Keystone Cops - government on the move

[Lamplighter]

Today has been a leisurely day for me. I started out with yesterday's NY Times article
on the CIA vs. Senate Committee Report of what new information was gained by torture.
I followed up a bit on one case:

Thwarting of Dirty Bomb and Capture of José Padilla

The Case
José Padilla, who was accused of plotting a radiological dirty bomb attack inside the United States,
was one of the first American citizens designated an “enemy combatant.”
The Bush administration credited the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah
with uncovering the plot and leading investigators to Mr. Padilla.
His arrest has been held up for years as proof that waterboarding and other tactics worked.

Committee’s Conclusion
But Abu Zubaydah's information on Mr. Padilla was sketchy, and he provided it well before he was waterboarded.
Mr. Padilla, in fact, was arrested in May 2002, three months before the C.I.A. interrogation program began.

For all the publicity the Bush administration gave Mr. Padilla,
the committee revealed that the government never took his dirty bomb plot seriously.

It was based on a satirical Internet article titled “How to Make an H-Bomb,”
and the plot involved swinging a bucket full of uranium over one's head for 45 minutes.
One internal C.I.A. email declared that such a plot would most likely kill Mr. Padilla
but “would definitely not result in a nuclear explosive device.”
Another called Mr. Padilla “a petty criminal” and described the dirty bomb plot as “lore.”

Now, if you want to see what has happened to this poor bastard,
here is the link to the Wikipedia history, and to save time you can scroll down to the Timeline from 2002 - 2012.
But also be aware that after being sentenced in 2008 to 17 yrs in prison, ,
a federal judge in 2014 re-sentenced Padilla to 21 years.

Now if you don’t want to believe such a Keystone Cops story,
here is the link to a 4,432 word "How to Make a Hydrogen Bomb".
I 've quoted only the pertinent paragraph about 1/3rd the way down…

Rense.com
How To Build An H-Bomb
<snip>
...First transform the gas into a liquid by subjecting it to pressure. You can use a bicycle pump for this.
Then make a simple home centrifuge.
Fill a standard-size bucket one-quarter full of liquid uranium hexafluoride.
Attach a six-foot rope to the bucket handle.
Now swing the rope (and attached bucket) around your head as fast as possible.
Keep this up for about 45 minutes.
Slow down gradually, and very gently put the bucket on the floor.

The U-235, which is lighter, will have risen to the top, where it can be skimmed off like cream.
Repeat this step until you have the required 10 pounds of uranium.

(Safety note: Don't put all your enriched uranium hexafluoride in one bucket.
Use at least two or threebuckets and keep them in separate corners of the room.
This will prevent the premature build-up of a critical mass.)<snip>

[Lamplighter]

We were out of town for the day, so let me get today's events straight....

• The environmental studies of the Keystone Pipeline project are not yet complete.

• Most of the environmental studies that were started or proposed have been shut down or discontinued.

• There is no route yet approved for the Keystone Pipeline thru any U.S. state.

• Nebraska and South Dakota both have lawsuits against TransCanada to stop development of the pipeline

• Once the pipeline were completed, there would only be about 50 new, permanent jobs.

• Obama threaten to veto any bill requiring the Keystone Project to proceed

• The Keystone Pipeline is of such huge and monumental importance to the G.O.P.
  they passed a bill in both the House and Senate requiring the Keystone Project to proceed
  that was tied to the annual budget bill for the entire Dept of Homeland Security.

And what happened ? Benghazi ? Obamacare ? No !
Obama just vetoed the bill, as he said he would.

Well, duh. What now ?

These "legislators" are either bat-shit crazy or so damned r-----st, they would rather provoke
the GOP-caused another government-shutdown than to see Obama win another legislative battle.

.

[Lamplighter]

Now, the GOP has even ticked off the Sioux...
Quartz - 2/25/15

Not on my rez

“As a woman, I’m a waterkeeper. That’s part of my culture,” Tara Houska explained.

...In a press release issued in response to the [2/24/15] vote,
Rosebud Sioux tribal president Cyril Scott said,
“Authorizing Keystone XL is an act of war against our people.”
It was a statement intended to stoke passions, and perhaps rightfully so,...

The Rosebud Sioux, also known as the Sicangu Lakota,
reside on a reservation that includes all of Todd County,
South Dakota, and additional lands in the four adjacent.…

Only in 1934 were the Rosebud Sioux officially recognized as a self-governing nation
—see the Indian Reorganization Act—and thus formally allotted ownership of land that,
prior to the arrival of European colonists, had been their’s for centuries….

Keystone XL brought this hard-won spirit of sovereignty under threat.

The plan to expand an existing oil pipeline system, linking oil-rich tar sands
in the Canadian province of Alberta with refineries and distributors across the U.S.,
would essentially bisect South Dakota, cutting straight through Rosebud Sioux tribal land.

A longtime topic of concern for environmentalists, the Keystone XL pipeline raised hackles,
being yet another instance in which the American government attempted to
circumvent Native sovereignty in the pursuit of economic gain...

Of course, some those bald-headed white men in D.C. may not worry about their scalps.
But others should.

ETA: Yes, I realize that last remark is racist.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Only in 1934 were the Rosebud Sioux officially recognized as a self-governing nation —see the Indian Reorganization Act—and thus formally allotted ownership of land that, prior to the arrival of European colonists, had been their’s for centuries….

Good for them, they should stand up for their rights, with every tool available to them... including righteous indignation.





However, a point of order. "Been theirs for centuries" is misleading to contemporary readers who likely envision a group of first graders having their lunch taken away by high school bullies. The Sioux by tradition didn't feel they owned the land and there was no legal system issuing deeds and protection. They occupied that land only because they were strong enough to take and hold it. Had there been a neighboring tribe who were strong enough to take and hold it, the Sioux would have been gone. The "colonists" (I think a strange term for the interlopers of the time, but I'll go with it because it contains colon and the Sioux did get it up the ass) took possession because they were strong enough to take and hold it.

Ironically, the "colonists" also established rule of law and deeds to keep a stronger tribe from taking away their land, after the compassionate, benevolent, colonist successors, couldn't think of a better use for it in 1934. But the Sioux must face the reality that you and I do, which is we only have a deed and protection of the law, until someone with more money and suck wants it.

If you have a little time you could go to the Smithsonian's online collection of Lakota Sioux Winter Counts. The tribes had a tradition of oral history which would naturally fall to the elderly to keep and teach to younger people... between yelling at the whippersnappers to get away from their Teepee, and trying to find their glasses. But since the cavemen, humans have known memory is a fickle beast, so the tribe would keep a hide or piece of cloth where once a year they would record the most important thing that happened during the year. This document was a cheat sheet of sorts. used as kind of a calendar to keep memories of events in their proper year. They used events like Meteor Showers to jibe the winter counts of different tribes.

Let's see now, I stole that young maiden after the year, One Cheyenne and twenty Crows were killed by Dakotas at Bear Butte(1830-31), but before the year, An Uncpapa Dakota Medicine man was killed by Rees(Indians). (1834-35).

[Lamplighter]

xoB, that's a good find. I've seen quite a few tribes and nations using
the internet to document their existence and history.

Of course we ("whites") tend to think of their cultures in terms of
battles and killings and reservations and stereotypes therein.
But the tribes are changing too, and are using "our" legal
and belief systems as part of their modern day weaponry.

One thing I find really of interest is that Native Americans have taken
one of our basic legal foundations - Freedom of Region -
using it as a formidable tool in their arsenal.

As just one example, here in the Pacific Northwest,
when the tribes are in negotiation/fight over salmon,
they couch their rights in terms of "religious practices",
not in terms of historic ownership.

I think a similar and ironic situation is the gambling casinos that are taking
large sums of $ from whites, and using the $ to provide health care for their people.

In sort of a "turn your enemy's strength into their weakness", or visa versus,
legal status and rights and courts-of-law and land grants
have replaced the bows/arrows and guns/bullets.

And in the case of the Keystone Pipeline, a Sioux challenge in
federal and state courts could be extensive and very effective.
.

[Lamplighter]

UT might be pleased to learn that the GOP leaders read our postings.

Today, Speaker Boehner must have been referring to my post above,
when he said to the Press: "People think we are crazy."

So for now, the GOP battle cry is not "Obamacare !" or "Benghazi !" or "Keystone !".
For the next 3 weeks, the GOP whoop will be: " IMMIGRATION ! "

Instead of shutting down the Dept of Homeland Security over the Keystone Pipeline,
the GOP will now set about shutting down the D.H.S. over
the President's Executive Order for prioritizing "Immigration".

Now to be straight... The President's Executive Order has already been stopped by that Texas judge,
so there is no Executive Order for the GOP to stomp into the muck. But damn the torpedoes,
they are going to fight it anyway.

In other words, the GOP has now declared they would rather fight than win.
.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

xoB, that's a good find. I've seen quite a few tribes and nations using
the internet to document their existence and history.

Ah, so they've learned to use revisionist history, I didn't realize they were republicans.

[busterb]

Hi-jack. Wonder who got rich in that cash for clunker scam? Sure didn't take around here.

[Lamplighter]

Who is Marilyn Jones Mosby ?

From Wikipedia:

Mosby was raised in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester, by her grandmother.
Her mother and father were both police officers;
her family traces its association with the police back over five generations.

She attended Dover-Sherborn High School, an hour away from her home.
She served in the Student Government Association and was co-editor of the school newspaper.

Her interest in practicing law was sparked by the murder of her 17-year-old cousin outside her home,
when he was mistakenly identified as a drug dealer and killed by another 17-year-old.

Mosby received a scholarship at Tuskegee University, Alabama,
where she studied and subsequently met her future husband Nick Mosby,
who presently serves on the Baltimore City Council.

Mosby earned her Juris Doctor degree from Boston College Law School.

Mosby served as Assistant State's Attorney for Baltimore City from 2005 to 2012.
She became a litigator for Liberty Mutual Insurance in 2012.

In 2013, she announced plans to run for State's Attorney for the city of Baltimore.
She ran against incumbent Gregg L. Bernstein in the Democratic primary.
In the Democratic primary, Mosby defeated Bernstein with 55 percent of the vote.
She faced no opposition in the general election.

I think she has all the credentials she needs to be a real powerhouse !

[Lamplighter]

Sorry, my post above went into the wrong thread.

Maybe the mods can move it to the "baltimore" thread.

[Lamplighter]

Sorry to disappoint all you folks out there on the distant right.
But hooray for those of you who were waiting breathlessly for his advice.

John Bolton will not run for president in 2016
MSNBC - 5/14/15

Bolton, who was recess-appointed to his ambassadorship by President George W. Bush
after failing to win confirmation in the Senate in 2005,
discussed the move with reporters shortly after the video went live.

According to Bolton, he will play an active outside role in the race through John Bolton PAC
and super PAC, which will focus on foreign policy, track the presidential campaign
and could run ads in Senate races. He said he has also been in conversation
with some of the 2016 presidential candidates and would offer his advice
throughout the campaign.
...

Yeah, sure.

But here come the other GOP 'stache's to take it's place.

The spitten' images of Keystone cops

[Lamplighter]

You knew it was coming....

Rick Perry announces presidential bid, joining crowded GOP field

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry made it official on Thursday,
joining the already-crowded field of candidates for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.


Perry, whose infamous “Oops” moment during the last GOP primary derailed
what had been a promising start to his 2012 campaign, announced his latest bid
at a rally inside a hot airplane hanger north of Dallas.

Below is the % of GOP's that will vote for Rick.
But, more GOP's will either not vote for any of these, or not vote at all

[Happy Monkey]

What if "obnoxious and insulting" are the positions that the public has favorable response to?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Although some people openly admit supporting him, at least at this point, because he's giving the finger to politically correct and the system, I don't think there's enough of them to make him a contender.