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Old 01-22-2015, 06:08 PM   #1
Lamplighter
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Keystone Cops - government on the move

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
Quote:
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>
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Old 02-24-2015, 10:52 PM   #2
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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.

.
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Old 02-25-2015, 10:15 AM   #3
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Now, the GOP has even ticked off the Sioux...
Quartz - 2/25/15

Not on my rez
Quote:
“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.

Last edited by Lamplighter; 02-25-2015 at 10:34 AM.
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Old 02-25-2015, 01:26 PM   #4
xoxoxoBruce
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Quote:
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).
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Old 02-25-2015, 04:24 PM   #5
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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.
.
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Old 02-26-2015, 08:25 PM   #6
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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.
.
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Old 02-27-2015, 12:53 AM   #7
xoxoxoBruce
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplighter View Post
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.
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Old 02-27-2015, 03:31 PM   #8
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Back to the Keystone Cops...

This article is about GOP House Speaker Boehner vs. his fellow House Republicans.

LA Times - Lisa Mascaro - 2/27/15
Boehner plan for stop-gap bill funding Homeland Security runs into trouble in House
Quote:
House Speaker John A. Boehner's plan to approve a three-week stopgap bill
to keep the Department of Homeland Security fully operating ran into trouble
among his fellow Republicans on Friday, prolonging a standoff as a midnight deadline loomed.

House leaders had hoped to hold a vote on the bill early Friday afternoon,
but postponed it amid fears that they lacked votes for passage.

Earlier in the day, the Senate overwhelmingly approved funds for the department,
dropping an effort by Republican conservatives to use its budget as leverage
to try to force changes in President Obama's immigration policies <snip>

Quote:
“I regret that we’re in this spot,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.),
a former mayor, who was ready to approve the spending bill.
”It upsets me that we are, in many respects, handing the other side absolutely what they want
-- which is to divide our conference, and try to show we can’t govern.
It’s making a mockery of our system and doesn’t do our majority any favors."
I don't quite believe it's a matter of the "other side" trying to show they can’t govern.
The GOP is doing so all by themselves.

And one more thing... Today, one of the choices for the GOP Presidential candidacy
made a remarkably clairvoyant statement to his fellow Republicans...

Jeb Bush said: "I hope you find me your second best choice."
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Old 02-27-2015, 04:10 PM   #9
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But if I fall on my face, it has to be because my nemesis tripped me, even if he was out of town, and I have three toadies employees who will swear to it.
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Old 02-28-2015, 01:01 PM   #10
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The Senate passed a one week "Patch" on the budget bill and went home.
Speaker Boehner got the House to do the same.

So in a week, we'll all be singing...

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Old 03-01-2015, 11:06 AM   #11
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Shutdown of Homeland Security averted as Pelosi comes to rescue
The Hill - Rebecca Shabad - 02/27/15

Quote:
A partial government shutdown was narrowly avoided late Friday evening as
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a surprise move to back
legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for one week.

Pelosi’s support helped Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio - ) move
the one-week bill through the House in a 357-60 vote just after 10 p.m.,...
President Obama signed the bill just before midnight.
<snip>
Pelosi came to the rescue late Friday evening, sending a letter to Democrats urging them to vote for
a one-week continuing resolution (CR) of Homeland Security funding without any immigration riders.

Quote:
“Thank you for your cooperation on the vote earlier today.
Our unity was a strong statement that the Department of Homeland Security must be fully funded,”
Pelosi wrote in the letter to Democrats. “We are asking you once again to help advance passage
of the Senate passed, long-term funding of DHS by voting in favor of a 7-day patch
that will be on suspension in the House tonight.”
<snip>
If Democrats stay united against the conference committee, Republicans will again be at a stalemate,
lacking the 60 votes that would be needed to break the filibuster.

That could leave the “clean” funding bill as the only way out.

So, it's ironic that even when she is not in power as Speaker, Nancy Pelosi
has more clout than the GOP's elected leader of the House, John Boehner.
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Old 03-01-2015, 04:47 PM   #12
xoxoxoBruce
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Not as speaker, but still in power.
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Old 03-03-2015, 07:39 AM   #13
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NY Times reported this about the clown car today...

Quote:
...
But many Republican senators are getting frustrated with their House colleagues,
urging them to fund the department and fight Mr. Obama’s immigration policies at a different time.

“I don’t understand us, either,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.
“I think we’re dumb as a rock to do what we’re doing.”
...
But the Times is just reporting what we already knew.
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Old 03-03-2015, 11:37 AM   #14
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It looks as though this little tiff is over... finally

John Boehner Blinks, Will Allow For Clean Funding Of Department Of Homeland Security
Huffington Post - Elise Foley - 3/3/15
Quote:
WASHINGTON -- The House will finally vote on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security
without immigration measures, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his conference at a meeting on Tuesday.

The speaker told members there were only three ways forward for the DHS fight at this point,
according to the source in the room. They could vote on the clean bill, which would be likely to pass
given the near-unanimous support of Democrats. They could do another short-term bill,
but Boehner said that might be unlikely to pass, given the failure of a three-week funding bill last week.
The final option, allowing DHS to shut down, was untenable, he said.

… House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) released a statement Tuesday morning urging
Boehner to hold a vote on the clean bill as soon as possible, and reiterating that Democrats will support it.

"The Senate has voted in a bipartisan way and House Democrats have made it clear
we support full, long-term funding," she said. "We shouldn't wait another day
to remove all doubt to our enemies, to American families and to the affected workers
that we will fully fund the Department of Homeland Security."
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Old 03-03-2015, 12:59 PM   #15
xoxoxoBruce
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Quote:
But many Republican senators are getting frustrated with their House colleagues, urging them to fund the department and fight Mr. Obama’s immigration policies at a different time.

“I don’t understand us, either,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “I think we’re dumb as a rock to do what we’re doing.”
Frustrated, but know full well if they buck the party, the money will buy a more conservative replacement in the next election. It's Howdy Doody time, please ignore the strings.
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