft in 1912, gets scarce mention at Republican National Conventions these days?
4. Ronald Reagan once signed a bill legalizing abortion.
The Ronald Reagan Republicans worship today is more myth than reality. Reagan was a conservative for sure, but also a practical politician who understood the necessities of compromise. In the spring of 1967, four months into his first term as governor of California, Ronald Reagan signed a bill that, among its other provisions, legalized abortion for the vaguely-defined “well being” of the mother. Reagan may have been personally pro-life, but in this instance he was willing to compromise in order to achieve other ends he considered more important. That he claimed later to regret signing the bill doesn’t change the fact that he did. As Casey Stengel liked to say, “You could look it up.”
5. Reagan raised federal taxes eleven times.
Okay, Ronald Reagan cut tax rates more than any other president – with a big asterisk. Sure, the top rate was reduced from 70% in 1980 all the way down to 28% in 1988, but while Republicans typically point to Reagan’s tax-cutting as the right approach to improving the economy, Reagan himself realized the resulting national debt from his revenue slashing was untenable, so he quietly raised other taxes on income – primarily Social Security and payroll taxes - no less than eleven times. Most of Reagan’s highly publicized tax cuts went to the usual Republican handout-takers in the top income brackets, while his stealth tax increases had their biggest impact on the middle class. These increases were well hidden inside such innocuous-sounding packages as the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987. Leave it to a seasoned actor to pull off such a masterful charade.
6. Roe v. Wade was a bipartisan ruling made by a predominantly Republican-appointed Supreme Court.
Technically, Roe v. Wade did not make abortion legal in the United States; the Supreme Court’s decision held only that individual states could not make abortion illegal. That being said, the landmark 1973 ruling that Republicans love to hate, was decided on a 7-2 vote that broke down like this:
Majority (for Roe): Chief Justice Warren Burger (conservative, appointed by Nixon), William O. Douglas (liberal, appointed by FDR), William J. Brennan (liberal, appointed by Eisenhower), Potter Stewart (moderate, appointed by Eisenhower), Thurgood Marshall (liberal, appointed by LBJ), Harry Blackmun (author of the majority opinion and a conservative who eventually turned liberal, appointed by Nixon), Lewis Powell (moderate, appointed by Nixon). Summary: 2 conservatives, 3 liberals, 2 moderates.
Dissenting (for Wade): Byron White (generally liberal/sometimes conservative, appointed by JFK), William Rehnquist (conservative, appointed by Nixon). Summary: 1 liberal, 1 conservative.
By ideological orientation, the decision was for Roe all the way: conservatives 2-1, liberals 3-1, moderates 2-0; by party of presidential appointment it was Republicans 5-1, Democrats 2-1. No one can rightly say that this was a leftist court forcing its liberal beliefs on America.
7. The Federal Reserve System was a Republican invention.
Republicans, and, truth be told, many Democrats, despise the Federal Reserve as an example of government interference in the free market. But hold everything: The Federal Reserve System was the brainchild of financial expert and Senate Republican leader Nelson Aldrich, grandfather of future Republican governor and vice president Nelson Rockefeller. Aldrich set up two commissions: one to study the American monetary system in depth and the other, headed by Aldrich himself, to study the European central banking systems. Aldrich went to Europe opposed to centralized banking, but after viewing Germany's monetary system he came away believing that a centralized bank was better than the government-issued bond system that he had previously supported. The Federal Reserve Act, developed around Senator Aldrich’s recommendations and - adding insult to injury in the minds of today’s Republicans - based on a European model, was signed into law in 1913.
8. The Environmental Protection Agency was, too.
The United States Environment Protection Agency, arch-enemy of polluters in particular and government regulation haters in general, was created by President Richard Nixon. In his 1970 State of the Union Address, Nixon proclaimed the new decade a period of environmental transformation. Shortly thereafter he presented Congress an unprecedented 37-point message on the environment, requesting billions for the improvement of water treatment facilities, asking for national air quality standards and stringent guidelines to lower motor vehicle emissions, and launching federally-funded research to reduce automobile pollution. Nixon also ordered a clean-up of air- and water-polluting federal facilities, sought legislation to end the dumping of wastes into the Great Lakes, proposed a tax on lead additives in gasoline, and approved a National Contingency Plan for the treatment of petroleum spills. In July 1970 Nixon declared his intention to establish the Environmental Protection Agency, and that December the EPA opened for business. Hard to believe, but if it hadn’t been for Watergate, we might remember Richard Nixon today as the “environmental president”.
Oh, yes - Republicans might enjoy knowing Nixon was an advocate of national health insurance, too.
9. Obama has increased government spending less than any president in at least a generation.
Republican campaign strategists may lie, but the numbers don’t. Government spending, when adjusted for inflation, has increased during his administration (to date) by 1.4%.  Under George W. Bush, the increases were 7.3% (first term) and 8.1% (second term). Bill Clinton, in his two terms, comes in at 3.2% and 3.9%. George H. W. Bush increased government spending by 5.4%, while Ronald Reagan added 8.7% and 4.9% in his two terms.
Not only does Obama turn out to be the most thrifty president in recent memory, but the evidence shows that Republican administrations consistently increased government spending significantly more than any Democratic administration. Go figure.
10. President Obama was not only born in the United States, his roots run deeper in American history than most people know.
The argument that Barack Obama was born anywhere but at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii, is not worth addressing; the evidence is indisputable by any rational human being. But not even irrational “birthers” can dispute Obama’s well-documented family tree on his mother’s side. By way of his Dunham lineage, President Obama has at least 11 direct ancestors who took up arms and fought for American independence in the Revolutionary War and two others cited as patriots by the Daughters of the American Revolution for furnishing supplies to the colonial army. This star-spangled heritage makes Obama eligible to join the Sons of the American Revolution, and his daughters the Daughters of the American Revolution. Not bad for someone 56% of Republicans still believe is a foreigner.
Okay, feel free to drop any or all of these ten true facts on your local Republican windbag. Tell him or her to put any of these choice nuggets in his or her teabag and steep it. Then sit back and enjoy the silence.
Note: Although the facts are 100% true, the context is, of course, one of humor; the oxymoronic reference to "Republican Brains" in the title should have been a dead giveaway. Additionally, as everyone knows, there are no facts in the Republican cosmos, only Fox News Alerts.

 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/04/1127663/-Ten-True-Facts-Guaranteed-to-Short-Circuit-Republican-Brains

Administration debates stretching 9/11 law to go after new al-Qaeda offshoots 6MAR13

THE Obama administration's expansion of the Authorization for Use of Military Force MUST be brought under control. The power to declare war rest with Congress, not the President, for good reason, and if Pres Obama feels military action is required anywhere he and his administration should be able to present the reasons for military action to Congress for approval. Consider this from Wikipedia on the War Powers Clause. "Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution, sometimes referred to as the War Powers Clause, vests in the Congress the power to declare war, in the following wording:

[Congress shall have Power...] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

A number of wars have been declared under the United States Constitution, although there is some controversy as to the exact number, as the Constitution does not specify the form of such a declaration.

 If it was true that the war was ongoing, because the President had to repel a sudden attack, this was contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, in Philadelphia, during August of the summer of 1787, when the wording of the proposed Constitution was being finalized, the draft read that Congress could "make war." This was changed to "declare war" specifically in order to allow the President to defend the country from sudden attacks. "Mr. Madison and Mr. Gerry moved to insert "declare," striking out "make" war; leaving to the Executive the power to repel sudden attacks."^[5] That the President took decisive action to defend the country does not relieve the Congress of its Art. I obligation to vote on whether to declare and continue the war.

American Presidents often have not sought formal declarations of war, instead maintaining that they have the Constitutional authority, as commander in chief (Article Two, Section Two) to use the military for "police actions". According to historian Thomas Woods, "Ever since the Korean War, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution — which refers to the president as the 'Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States' — has been interpreted to mean that the president may act with an essentially free hand in foreign affairs, or at the very least that he may send men into battle without consulting Congress."^[6] Some have argued this could pass as offensive actions, though historically police actions fell mostly under the purview of protecting embassies, U.S. citizens overseas, and shipping such as the Quasi War." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Clause

Just because the US Constitution has been abused and even ignored by previous presidents, and just because previous congresses have tolerated these abuses doesn't mean this President and this Congress has to continue those practices. The Founding Fathers wisely saw fit to restrict the ability of the President to declare war and institute military action, enshrined it in our Constitution, to protect the American people from the tyranny and oppression of war. It is time for Congress to reassert their authority in this matter and to maintain their responsibility through the remaining years of the Obama administration and for all future Presidents. From the Washington Post......

By Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung

A new generation of al-Qaeda offshoots is forcing the Obama administration
to examine whether the legal basis for its targeted killing program can be extended to militant groups with little or no connection to the organization responsible for the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. officials said.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force, a joint resolution passed by Congress three days after the strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has served as the legal foundation for U.S. counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda over the past decade, including ongoing drone campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen that have killed thousands of people.
But U.S. officials said administration lawyers are increasingly concerned that the law is being stretched to its legal breaking point, just as new threats are emerging in countries including Syria, Libya and Mali.
“The farther we get away from 9/11 and what this legislation was initially focused upon,” a senior Obama administration official said, “we can see from both a theoretical but also a practical standpoint that groups that have arisen or morphed become more difficult to fit in.”
The waning relevance of the 2001 law, the official said, is “requiring a whole policy and legal look.” The official, like most others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations.
The authorization law has already been expanded by federal courts beyond its original scope to apply to “associated forces” of al-Qaeda. But officials said legal advisers at the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies are now weighing whether the law can be stretched to cover what one former official called “associates of associates.”
The debate has been driven by the emergence of groups in North Africa and the Middle East that may embrace aspects of al-Qaeda’s agenda but have no meaningful ties to its crumbling leadership base in Pakistan. Among them are the al-Nusra Front in Syria and Ansar al-Sharia, which was linked to the September attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya. They could be exposed to drone strikes and kill-or-capture missions involving U.S. troops.
Officials said they have not ruled out seeking an updated authorization from Congress or relying on the president’s constitutional powers to protect the country. But they said those are unappealing alternatives.
AUMF and the war on terror
The debate comes as the administration seeks to turn counterterrorism policies adopted as emergency measures after the 2001 attacks into more permanent procedures that can sustain the campaign against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, as well as other current and future threats.
The AUMF, as the 2001 measure is known, has been so central to U.S. efforts that counterterrorism officials said deliberations over whom to put on the list for drone strikes routinely start with the question of whether a proposed target is “AUMF-able.”
The outcome of the debate could determine when and how the war on terrorism — at least as defined by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks — comes to a close.
“You can’t end the war if you keep adding people to the enemy who are not actually part of the original enemy,” said a person who participated in the administration’s deliberations on the issue.
Administration officials acknowledged that they could be forced to seek new legal cover if the president decides that strikes are necessary against nascent groups that don’t have direct al-Qaeda links. Some outside legal experts said that step is all but inevitable because the authorization has already been stretched to the limit of its intended scope.
“The AUMF is becoming increasingly obsolete because the groups that are threatening us are harder and harder to tie to the original A.Q. organization,” said Jack Goldsmith, an expert on national security law at Harvard University and a former senior Justice Department official.
He said extending the AUMF to groups more loosely tied to al-Qaeda would be “a major interpretive leap” that could eliminate the need for a link between the targeted organization and core al-Qaeda.
The United States has not launched strikes against any of the new groups, and U.S. officials have not indicated that there is any immediate plan to do so. In Libya, for example, the United States has sought to work with the new government to apprehend suspects in the Benghazi attack.
Still, the administration has taken recent steps — including building a drone base in the African country of Niger — that have moved the United States closer to being able to launch lethal strikes if regional allies are unable to contain emerging threats.
The administration official cited Ansar al-Sharia as an example of the “conundrum” that counterterrorism officials face.
The group has little if any established connection to al-Qaeda’s leadership core in Pakistan. But intercepted communications during and after the attack in Benghazi indicated that some members have ties to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the terrorist network’s main associate in North Africa.
“Certainly there are individuals who have an affiliation from a policy, if not legal, perspective,” the official said. “But does that mean the whole group?”
Other groups of concern include the al-Nusra Front, which is backed by al-Qaeda in Iraq and has used suicide bombings to emerge as a potent force in the Syrian civil war, and a splinter group in North Africa that carried out a deadly assault in January on a natural-gas complex in Algeria.
A focus on Sept. 11
The debate centers on a piece of legislation that spans a single page and was drafted in a few days to give President George W. Bush authority to “use all necessary and appropriate force” against al-Qaeda.
The law placed no geographic limits on that power but did not envision a drawn-out conflict that would eventually encompass groups with no ties to the Sept. 11 strikes. Instead, it authorized the president to take action “against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks.”
The authorization makes no mention of “associated forces,” a term that emerged only in subsequent interpretations of the text. But even that elastic phrase has become increasingly difficult to employ.
In a speech last year at Yale University, Jeh Johnson, who served as general counsel at the Defense Department during Obama’s first term, outlined the limits of the AUMF.
“An ‘associated force’ is not any terrorist group in the world that merely embraces the al-Qaeda ideology,” Johnson said. Instead, it has to be both “an organized, armed group that has entered the fight alongside al-Qaeda” and a “co-belligerent with al-Qaeda in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.”
U.S. officials said evaluating whether a proposed target is eligible under the AUMF is only one step. Names aren’t added to kill or capture lists, officials said, unless they also meet more elaborate policy criteria set by Obama.
If a proposed a target doesn’t clear the legal hurdle, the senior administration official said, one option is to collect additional intelligence to try to meet the threshhold.
Officials stressed that the stakes of the debate go beyond the drone program. The same authorities are required for capture operations, which have been far less frequent. The AUMF is also the legal basis for the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan, although the agency compiles its own kill list in that operation with little involvement from other agencies.
The uncertainty surrounding the AUMF has already shaped the U.S. response to problems in North Africa and the Middle East. Counterterrorism officials concluded last year that Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a militant leader in Algeria and Mali, could not be targeted under the AUMF, in part because he had had a falling out with al-Qaeda’s leadership and was no longer regarded as part of an associated group.
Belmokhtar was later identified as the orchestrator of the gas-plant attack in Algeria in which dozens of workers, including three Americans, were killed.
Obama’s decision to provide limited assistance to French air attacks against Islamist militants in Mali this year was delayed for weeks, officials said, amid questions over whether doing so would require compliance with the AUMF rules.
Some options beyond the 2001 authorization are problematic for Obama. For instance, he has been reluctant to rely on his constitutional authority to use military force to protect the country, which bypasses Congress and might expose him to criticism for abuse of executive power.
Working with Congress to update the AUMF is another option. The Senate Intelligence Committee has already begun considering ways to accomplish that. But Obama, who has claimed credit for winding down two wars, is seen as reluctant to have the legislative expansion of another be added to his legacy.
“This is an ongoing discussion, which we’ll probably continue to engage on the Hill,” the senior administration official said. “But I don’t know that there’s a giant desire to have ‘Son of AUMF’ now.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/administration-debates-stretching-911-law-to-go-after-new-al-qaeda-offshoots/2013/03/06/fd2574a0-85e5-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

Conservatives Seek to Celebrate the Constitution by Undermining It 12SEP12

repiglican and tea-bagger right wing extremist have been waging a war against the US Constitution, the very document they claim to love and cherish, for years. It has been part of their propaganda campaign, deceiving people into believing only by restricting the very civil liberties, civil rights and universal freedoms enshrined in the Constitution that it, and the American nation, can be saved. They use fear, voluntary ignorance, greed and racism to further their agenda, and portray themselves as the victims, persecuted and prosecuted for their love of God, America and the Constitution. This from HuffPost, Progressives take heed!!!!!
For more than two years, the tea party and its allies have lectured the American people about the need to return to our Founding principles, peddling, among other things, a series of constitutional fairy tales about the radical limits allegedly imposed by the Founders on the ability of the federal government to solve national problems. Most recently, in their 2012 party platform, Republicans declare themselves "the party of the Constitution," and, on Sunday, Governor Mitt Romney asserted he was "as conservative as the Constitution." But no amount of Constitution-waving or tricorn-hat-wearing can change one basic fact: this election season, conservative Governors, election officials, and state legislators nationwide are working hard to deny Americans one of their most cherished constitutional rights -- the right to vote.
There's no better moment to highlight this conservative assault on constitutional voting rights than in the coming weeks, as the Nation celebrates the Constitution's 225th Anniversary. Officially, Constitution Day is September 17th, but over the next several weeks celebrations and related events will occur in D.C., Philadelphia and around the country, including an important hearing convened by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy titled "The Citizens United Court and the Continuing Importance of the Voting Rights Act." Every one of these events is a perfect opportunity for progressives to speak powerfully against the ongoing efforts by conservatives to suppress the vote.
Perhaps more so than any other constitutional guarantee, the right to vote is deeply embedded in the Constitution's text and history. And yet conservatives are trying to change election rules to disenfranchise eligible voters -- passing restrictive voter I.D. laws, shortening early voting hours, and making it more difficult to register to vote. Some tea party candidates are even advocating repeal of the 17th Amendment, which would strip Americans of their right to vote for U.S. Senators. At the same time, conservatives have embraced rulings by the Supreme Court that allow corporations and the rich to drown out the voices of ordinary Americans in the electoral process.
That's some 225th Anniversary gift for the tea party's beloved Constitution. But it does give progressives the opportunity on Constitution Day 2012 to recapture the constitutional high ground and put the tea party and its allies on the defensive.
We must begin by embracing our constitutional heritage, rather than effectively ceding it to conservatives. Don't believe this is happening? Then spend some time comparing the relative treatment of the Constitution in the Republican and Democratic Party Platforms. The Republican Platform has an entire chapter entitled "Restoration of Constitutional Principles," and the document is infused throughout with claims about our Nation's charter. The Democratic Platform is entirely devoid of anything resembling a constitutional vision. It's no wonder, then, that many Americans assume that conservatives are right about the Constitution. They're the only ones routinely talking about it.
Progressives need to turn this around, and we should start on Constitution Day by reminding the American people of the story of constitutional voting rights. This story begins with our democratic Founding. Never before in world history had a government charter been ratified by the people themselves. Furthermore, rather than keep voters from the polls -- as conservatives are trying to do in 2012 -- the Founding generation took important steps to increase the number of eligible voters in the ratification process, with many states waiving voting restrictions (such as property requirements) and some allowing African Americans to vote for convention delegates.
Although wildly restrictive through a modern lens, the ratification process was inclusive for its time. And the patriots who gathered in Philadelphia did not intend for the document to be complete. Article V, authorizing Amendments, made it clear that the 1787 Constitution was not an end, but a beginning.
Over the past two centuries America has moved ever closer to the full promise of what President Abraham Lincoln called "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." "We the People" have poured precious blood and treasure into a series of reform efforts that produced the six Voting Rights Amendments. These Amendments fundamentally changed our system of government -- outlawing poll taxes in federal elections, giving ordinary Americans the right to elect U.S. Senators, allowing the citizens of our Nation's capital to vote for President, and guaranteeing African Americans, women and 18-year-olds the right to vote.
These Amendments are just as much a part of the Constitution as is the original text, and they call into question state efforts to impose unreasonable, arbitrary restrictions on the right to vote. On Constitution Day 2012, progressives should share this story with our friends, families, neighbors, and co-workers -- anyone who is willing to listen.
But the fight must not end there. As long as conservatives believe they can win elections by changing the ground rules, the battle over voting rights will continue. And as long as conservatives are weaponizing the Constitution for political purposes -- as the Republican Party Platform most certainly does -- progressives must aggressively tell our own story about the Constitution. This story starts in 1787, but it also prominently includes the 27 Amendments ratified over the last 225 years which improved our Constitution by ending slavery, enshrining guarantees of equality and citizenship, expanding the right to vote, and ensuring that the national government has the power and resources necessary to protect the nation, address national challenges and secure civil rights.
Only by telling this story of the whole Constitution, including the Amendments, can progressives truly seize the Constitution from the tea party and its allies and expose their selective ancestor worship for the sham that it is.
It's hard to imagine a better birthday present for the Constitution.
(This piece was written with Tom Donnelly, Constitutional Accountability Center's Counsel and Message Director. It will be cross-posted on www.textandhistory.org).

 

Follow Doug Kendall on Twitter: www.twitter.com/myconstitution  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/doug-kendall/conservatives-seek-to-cel_b_1876522.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=091212&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief 

We're Headed for a Major Battle with the Tea Party Crowd over the Constitution Itself from ALTERNET 31DEZ10

THE insanity, the hypocrisy of the right wing extremist of the gop and the tea-baggers is amazing....and a real threat to the Republic......how can people just sit back and let them get away with it??? I hope the writer of this piece from AlterNet is wrong, and that progressives and sane Democrats and Republicans can join together in the name of protecting the Constitution and the nation....I can assure you this is one Christian Socialist that will not give up without a fight!!!!!

We should be under no illusion about the new flood of know-nothingism that is about to inundate the United States in the guise of a return to "first principles." 

Despite a few victories in the lame-duck session of Congress, Democrats and progressives should be under no illusion about the new flood of know-nothingism that is about to inundate the United States in the guise of a return to “first principles” and a deep respect for the U.S. Constitution.
The same right-wingers who happily accepted George W. Bush’s shift toward a police state – his claims of limitless executive power, warrantless wiretaps, repudiation of habeas corpus, redefining cruel and unusual punishment, suppression of dissent, creation of massive databases on citizens, arbitrary no-fly lists, and endless overseas wars – have now reinvented themselves as brave protectors of American liberty.
Indeed, the Tea Party crowd so loves the Constitution that the new Republican House majority will take the apparently unprecedented step of reading the document aloud at the start of the new congressional session, presumably including the part about enslaved African-Americans being counted as three-fifths of a white person for purposes of congressional representation.
One also has to wonder if these “constitutionalists” will mumble over the preamble’s assertion that a key purpose of the Constitution is to “promote the general Welfare.” And what to do with Section Eight of Article One, which gives Congress the power to levy taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce among the states, and “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization”?
If one were to buy into the Tea Party’s interpretation of the founding document, you’d have to denounce such concepts as “socialism” and/or “intrusions” on states’ rights.
Part of the Tea Party’s mythology is that federal taxes are an unconstitutional imposition invented by modern-day “lib-rhuls,” that the national debt is another new thing, and that regulation of commerce is outside federal authority.
Surely, there can be honest debates about what’s the best way to “promote the general Welfare,” or the wisest balance between taxation and debt, or the proper role of states in enforcing laws when there is a federal interest (as with Arizona’s anti-immigrant “present your papers” law).
But the pretense of the Tea Party is that the U.S. Constitution is definitive on these points and that the Founders favored today’s right-wing interpretation of the federal government’s powers, i.e. that taxes, debt and regulation of commerce are somehow unconstitutional.
Another curious “reform” from the new Republican House majority will be a requirement to specify what constitutional authority underpins every piece of legislation, a rather silly idea since every bill can make some claim to constitutionality even if the federal courts might eventually disagree.
But the larger truth that the Tea Partiers don’t want to acknowledge is that the Constitution represented a major power grab by the federal government, when compared to the loosely drawn Articles of Confederation, which lacked federal taxing authority and other national powers.
The Founders also recognized that changing circumstances would require modification of the Constitution which is why they provided for amendments. Indeed, the primary limitations on federal authority were included in the first ten amendments, called the Bill of Rights. Subsequent amendments included the eradication of slavery and extending the vote to blacks, and later to women.
Civil Liberties?
Yet, while the Tea Partiers and the Right have embraced a mythical view of the Constitution as some ideal document that opposes federal power to tax, borrow and pass laws that improve “the general Welfare,” they have been less interested in the document’s protection of civil liberties, especially when the targets of abuse are Muslims, Hispanics, blacks and anti-war dissenters.
Many on the Right have found plenty of justifications to trample on the rights of these minorities, even when the actions violate clear-cut mandates in the Constitution, such as the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of “probable cause” before the government can engage in search and seizure and the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on inflicting “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Especially when the Right’s hero George W. Bush was violating those rights last decade, there were word games to explain the unexplainable.
For instance, in 2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales argued that “there is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution.” But that was a point of sophistry since the Founders took habeas corpus rights for granted under English law and thus limited the reference in the Constitution to the extreme circumstances required before the government could suspend its need to justify a person’s incarceration before a judge.
Gonzales’s game-playing was similar to the argument made by Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell during a Delaware Senate debate – that the Constitution doesn’t call for the “separation of church and state,” because those specific words aren’t used.
The First Amendment does say that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” which Thomas Jefferson paraphrased as the “separation of church and state.” But it has become an article of faith among many on the Right that “separation of church and state” is a myth. O’Donnell later described herself as high-fiving her aides, thinking she had won the debating point.
Many on the American Right also insist that the Founders created a “Christian nation,” even though the word “Christian” is nowhere to be found in the Constitution and the Founders pointedly set no religious exclusions for those serving in the U.S. government.
One has to wonder, too, how the Republicans on opening day will read the Constitution’s prescribed oath for the president’s swearing in, which ends with a promise to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of United States,” without the add-on “so help me God,” which was freelanced by George Washington but is not what the drafters of the Constitution wrote.
Leaving out “so help me God” might be deemed part of the war on Christmas.
Radical Revision
Curiously, too, while supposedly revering the Constitution and its original intent, the Tea Partiers and their Republican allies simultaneously are proposing a radical revision of the founding document, an amendment that would allow a super-majority of states to overturn laws passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.
This neo-nullificationism smacks of South Carolina’s resistance to President Andrew Jackson’s federalism in the 1830s, a clash that set the stage for the Confederacy’s secession and the Civil War in the 1860s. The proposed Tea Party amendment, which is supported by many Southern officials including incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, could again wreak havoc on the nation.
A New York Times editorial noted that because the proposed amendment "focuses on giving states power to veto (e.g., taxes) without their shouldering responsibility for asserting it (trimming appropriations because of lost tax revenue), the unintended consequences would likely be at least as important as the intended.”
In other words, the Tea Party and the Republicans are positioning themselves as both fundamentalists embracing the Constitution's "original intent" and radicals determined to rip it up. Still, they are not likely to pay any price for their reckless ideas or their blatant hypocrisy.
If we’ve learned anything over the past several decades, it is that reason and consistency have little place in the U.S. political/media system. What counts is the size of the megaphone – and the American Right has built a truly impressive one, while the Left has largely downplayed the need for making an alternate case to the public.
As the Times noted, the Tea Party’s proposed 28th Amendment “helps explain further the anger-fueled, myth-based politics of the populist new right. It also highlights the absence of a strong counterforce in American politics. …
“The error that matters most here is about the Constitution’s history. America’s fundamental law holds competing elements, some constraining the national government, others energizing it.
“But the government the Constitution shaped was founded to create a sum greater than the parts, to promote economic development that would lift the fortunes of the American people.”
The Times also noted the inability of the American Left to make a case for more government intervention to address the nation’s deepening problems, such as high unemployment and severe income disparity. The Times wrote:
“In past economic crises, populist fervor has been for expanding the power of the national government to address America’s pressing needs. Pleas for making good the nation’s commitment to equality and welfare have been as loud as those for liberty.
“Now the many who are struggling have no progressive champion. The left have ceded the field to the Tea Party and, in doing so, allowed it to make history. It is building political power by selling the promise of a return to a mythic past.”
This means that we can expect the Tea Party’s myth-based assertions about the Founders’ intent to continue, along with the Right’s selective concern about the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.
When those rights are extended to non-white minorities, it’s “lib-rhul” activism. If the rights go to multinational corporations or white folks with guns, then that’s the way it was meant to be.
Though the Tea Partiers insist that race is not a factor in their current fury against government power, they don’t explain their relative silence when Republican George W. Bush, a white man, was asserting unlimited executive power. But Barack Obama, a black man, can’t even get away with welcoming students back for the school year without howls about Orwellian totalitarianism.
Even Michelle Obama’s well-intentioned campaign for healthful eating has become a target of anger from the likes of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and the Right’s powerful media machine.
So, it seems the country is in for a new round of crazy while the voices for sanity stay largely mute.

11 Freedoms That Drunks, Slackers, Prostitutes And Pirates Pioneered And The Founding Fathers Opposed (PHOTOS) 13OKT10

CLICK the header to go to the article on HuffPost....it is pretty interesting. Benjamin Rush and John Adams were NO FUN AT ALL!!!!!!
 
During the War of Independence a culture of pleasure and freedom blossomed in American cities. Non-marital sex, including adultery and relations between whites and blacks, was ubiquitous and rarely punished. Because divorce was unregulated, it was easily and frequently obtained, often by women. Brothels were legal and abundant and prostitutes were rarely prosecuted. Black slaves, Irish indentured servants, Native Americans, and free whites of all classes commingled extensively in saloons and in the streets. Pirates who settled in the port cities brought with them a way of life that embraced both general revelry and homosexuality. On nearly every block in every 18th-century American city, there was a public place where one could drink, sing, dance, have sex, argue politics, gamble, play games, or generally carouse with men, women, children, whites, blacks, Indians, the rich, the poor, and the middling. Rarely have Americans had more fun. And never have America's leaders been less pleased by it.
To the Founding Fathers the culture of personal liberty was a more serious threat to their project of creating an independent republic than the British Army.

"Indeed, there is one enemy, who is more formidable than famine, pestilence and the sword," John Adams wrote. "I mean the corruption which is prevalent in so many American hearts, a depravity that is more inconsistent with our republican governments than light is with darkness."

The Founding Fathers hoped that self-rule would cure Americans of their love of frivolities. A government of the people, John Adams argued, would make the people disciplined, stern, hard-working, and joyless -- the qualities he most admired. It would "produce Strength, Hardiness Activity, Courage, Fortitude and Enterprise; the manly noble and Sublime Qualities in human Nature, in Abundance." Adams understood that democracy forced the people to shed their pleasures and surrender their personal freedom, because they alone would shoulder the responsibility of managing society.

"Under a well regulated Commonwealth, the People must be wise, virtuous and cannot be otherwise. Under a Monarchy they may be as vicious and foolish as they please, nay, they cannot but be vicious and foolish. ... Virtue and Simplicity of Manners are indispensably necessary in a Republic among all orders and Degrees of Men. But there is so much Rascallity, so much Venality and Corruption, so much Avarice and Ambition such a Rage for Profit and Commerce among all Ranks and Degrees of Men even in America, that I sometimes doubt whether there is public Virtue enough to Support a Republic."

But what the Founding Fathers called corruption, depravity, venality, and vice, many of us would call freedom ...
Here are "11 Freedoms That Drunks, Slackers, Prostitutes and Pirates Pioneered And The Founding Fathers Opposed," a sample of the fresh take on American history found in "A Renegade History of the United States."