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[Putnam]

Well, how about that. Suddenly everyone on Amazon's a food critic.

Spoiler: In other Pepper Spray news, Occupy Kanto! (click to show/hide)

That is an exact retelling of what happened. It's just so perfect.

[ChairmanPoo]

Good idea. Actually, a rather cool think about Occupy compared to the Indignés of Belgium is their willingness to do politics. The indignés not only refuse all existing parties, but any hint en engaging the system.

I don't know about Belgium, but here in Spain the movement was aiming to break the bipartidist system by encouraging votes to third parties. It succeeded to a decent extent by the left (through the socialist party still got quite a lot of votes, unfortunatedly), but failed abysmally in the right, who universally stuck to their shitty candidates despite their obvious corruption and incompetence.  Even so, the ammount of votes going to minor parties grew. Hopefully this is the start of a trend and not a single event. The BS of "pragmatic votes" has led us to the current political situation, with two parties which are nearly identical taking turns at power


Didn't both major parties at Belgium crash in the last election, through?

[Heron TSG]

The person in particular I'm trying to take out is actually the second-in-command of the Republican House Caucus, I found after some research. If this works, it could send a powerful message. I must not fail.

[SalmonGod]

The person in particular I'm trying to take out is actually the second-in-command of the Republican House Caucus, I found after some research. If this works, it could send a powerful message. I must not fail.

Ganbatte!!!

[Aqizzar]

The person in particular I'm trying to take out is actually the second-in-command of the Republican House Caucus, I found after some research. If this works, it could send a powerful message. I must not fail.

My Congressman is Pete Sessions, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the guy responsible for making his party win elections.  But nobody in DFW ever loses incumbency, so I'm not too excited about the whole thing.

[SalmonGod]

Sooooo.....

I've been seeing rumors floating around of a new provision to the National Defense Authorization Act that would give the U.S. military legal ability to arrest anyone anywhere in the world, including on home soil, and hold them indefinitely without charge.  They do this anyway, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal in most cases, so they restrain themselves at least a little.  The decision is going to be made on this thing pretty soon, I think.

The main source that everyone seems to be pulling this info from is this page on the ACLU website.  I've been waiting for a source with more hard information and less of a sensationalized feel to it to show itself, but none has so far.  I'm sharing it now in hopes that someone else might know something about this.  Looks like it could be a big deal.

“The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself,” writes Chris Anders of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

Under the ‘worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial’ provision of S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which is set to be up for a vote on the Senate floor Monday, the legislation will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports the bill.

The bill was drafted in secret by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), before being passed in a closed-door committee meeting without any kind of hearing. The language appears in sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA bill.

“I would also point out that these provisions raise serious questions as to who we are as a society and what our Constitution seeks to protect,” Colorado Senator Mark Udall said in a speech last week. One section of these provisions, section 1031, would be interpreted as allowing the military to capture and indefinitely detain American citizens on U.S. soil. Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil. That alone should alarm my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but there are other problems with these provisions that must be resolved.”

This means Americans could be declared domestic terrorists and thrown in a military brig with no recourse whatsoever. Given that the Department of Homeland Security has characterized behavior such as buying gold, owning guns, using a watch or binoculars, donating to charity, using the telephone or email to find information, using cash, and all manner of mundane behaviors as potential indicators of domestic terrorism, such a provision would be wide open to abuse.

[Aqizzar]

Not to be a stick in the mud, but wasn't the 2006 Military Commissions Act supposed to be the exact same thing?  Okay, so that had some Orwellian mealymouthing about how civilians including US citizens could be declared "enemy combatants" in a never-ending worldwide war, but it amounted to the same power.  And lo and behold, the administration that everyone said would be the evil dictators to use it didn't amount to doing much of anything with it, as far as I remember.

Not that it's not a suspicious sounding story sure, but I'll listen for some more confirmation.  The Senate doesn't vote on anything on the floor without the national news being all over it - one of those consequences of making every vote that even comes to an actual vote into a noteworthy event.

[SalmonGod]

Not to be a stick in the mud

Not at all.  I'm really just wondering what other people think about it, because I respect opinions here.

[kaijyuu]

Whilst "potential for abuse" doesn't necessarily equate "abuse," I'm not sure why having the option there is anything other than a bad thing. Unless there's some redeeming aspect of the bill outside of this, well...

[ChairmanPoo]

...because it's quite outrageous that they can hold someone without charges indefinitedly. The "potential for abuse" is using it in the first place.

[Tellemurius]

...because it's quite outrageous that they can hold someone without charges indefinitedly. The "potential for abuse" is using it in the first place.

We be throwing out the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth amendment then if this goes through, not even the Supreme court would allow this.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There has to be a court case for it to be judged by the Supreme Court. This bill ensures that there will be no court case.

[Tellemurius]

There has to be a court case for it to be judged by the Supreme Court. This bill ensures that there will be no court case.

Its called a lawsuit, a group representing americans can bring a case up notifying the injustice of a law against the united states government on the grounds of unconstitutional.

[Aqizzar]

There has to be a court case for it to be judged by the Supreme Court. This bill ensures that there will be no court case.

Its called a lawsuit, a group representing americans can bring a case up notifying the injustice of a law against the united states government on the grounds of unconstitutional.

And the Justice Department will say they can't testify to protect national security interests, and the case will be closed in the government's favor.  This isn't exactly the first time this kind of thing has happened.

[Dsarker]

Now, I'm not sure about American law, but if you (the plaintiff?) don't show up for a court case, it is dismissed, is it not?