It seems as if the American Catholic Bishops are oh-so-upset with President Obama's decision to mandate all employers to cover contraception in all health plans, even those provided by religious institutions to employees.

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

No Cardinal-designate Dolan……Catholic Bishops burnt out their consciences when they decided to participate in covering up for child rapists under their employ. So, Obama isn't giving Catholic Bishops a year to "figure out how to violate" their own consciences. That steamboat done sailed. Obama is giving Catholic leaders a year to….comply with the laws of the nation……secular laws that those Bishops have been ordered by their Messiah to obey. Render unto Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar.

Through our nation's democratic process, Congress and the President passed into law a new national health care insurance program conservatives lovingly labeled ObamaCare. Health insurance exchanges are being structured right now….and so the details of what would and wouldn't be required to be covered by insurance companies to qualify for those exchanges are being ironed out.

Obama has ordered HHS Secretary Sebelius to include contraception coverage, without co-pay, as a requirement to qualify for the exchanges. All of the insurance plans made available on the exchanges in 2014 will include coverage for contraception. Contraception is legal to purchase in the U.S., and has been for decades.

The problem Catholic Bishops are having…..not Catholic parishioners, because 3 out of 4 Catholics simply ignore their Church's directives on the evil of contraception……is that Obama has ordered all employers, except for 100% sectarian employers, to make those contraception-including health care plans in the national exchanges available to all employees. The Catholic Church in America employs a lot of people. Many of whom are not Catholic. The Catholic Church in America also receives a lot of tax dollars from the federal government to assist them in their charitable operations.

All that said….here is where Catholic Bishops, most conservatives and even a few misguided quasi-progressives miss the mark on this alleged controversy….under the title "U.S. Bishops Vow to Fight HHS Edict", we find…

At issue, the U.S. bishops and other religious leaders insist, is the survival of a cornerstone constitutionally protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics and all other Americans.

Compare that claim with this…

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Did the Founders use the words "respect for conscience" in the first amendment? No. If the Founders would have included a provision in the 1st which stated that all citizens could disobey federal mandates which they deemed didn't "respect" their individual "consciences"…..Americans would be able to withhold their tax dollars from Washington on the basis that the use of those tax dollars violates their consciences. Do American citizens have the legal right to withhold their tax dollars from the federal government because, for example, their consciences are violated through the use of those tax dollars going for the wholesale killing of Muslims in Muslim lands? Of course not.

What U.S bishops claim as their right is not a right at all…..and that non-right is certainly not found in the 1st amendment. Congress is ordered by the 1st amendment to NOT make any laws which "establish" religion. The word "establish" means "institute, build, or bring into being". The U.S. Congress is prohibited from passing laws respecting the "building or bringing into being" of religion.

At the same time Congress is prohibited from respecting the establishment of religion through legislation…..religious citizens are guaranteed that government will honor the "free exercise" of religion without interference.

With Obama's new order to include contraception in all employer health plans….how are Catholics being denied their "free exercise" of religion? Catholics are not being forced by government to buy or use contraception. Catholics can still practice their religion as they wish. What Catholics cannot do….under Obama's order….is compel those who do not practice Catholicism….to practice Catholicism against their will.

The noise conservatives have been making on this Obama order has nothing to do with some Mother Goose version of a non-existent "protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics." Nothing could be further from the truth. The whining we're hearing is all about a misplaced sense of entitlement which many religionists are confusing with the 1st amendment.

When religious groups decide to enter the public arena, secular-government laws apply. Not religious laws, not conscience laws….secular-government laws. Religious groups are not forced into the public arena. Government does not compel religious groups to do charitable work for the public. They choose to do that work voluntarily.

But when Catholic groups enter the public arena…..offering health services to the general public while employing non-Catholics…..Catholic leaders insist that THEY still get to make the rules, or disobey any rules that government has imposed. That is a misguided sense of entitlement which the 1st amendment knows nothing about.

Question: Under Obama's recent health insurance plan order, are Catholics forced to buy, or use contraception?

Answer: No.

How, then, are Catholic "consciences" being "violated"?

There was yet another Republican presidential candidates debate last night conducted by ABC and Yahoo.

Here is the transcript….

Same old…same old, really. However, the topic of gay marriage came up.

Question….“Given that you oppose gay marriage, what do you want gay people to do who want to form loving, committed, long-term relationships? What is your solution?”

GINGRICH: Well, I think what I would say is that we want to make it possible to have those things that are most intimately human between friends occur. For example, you’re in a hospital. If there are visitation hours, should you be allowed to stay there? There ought to be ways to designate that.

You want to have somebody in your will. There ought to be ways to designate that. But it is a huge jump from being understanding and considerate and concerned, which we should be, to saying we therefore are going to institute the sacrament of marriage as though it has no basis.

The sacrament of marriage was based on a man and woman, has been for 3,000 years. Is at the core of our civilization. And it’s something worth protecting and upholding. And I think protecting and upholding that doesn’t mean you have to go out and make life miserable for others, but it does mean you make a distinction between a historic sacrament of enormous importance in our civilization and simply deciding it applies everywhere and it’s just a civil right.

It’s not. It is a part of how we define ourselves. And I think that a marriage between a man and a woman is part of that definition.

Definition of the word sacrament:….a visible sign of an inward grace, especially one of the solemn Christian rites considered to have been instituted by Jesus Christ to symbolize or confer grace: the sacraments of the Protestant churches are baptism and the Lord's Supper; the sacraments of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches are baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, matrimony, penance, holy orders, and extreme unction.

Gingrich is seeking the office of the presidency of a nation which governs itself, at least theoretically, on the dictates of the Constitution. The separation of religion and state is part and parcel of the laws governing our secular state. The first amendment grants freedom to all U.S. citizens to practice any form of religion they so desire without governemntal restrictions and/or interference…and the first amendment also guarantees citizens freedom from governmental "establishment" of religion. Not one or the other….both, simultaneously.

Newt Gingrich, clearly, would use the power of the government to "establish" the "sacrament" of marriage as the sole entitlement of heterosexual couples. As far as our government is concerned, establishing laws for religious sacramental reasons is entirely lawless….and yet that's what Newt Gingrich plans on doing should he be elected president.

Because of the constant drumbeat from the right that America is a "Christian nation" and that evil and hellbound liberals are out to destroy Christianity…..while assisting Muslims in setting up their worldwide Caliphate to destroy America…..we need some clarity on this issue.

Newt Gingrich helps us out with that clarity…..from last night's debate….

GINGRICH: I just want to raise — since we’ve spent this much time on these issues — I just want to raise a point about the news media bias. You don’t hear the opposite question asked. Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration?

The bigotry question goes both ways. And there’s a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concerning the other side. And none of it gets covered by the news media.

These are the words of a man who believes that Christians and Christian groups are "entitled" in ways that no other groups are entitled. In Newt's entirely phony answer, he conveniently leaves out the part where the Catholic Church takes federal tax dollars. The Catholic Church takes federal tax dollars to assist in their adoption services as well as other charitable services to the poor and needy.

Gingrich knows that when a religious group takes federal money they are bound to obey all federal laws with the use of that money. Part of the federal laws the Church is bound to obey, when taking tax dollars, (also known as federal welfare) is discrimination laws. But that's the exact issue that Gingrich says the Church is "entitled" to disobey. Gingrich is telling Americans that Christians and Christian groups stand outside our national system of secular laws. They, alone, deserve entitlements that others never qualify for. In this case, the Church is especially entitled to willfully violate federal discrimination laws WHILE also sucking at the secular government teat.

Why? Apparently, because the Church is in charge of "sacraments"…..and those "sacraments" are based on a higher authority than our nation's Constitution and rule of law.

Gingrich's words are the words of a person seeking higher religious office….not the presidency of the most powerful secular country on earth. They are the words of a bigot who justifies his bigotry by insisting (wrongly) that the Church, because it controls the keys to the "sacraments", the holy things, is entitled to violate federal law with immunity.

The Christian Church is not being persecuted and/or singled out for special governmental punishment, as theocons tell us. Instead, many Christians and Christian Churchs have simply grown accustomed to a misplaced sense of entitlement.

In July of 2010 President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The bill passed the House 237-192 in June, 2010…and the Senate passed the bill 60-39 in July, 2010.

Dodd-Frank was passed in response to the financial sector collapse that began in 2007.

The bill's goal….

To promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end "too big to fail", to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices, and for other purposes.

Dodd-Frank includes a provision which sets up a consumer financial protection agency.

Title X establishes the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, within the Federal Reserve. The new Bureau regulates consumer financial products and services in compliance with federal law. The Bureau is headed by a director who is appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a term of five years. The Bureau is subject to financial audit by the GAO, and must report to the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee bi-annually. The Financial Stability Oversight Council may issue a "stay" to the Bureau with an appealable 2/3 vote. Even though the Bureau is placed within the Fed, it operates independently. The Fed is prohibited from interfering with matters before the Director, directing any employee of the Bureau, modifying the functions and responsibilities of the Bureau or impeding an order of the Bureau.

One year after Dodd-Frank's passage, progressives encouraged Obama to nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the new consumer protection bureau. Here's why…

For the first year after the bill's signing, Warren worked on implementation of the bureau as a Special Assistant to the President in anticipation of the agency's formal opening. While liberal groups and consumer advocacy groups pushed for Obama to nominate Warren as the agency's permanent director, Warren was strongly opposed by financial institutions which had criticized Warren as overly aggressive in pursuing regulations and by the Republican members of Congress.

Instead of picking Warren, in July 2011 (one full year after the law's passage) President Obama nominated former Ohio AG Richard Cordray as the bureau's director. Since then, Republicans in the Senate have filibustered any "advise and consent" vote on the president's nomination.

That's where it all stood until yesterday, when in one of his boldest political moves, President Obama appointed Cordray during an official Senate recess. From Obama's speech in Shaker Heights, Ohio yesterday….

"For almost half a year, Republicans in the Senate have blocked Richard’s confirmation. They refused to even give Richard and up or down vote. Now, this is not because Richard is not qualified. There's no question that Richard is the right person for the job. He’s got the support of Democrats and Republicans around the country….

So what’s the problem, you might ask. The only reason Republicans in the Senate have blocked Richard is because they don’t agree with the law that set up a consumer watchdog in the first place. They want to weaken the law. They want to water it down. And by the way, a lot of folks in the financial industry have poured millions of dollars to try to water it down.

That makes no sense. Does anybody think that the reason that we got in such a financial mess, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in a generation — that the reason was because of too much oversight of the financial industry?"

The reason Senate Republicans have been blocking Cordray's nomination is because Republicans don't agree with the Dodd-Frank legislation in the first place. Obstructing the nomination process for Cordray (or anyone Obama appointed) meant that the Consumer Protection Agency part of the law could never go into effect. And of course, that's the point.

The Usual Suspect Republicans, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are oh-so-flabbergasted and offended by Obama's recess appointment of Cordray. Boehner called Obama's move "an extraordinary and entirely unprecendented power grab."

And yet,…

…there is precedent for appointments made during recesses of fewer than three days — President Theodore Roosevelt made more than 160 recess appointments during a Senate break of less than a day in 1903.

Mitch McConnell said yesterday that Obama…"arrogantly circumvented the American people" by appointing Cordray during a Senate recess period. This only makes sense if the "American people" equals "congressional Republicans."

Summary: Before the Civil War, southern state nullification efforts were all in vogue. If Washington passed any laws through the constitutional process, Confederate state representatives believed they had the right to disobey those laws….nullify them. That led to the Civil War where 600,000 Americans died. After the War, nullification was regarded as an illegal act.

In the 1950s, southern states attempted to use nullification and interposition to prevent integration of their schools. These attempts failed when the Supreme Court explicitly rejected nullification in Cooper v. Aaron, again holding that the states may not nullify federal law.

With Republicans seeking to nullify the ACA (ObamaCare) and with Republicans trying their best to nullify Dodd-Frank through obstruction of it's implementation….it's becoming clearer and clearer that the Republican Party is morphing ever closer into a potentially very dangerous Neo-Confederacy.

Good on Obama for punching back. His appointment of Cordray yesterday, plus 3 National Labor Relations Board members Republicans were also obstructing, demonstrates that Obama will not back down from the threats of a Neo-Confederacy.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon ordered his White House thugs to go after Daniel Ellsberg for making public the Pentagon Papers. The Papers were quite an embarrassment to Nixon's White House. Nixon responded by beginning a campaign "against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally." Part of that campaign we know now as the Watergate burglary. Watergate eventually led to President Nixon's resignation.

Today, I feel sympathy for Nixon. Not because he wasn't a deeply disturbed and lawless Republican President…he was….but because, if he were president today, Nixon would have had the liberty to simply 'disappear' Daniel Ellsberg. Watergate would have never been necessary, and Nixon could have finished out his second term without having to resign in humiliation.

Let me explain.

Two weeks ago, President Obama threatened to veto the 2012 Defense Authorization Act if the bill constrained the presidency in any way from…"collecting intelligence, incapacitating dangerous terrorists, and protecting the American people"…..in whatever way the Commander in Chief determined.

Now, Obama has withdrawn his veto threat.

The counterterrorism section of the bill….

…states that the entire world, including American soil, is a battlefield in the war on terror. It expands the U.S. military’s authority to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone, even citizens, suspected of aiding terrorists.

The Defense Authorization Bill will finally legalize the illegal practices we have been practicing as a nation for over 10 years now. Indefinite detention without due process, even for U.S. citizens…..a "world war" where no corner of the earth is immune from U.S. military attack or invasion, and an expansion of the totally bogus "war on terror" broadening it to include "supporters" of "terrorism"…..and allowing the president to decide what that all means.

For those who generally support President Obama's presidency, as I do, make no mistake……it was President Obama, himself, who fought to include U.S. citizens in his indefinite detention without due process powers. It is President Obama who wanted to include U.S. citizens as possible Gitmo permanent detainees. It is President Obama who fought to include suspected U.S. citizens as potential defendants in military trials.

Listen carefully to what Carl Levin (D-MI) said from the Senate floor….

It was the "White House" who demanded the removal of language in Section 1031 of the bill which would exclude U.S. citizens from indefinite detention without civilian trials. It was President Obama, the same man who repeatedly denounced Bush/Cheney lawlessness before being elected president, who is now responsible for "legalizing" and even expanding that same lawlessness.

Signing this Defense Authorization Bill will be Obama's lowest moment as president and will surely set the stage for a future president to become a full-fledged military dictator, untethered from the clear legal restrictions outlined in the Constitution. Yet another example of how America is giving up on it's 200+ year democracy.

And so today, The Reverend has a bit of sympathy for former President Richard Nixon. You see, if Nixon could have only claimed the powers that President Obama is claiming today, he could have simply declared Daniel Ellsberg and editors of the New York Times as "enemy combatants", or "terrorists". Nixon could have had whomever his political enemies of the 70's were….picked up by military police and sent to Guantanamo or indefinitely detained without trial in some foreign hellhole of a prison…maybe even assassinated.

Watergate would have never happened and Nixon would have never had to resign the presidency…..if only he had boldly demanded the presidential powers which Obama claims today. After all, wasn't the Soviet enemy much more of a threat to the Homeland than box-cutter-wielding, stateless, Islamic extremists?

To Republicans who rejoice in my criticisms of a Democratic president….I would point out the support you gave Bush/Cheney in defending their limitless claims of power in illegally waging their contrived and bogus "war on terror." To Democratic voters who support President Obama….I would challenge any excuses offered up in defense of what is very obviously an unconstitutional power grab by this president.

And finally…..I ask all readers to give some thought to a potential Newt Gingrich presidency. A Gingrich presidency with almost limitless unilateral power to round up, incarcerate without charge or trial, and detain indefinitely in Guantanamo prison…U.S. citizens who a President Gingrich, alone, would declare to be "enemies of the state."

Oddly, all this doesn't look like "liberty" and "freedom" to me…..but one thing is for sure….Nixon would have loved it.

According to the U.S. Senate in a vote of 93-7….the U.S. president has the power to declare any U.S. citizen an "enemy of the state", order the indefinite detention of that U.S. citizen, order the assassination of that U.S. citizen, or place that U.S. citizen in Guantanamo to never be heard from again.
All of these new found presidential powers violate the 5th and 6th amendments…..

"No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

These claims of extra-constitutional powers of the presidency have all been justified since 9-11 on the basis of: "the Constitution is not a suicide compact"…or something similar. Which is supposed to mean that the Constitution, with all its prohibitions on presidential power and guarantees of rights for citizens, is a nice, quaint document and all….but we really can't afford those rights and prohibitions right now. If those rights and prohibitions are continued as outlined by the Framers, it has been claimed repeatedly by our Leaders since 9-11, then those leaders will not be able to guarantee our safety.

Other more cynical and jaded Leaders, like Don Rumsfeld for example, have instructed us that freedoms and constitutional rights are basically meaningless, you know, if you're dead. Translation: constitutional rights and presidential prohibitions are optional during "the long war", "the endless war."

How long will "the long war" continue? How long will Americans be deprived of their rights? How long will the executive branch claim extra-constitutional powers to assassinate U.S. citizens? How long will the U.S. president claim that it's necessary to indefinitely detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, in offshore gulags without rights to due process?

No one knows. That's the benefit of "a long war."

Our permanent military state has arrived….and it's never going away. 10 years and counting and there are no signs that "the long war" is anywhere near over…..Iran, obviously, is our next target. There's much more to destroy in the middle east. There are many more regimes which need changing.

Along similar lines, I was not shocked…but a little surprised….to learn from this Max Blumenthal article that Israeli Border Police and "a unit from the military of Bahrain" assisted the training of U.S. SWAT teams during Urban Shield 2011 held in October in California.

Why were trainers from Israel and Bahrain assisting our civil law enforcers?

At the time, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department was preparing for an imminent confrontation with the nascent “Occupy” movement that had set up camp in downtown Oakland,…

Although this "training" went on just a few weeks ago….it was not reported anywhere in U.S. media….

Training alongside the American police departments at Urban Shield was the Yamam, an Israeli Border Police unit that claims to specialize in “counter-terror” operations but is better known for its extra-judicial assassinations of Palestinian militant leaders and long record of repression and abuses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Urban Shield also featured a unit from the military of Bahrain, which had just crushed a largely non-violent democratic uprising by opening fire on protest camps and arresting wounded demonstrators when they attempted to enter hospitals. While the involvement of Bahraini soldiers in the drills was a novel phenomenon, the presence of quasi-military Israeli police – whose participation in Urban Shield was not reported anywhere in US media – reflected a disturbing but all-too-common feature of the post-9/11 American security landscape.

I'm not quite sure why the U.S. would want civil law enforcement agencies to imitate the storm trooper tactics of intolerant states, but apparently, we are. Blumentahl calls this "the Israelification of America's security apparatus."

Interestingly enough, even the new torture tactics used by U.S. intelligence officials at the direction of George W. Bush after 9-11 came from Israeli influences…

Karen Greenberg, the director of Fordham School of Law’s Center on National Security and a leading expert on terror and civil liberties, said the Israeli influence on American law enforcement is so extensive it has bled into street-level police conduct. “After 9/11 we reached out to the Israelis on many fronts and one of those fronts was torture,” Greenberg told me. “The training in Iraq and Afghanistan on torture was Israeli training. There’s been a huge downside to taking our cue from the Israelis and now we’re going to spread that into the fabric of everyday American life? It’s counter-terrorism creep. And it’s exactly what you could have predicted would have happened.”

Yes, and The Reverend did predict just such counter-terrorism creep. If constitutional prohibitions on our Leaders can be discarded so easily, if constitutional guarantees to U.S. citizens can be denied so quickly and so easily after 9-11……how can this blatant sense of lawlessness NOT creep into civilian law enforcement.

And so it has.

Not sure about others, but I, for one, do not have any desire to see the U.S. turned into Israel. While Israelis have every right to live in peace in the middle east, as well as elsewhere in the world…..America has no need of Israel's guidance in acting intolerably. And America sure as hell does not need a closed society like Israel's with secretive assassination squads roaming the land in search of enemies. America has no need for occupations of our neighboring countries, America has no need for apartheid.

But it looks like our civilian law enforcers think we do.

Agreement between congressional Republicans and Democrats, authentic bipartisanship, is rarely witnessed today. But there is one part of U.S. policy where the D's and the R's completely agree. Endless war and indefinite detention…even of U.S citizens. Yesterday the Senate passed a $662 billion defense bill 93-7. Nothing passes the Senate by such a wide margin any more. The Senate action is a clear illustration of what our Leadership holds dear. Unquestioned bipartisan approval to fund America's Worldwide Empire…..and to continue, indefinitely, our worldwide "war" against a tactic.

American Leadership stands united on one thing and one thing only….waging endless war against radicalized Islam. "The Long War." A doubling of defense spending has not been enough to bring the unsophisticated and stateless extremists to justice. Ten years of killing, ten years of bombing, ten years of expanding the Empire into many middle eastern nations has not been enough for our Leaders. We must press on to finally destroy the tactic of killing one's self in order to kill and terrify others. An accomplishment that is entirely impossible to attain.

Inside the lengthy defense spending bill, in section 1031, Congress has laid out new detention of detainee guidelines which include indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens without the muss and fuss of constitutional guarantees against depriving U.S. citizens of due process. Guantanamo is not just for foreigners anymore…..

Sen.(Rand) Paul: “My question would be under the provisions would it be possible that an American citizen then could be declared an enemy combatant and sent to Guantanamo Bay and detained indefinitely.”

Sen. McCain: “I think that as long as that individual, no matter who they are, if they pose a threat to the security of the United States of America, should not be allowed to continue that threat.”

Here’s what Sen. (Lindsey) Graham said in the Senate on Nov. 17:

“1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”

For those who actually still believe that our government Leaders are prohibited from depriving citizens of their constitutional rights….as Ron Paul and I do….here's the Doc's take…

Rep. Ron Paul calls this bill “one of the most anti-liberty pieces of legislation of our lifetime.” He says it’s “destructive of our Constitution.”

And Ron's son…

His son Sen. Rand Paul says, “There is one thing and one thing only protecting innocent Americans from being detained at will at the hands of a too-powerful state – our constitution, and the checks we put on government power. Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well, then the terrorists have won.”

Well, Rand…the "terrorist have won". But really…hasn't that been clear for a long time now? Box cutter wielding international criminals have forced the U.S. to take once-guaranteed rights away from every American citizen. Our Leaders over the last 10 years have convinced us that sacrificing our rights is part and parcel of the way we'll "defeat the enemy."

The Pauls, especially Ron, have given the neo-cons in his party and in the Democratic Party a fit. He's a thorn in the side of Empire Expanding Neo-Cons because he keeps bringing up that "goddamn piece of paper" which used to be the American contract, the American charter. But as yesterday's vote proves, our Leaders no longer view the Constitution as binding.

If the Senate bill is reconciled in the House and signed by Obama (he has threatened a veto, probably won't)….any U.S. citizen, on U.S. soil, who the President deems an enemy combatant, and only on his say so….can be taken into custody and transferred to Guantanamo prison and possibly never heard from again. And that's if the President at the time doesn't order that citizen's assassination first. No trial, no charges, no lawyers, no due process…..nothing. Indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen and without any thread of due process as guaranteed under the "goddamn piece of paper."

So while the Village continues to stoke the bogus argument every day that Obama and the Democrats are orchestrating a huge government takeover of all things involving economics…..Democrats and Republicans are working together to…well…orchestrate a huge government takeover of our Constitutional rights.

If TEA Party supporters were as diligent at protecting citizens from the threat of indefinite detention without due process…as they are about protecting citizens from the threat of taking responsibility for their own health insurance…..maybe the TEAs, the ACLU and OWS could have stood together to fend off yesterday's huge governmental power grab.

It should be transparent to anyone who has been paying attention….but I'll say it anyway…. the United States is descending further into an authoritarian militarized country which features separate and distinct forms of justice for the haves…and the have-nots.

The haves….have unfettered and unquestioned rights. Their money is, in actuality, free speech. Their corporations pay cost-of-doing-business fines but are never held accountable and never admit to doing anything wrong….ever. Even though what the haves pay elected officials to do for them does not reflect the will of the American people, compromised elected officials do their utmost, anyway, to fulfill the wishes of the haves. The haves coax the politicians that work for them to pass more legislation which will further enrich them.

The have-nots, increasingly, are marginalized and denied their rights. Right before our eyes, the haves have convinced elected officials that a terrible economic crisis period is the right time for politicians on both sides to take stuff from the have-nots in order for the haves to benefit from even lower tax rates.

In all of this….corporate media have advanced the cause of the haves over the have-nots. This is understandable because corporate media is run by the haves, paid by other haves, for the sake of all of America's haves. In the soon-to-come, waste-of-time argument coming up over unemployment and payroll tax cut extensions….pay attention to how our 4th estate frames the "debate." No doubt, the haves will be pleased.

What media workers don't quite grasp in their urgency to please their haves-masters….is that the haves will turn on them just as they have turned on the 99% have-nots.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently helped to illustrates my premise when he ordered storm troopers to roll up the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zucotti Park.

During the more than six hours we spent at the raid last night, The Observer was unable to get closer than two blocks away from the protest. We assumed this was due to our lack of an official NYPD press badge, however, we also saw credentialed reporters from CNBC, CBS, the Wall Street Journal, NBC, The New York Times, Reuters and a Japanese TV station get blocked at the barricades.

It really would not be surprising in the future to see Have-Mayors, like Bloomberg, establish a new "embed" policy for the press….similar to the "embed" charade during the Iraq invasion and occupation. One of the ways that the haves control our democratic process, or what's left of it, is to control the information to which the have-nots have access.

And so it was that Bloomberg ordered the press away from any eyewitnessing of the Zucotti camp roll up by the Mayor's storm troopers.

Bloomberg went on to give his justification for denying the press access to his para-military invasion of the protester camp….

“The Police Department routinely keeps members of the press off to the side when they are in the middle of a police action. It’s to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect the members of the press,” Mayor Bloomberg said, adding, “We have to provide protection and we’ve done exactly that.”

Just "routine." Denying access to the press, the Authoritarian Have Mayor of New York explains, is simply standard operating procedure. Sure, the press has rights…..but the Have Mayor gets to decide when and how those rights can be exercised…and for how long.

The kicker to me is Bloomberg's explanation that in refusing press access to the storm trooper roll up, he was only acting for the purpose of "protect(ing) the members of the press." Bloomberg, apparently, acting as the Have-Daddy of New York City, must unilaterally deny the press access rights to keep the press safe.

Whatever rights you thought you enjoyed in America are now subject to our Have-Leaders determination of whether we are "safe" or not. You see, rights are fine and all….but when a situation is just "unsafe", then, Billionaire Leaders must insist on limiting or denying those rights for the greater good of "safety."

Allow me to expand. Americans electronic communications have always been guaranteed 4th amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure by the government. But no longer. Why? Because it is no longer "safe".

The right to due process? Another right granted by the Constitution which our Leaders have determined we can no longer safely respect. Sure, the Constitution says that every American citizen has the right to a trial by jury when charged with a crime…..but the President can no longer guarantee "safety" if he doesn't have the right to order the assassination of a U.S. citizen without….umm….due process.

Treaties against the use of torture? Virtuous, perhaps, but no longer meaningful to Authoritarian Leaders who must deny rights to keep us all "safe."

As the great "shining city on the hill" sinks into the authoritarian sunset, it will be because safety (fear) wins out over bedrock constitutional rights. After all, if it is the job of our Authoritarian Leaders to keep us "safe"…..what pesky constitutional guarantees can be allowed to get in the way?

One of the mild surprises during the Occupy Wall Street month-long protest has been the tone deafness exhibited by…well…rich guys from Wall Street. If you haven't seen the video of the champagne drinking money shufflers looking down upon the scruffy protesters…..now's the time…

Then there were the signs in the windows of Wall Street buildings. A few clever financial district gamblers placed handmade signs in a series of four windows which read "We….are….the….1%". One percenters…..and as Bob Serpintini says…and proud of it.

Pardon me….but I'm not seeing the wisdom in Wall Street Ponzi scheme experts rubbing the 99%'s face in the mess they created. I guess they just can't help themselves. Even though these smug, coddled, non-producers were primarily responsible for the national economic collapse with their unregulated money schemes of mass destruction, and so forth….it seems that they just can't find any empathy to offer up to the tens of millions of Americans whom they royally screwed.

Instead, these worst-of-all-capitalists, flaunt their status. Instead, they mock the protesters with their childish Marie Antoinette sign-making stunts. Instead, they rush to their balconies with their champagne glasses, hoping that cameras will capture their brazenness.

Honestly, I can't quite comprehend why a rich Wall Street person would conduct themselves this way. I realize that Wall Street "experts" see themselves as the perennial smartest-guys-in-the-room…in the same way that Enron's Jeff Skilling did. But truly, how smart is it to taunt tens of thousands of protesters who are protesting your role in destroying the national economy? How intelligent are you if you think your bank account and job status is going to protect you from your enemies, both foreign and domestic?

The NY Times had a piece this weekend entitled "In Private, Wall St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters as Unsophisticated"…

“Who do you think pays the taxes?” said one longtime money manager. “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services. This is just disgruntled people.”

Let me ask readers….how well is your financial services industry doing when in just two short years, their efforts have resulted in a standard of living rollback of 10% for almost all Americans? Is the financial industry really "doing it well" when their brilliant ideas, arrived at and conducted without any checks and balances, resulted in millions upon millions of foreclosures and millions more unemployed?
Why in the hell would anyone want to "embrace" a record like that?

Yes, some wealthy Americans pay the most taxes….but they ain't hedge fund managers from Wall Street. You see, hedge fund managers make money from the Big Casino game….stock trading. And because stock trading produces nothing of value for the country, elected officials have decided to tax hedge funders at a lower rate than middle class workers. Last year, 25 of these very same hedge fund managers made over $1 Billion each. Yes, they paid taxes on all of their non-productive, gambling winnings….they just paid at a lower rate than, say, a policeman or teacher.

The, "if you want to keep jobs outsourced", comment was a veiled threat to the 99% of us that if we require these coddled, non-productive members of our troubled-gamblers society to pay more in taxes, they'll see to it that none of us have jobs…ever. Nice. So thoughtful.

However, having said all that…..it is THIS straw of smug, arrogance which crushes the camel's back…..

He added that he was disappointed that members of Congress from New York, especially Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, had not come out swinging for an industry that donates heavily to their campaigns. “They need to understand who their constituency is,” he said.

Clear, isn't it? How things are, you know, supposed to work in America. New York politicians "need to understand who their constituency is". Who are Senator Schumer and Gillibrand's constituents? Those who "donate heavily" to those senators campaigns. That's Wall Street's viewpoint.

All across this nation, the 1% has been trying to remind elected officials who their constituency really is. From the Koch Brothers to Dick Armey. From TEA Party, union-busting governors to full time corporate pimps like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Eric Cantor…..the message has been the same as the 1 percenter on Wall Street. "They need to understand who their constituency is." And that constituency consists only of the very rich 1% who fill political campaign chests with all that money.

Our road to oligarchy started about 30 years ago. Over time, a mainly Republican oligarchy gave way to the bipartisan oligarchy of triangulator Bill. Over this same time period average American workers have not seen a raise or an increase in buying power or wealth accumulation. Now, we're at a point where the 1 percenters unashamedly claim that they, alone, make up an elected official's constituency. They own the country because they have paid political campaign bribes to enable them to own the country.

Now they're rubbing our faces in it and mocking the rest of us.

So, how smart are these guys, really? Review the French Revolution to find out.

President Obama's biggest disappointment, at least to progressives, has been his, I guess, "rebirth", as a neo-conservative.

During Obama's campaign for the presidency, he made political hay out of George and Dick's offshore gulags, torture of detainees, unprovoked military attacks and occupations of countries posing no threat to America, eavesdropping on Americans without warrants, secrecy, and much more. Rightfully so. The Bush years were marked by an expansion of presidential powers in violation of the Constitution….and the worst part is, the Bushies got away with all of it…thus setting a precedent.

But now Obama has made the Bushie doctrine, his doctrine. Now, the lawlessness of the neo-con Bush regime has been made into a bipartisan, and probably permanent, national doctrine.

Obama has continued the neo-conservative and lawless foreign policies of his predecessors. What's more, Obama has expanded those lawless powers….with his shiny new lawlessness theory that the President has the power to order the assassination of U.S. citizens on only his say so.

Indeed, all the ususal-suspect neo-cons,….Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Dick Cheney, many others….have heaped high praise on Obama the Neo-con….especially because Obama ordered the assassination of the U.S. citizen, Awlaki. It's worthy of remark that the only policy with which neo-con renegades from the Bush administration agree with Obama is on Obama's embrace of neo-con lawlessness.

That said….and with the understanding that American neo-cons have long ago targeted Iran for takeover…..it's interesting to see the Obama administration, including Obama and Hillary Clinton, hellbent to make something huge out of the recent allegations of an assassination plot by two Iranians against the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.

(AG Eric) Holder called the bomb plot a flagrant violation of U.S. and international law. And Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, "We will not let other countries use our soil as their battleground."

Behold the double standard. Or is it simply a total lack of self-awareness?

Since 9-11-2001, the United States government has declared that the entire globe is a "battlefield" where U.S. military forces have the perfect right to wage war just about any way they see fit. In other words, at the same time that DOJ officials are claiming that "other countries" cannot be permitted to "use our soil as a battleground"….U.S. officials have claimed the unique right among all nations…to "use the soil" of any country as our "battlefield."

Chalk it up to "American exceptionalism"….or blindness….or whatever. The point becomes: do as we say, not as we do.

Two weeks ago, the United States assassinated one of its enemies in Yemen, on Yemeni soil. If the U.S. believes it has the right to assassinate enemies like Anwar Awlaki anywhere in the world in the name of a "war on terror" that has no geographical limitation, how can it then argue that other nations don't have a similar right to track down their enemies and kill them wherever they're found?

Other than simply chanting very loudly…U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A…..in order to drown out those objecting to such an obvious double standard….the U.S. really cannot argue convincingly that we, of all nations, are the only ones who are allowed to use the soil of foreign countries to conduct military adventures against our "enemies."

Why is it that the U.S., alone, should have the power to wage war against alleged enemies anywhere we choose to wage that war…..yet other nations shouldn't also have that power?

The L.A. Times editor finishes with a huge understatement…

The world is unlikely to accept that the United States has a right to behave as it wishes without accountability all around the globe and that other nations do not.

Ya' think?

If you really want to find out what this alleged Iranian plot to off a Saudi ambassador is about….read Glenn Greenwald's excellent take. Here's a description by folks who knew the alleged plotter which describes him as hapless….just like many of the others whom U.S. officials have coaxed into staging a plot against the U.S., and then later, announced how safe those officials had kept us by breaking up a domestic plot they, themselves, nurtured into existence.

But the ass-kicker of the day on this story goes to President Obama,…

“There’s a great similarity between how Iran operates and how North Korea operates, a willingness on their part to break international rules, to flout international norms, to not live up to their own commitments. And each time they do that, the United States will join with its partners and allies in making sure that they pay a price,” Obama said.

If the similarity between how N. Korea and Iran operate is….."a willingness…to break international rules, to flout international norms…"….then, the United States of America operates in a similar fashion to N. Korea and Iran.

What else could violating the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment(s) be called? I mean other than operating similarly to Iran or N. Korea?

How about Guantonomo? Our offshore, secret, prisons? Isn't there a "great similarity" between the U.S. and N.Korea and Iran concerning gulags?

How about the American violation of international norms prohibiting attacking a sovereign nation (Iraq) which poses no threat to the U.S? Hell, Iran doesn't even do stuff like that….only the U.S.

Obama may think he is standing strong by talking all Cheney-like over this most recent ginned-up emergency. But the rest of the world's occupants who heard Obama's words yesterday recognize the gargantuan double standard and lack of self-awareness contained in his words.

As many critics have pointed out, House Republicans are in disarray over the debt ceiling. Speaker Boehner could not rally enough support last night for his version of the Grand Compromise to pass without Democratic votes….so he postponed the vote at 10:30 PM.

Republicans will take another stab at it today….but honestly….with 4 days left until Doomsday, I am not optimistic that a deal can be reached.

If I were President Obama, I would issue an executive order Monday morning to raise the debt ceiling, basing that decision on the 14th amendment….

14th Amendment, Section 4…

"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned…."

The debt that the U.S. has already incurred at the behest of members of both political parties, according to the Framers, "shall not be questioned." That's exactly what Republican Congressional members have been doing….questioning whether or not to continue paying the "lawful" national debt. The more exuberant GOP constituents from the so-called Tea Party have been telegraphing for a good long while that not only should paying the national debt be "questioned"….but that the nation will be better off if we default on that debt.

Republicans, from House member Michele Bachmann, to Senator Jim DeMint, have been encouraging their Tea Party constituents by informing them they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling. Not only are these Republican leaders acting recklessly, willing to threaten our national economy during a jobless recovery, but they also are acting in violation of the clear dictates of the 14th amendment.

Let's be clear….raising the debt ceiling is for the purpose of paying for money ALREADY borrowed. Raising the debt ceiling is not about ADDING new spending. If the debt ceiling is raised, President Obama and the Congress are not agreeing to spend MORE money. Instead, if the debt ceiling is raised, the Congress and the President are simply agreeing to continue to pay for national debt ALREADY INCURRED.

Brushing aside the many grand acts of the current theatrical play for a moment……muddied up as they are with phony "debates" about spending and taxes and all the rest of it….Congressional Republicans are simply at odds with what appears to be a clear constitutional order…."the validity of the public debt…shall not be questioned."

By attaching ridiculous multiple trillions in spending cut demands to the straightforward constitutional order to not question the debt…..congressional members are, in fact, "questioning the validity" of that debt.

It bears repeating….the "debt" in the raising-the-debt-ceiling discussion is debt which congressional members and presidents of both parties have made "valid" through past democratic and constitutional votes and presidential signatures.

That being said, President Obama and congressional Democrats bear some of the responsibility for the clusterf*ck we're now witnessing. Instead of simply demanding, repeatedly, that the debt ceiling be raised "cleanly", as the Constitution dictates….Obama has embraced this dispute as a good political opportunity to show that he can out-deficit-hawk the phony Republican deficit hawks, even putting Social Security and Medicare cuts on the table. To his shame, Obama, himself, is questioning the validity of the national debt by confusing and complicating the issue at hand. Even worse, Obama is doing all of it to please independent and centrist, moderate voters…voters he will need to get re-elected next November. Obama may seem like the "adult in the room" in comparison….but in fact, he is exploiting the situation for political gain…and in so doing, he, just like congressional Republicans, is "questoning the validity of the debt."

Authentic presidential leadership would have not stopped using the "bully pulpit" to rally Americans in support of a "clean" debt ceiling bill. Authentic, genuine presidential leadership….especially after the last two GOP hostage-taking situations….would have called out those conservatives who were so eager to spit on the clear constitutional directive to not "question" the "validity" of the national debt. he should have named names….bringing humiliation down on the unconstitutional ambitions of the extreme right.

But he didn't. And so the clock ticks down towards what actually could be economic doomsday.

Most likely, some cobbled together extension will be forged at the very last minute….perhaps Monday night. Republicans, who do not care one whit about deficits and debt, and proved it when they voted to DOUBLE the debt during Bush, the Younger's reign….may go for a short extension at the last minute. Why? Because then they can play their silly little-boy political games over and over until, they hope, Obama is knocked out of the White House next November. Because Republicans really have no policies other than tax cuts for the already-wealthy…..every issue, large or small, is mined for it's theatrical political value. The raising-the-debt-ceiling issue is no exception.

An executive order demanding that the Treasury continues to pay America's debts is in order. It would be what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind when they penned the 14th amendment. Any Republican who objects….any Village media pimp who wags his/her head…. continuing to question the "validity" of the national debt should be called out for their defiance of the Constitution.