The GrassCity Gazette

[wackdeafboy]

Liberty Is An Absolute

"Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their powers; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him."

-- Thomas Jefferson (1816)1

Over the past week I've made two round trip flights by air, which means I have had the distinct pleasure of passing through airport security four times in seven days. It may be my imagination, but I believe that our friendly neighborhood TSA officers are getting more authoritarian. While the officer at the podium still exhibits call center courtesy, those charged with seeing that people make their way through the canvass rope maze and show up with their license and boarding pass ready have taken to shouting orders as if managing a chain gang. Of course, this characterization isn't far from the truth. However, I don't really blame the officers personally that much. Their job is to get people to act in a completely unnatural manner -- partially disrobing in a crowded room full of strangers just for starters -- and with the exception of frequent travelers they are never going to do it right.

So, as the days go by and thousands of new travelers shuffle in and forget to have their licenses ready, forget to take their suntan lotion out of their carry on, try to go through the metal detector with their jackets on, and do a thousand other things that innocent people would never think twice about doing, the frustration must build with these foot soldiers in the War on Terror. "I just told you yesterday that you can't bring liquids through security!" they must think, forgetting that the little old lady they are snarling is not the same little old lady from yesterday or the day before or the day before that. . .

However, my sympathy does not go so far as to let me forget what is happening each time I remove my shoes and render my person, papers, and effects insecure against unreasonable searches. Regardless of the chirpy greeting by the uniformed agent with the infrared flashlight or the bizarre signs attempting to characterize this shakedown as some type of customer service (Rather be molested in private? Just ask. . . ), I always remember what is really going on: I am being investigated for a crime.

There is no probable cause, no writs, no warrants sworn by oath or affidavit. In fact, for the 90-year-old gentlemen in front of me who just put his cane through the x-ray machine and is now holding onto the glass wall as he tries to stumble through the metal detector without it, there is no scenario that any reasonable person could imagine where he would or could harm anyone. Yet he is a suspect, too.

Most sane people who observe spectacles like this immediately conclude that law enforcement is going too far. Surely, there must be a better balance than this between liberty and security. However, in thinking this they have already made an error. When it comes to liberty, there can be no balance. Liberty abides no compromise. Liberty is an absolute.

For generations, Americans have been conditioned to believe that there are no absolutes. The truth is always the synthesis of the extremes and compromise is the supreme virtue. These ideas proceed from the "intellectual class" that dominates our education system -- a breed that long ago abandoned Reason for the Hegelian confusion that allowed them to embrace communism. It is from this quarter that the spurious arguments against liberty proceed. "Absolute liberty is anarchy" or "you must balance liberty with the needs of society" or Bill Clinton's infamous "When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it." All of these arguments are groundless, and those who make them do so because they do not know what liberty is.

Today, what we used to call "liberty" has been given a sterile, quasi-clinical 20th century name. We now call it "the Non-Aggression Principle." It is by no means an inaccurate name, but hardly as poetic or stirring to the soul as Liberty. While it is useful in making arguments (I do so myself all of the time), I often wonder if this name allows the great majority of people to relegate this most sacred of rights to the small libertarian and objectivist constituencies who champion it. It is much easier to say "there are more important things than the Non-Aggression Principle" than it is to say "there are more important things than Liberty." However, Liberty and the Non-Aggression Principle are one and the same.

The passage from Jefferson is not meant to suggest that it originated with him or our founders. They got it from Locke, who developed his ideas from ancient sources. As Locke said, men are naturally in "a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature.”2 The natural right to liberty is absolute, within a natural limit: the law of nature. What is this law? The law of nature is Reason, which “teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions."3

Thus, a state of absolute liberty "is not a state of license."4 People exercising their right to liberty do not have an unqualified right to do whatever they wish, regardless of the consequences. There is a clear and unambiguous limit to even what a person in an absolute state of liberty may do. He may do anything that he wishes as long as he does not harm another in aggression, which he absolutely may not do.

Therefore, it is just more politicians talking gibberish when we hear arguments for more or less liberty or balancing liberty with security or other priorities. Liberty does not conflict with any proper functions of government. When there is conflict between government and liberty, it is always government that is in the wrong. Most importantly, as our founding document clearly states and Reason demands, liberty is a right. It is for no one to limit, regulate, or balance with anything. The minute that any limit on human action is put in place beyond "the bounds of the law of nature," liberty has ceased to exist. One is either free or not free. You cannot enslave someone a little.

Once liberty is properly understood, there are a few conclusions that one can draw about the purpose of government. First, government cannot at the same time secure the right to liberty and prevent crime. The minute that it acts before a crime has been committed, it has destroyed Liberty in the process. Since they have committed no aggression, those restrained by the government crime prevention policy should be free to do whatever they choose, but they are not. While preserving liberty, government may only prosecute and punish crimes after they are committed, except in those rare instances when a law enforcement officer happens to be at the scene of a crime as it is taking place. Even military action is something that our founders understood was only justified when a state of war already existed, which I wrote about in more detail in an article last year. That is why they granted Congress the power to declare war. By definition, to declare something presupposes that it already exists.

The understandable first reaction to this idea is that non-aggression must dictate that in order to be free we must offer ourselves up as sitting ducks to criminals and foreign armies, only able to take action once the damage has been done. This is refuted by the second conclusion one must draw from an understanding of Liberty: each individual has not only a right but a responsibility to defend himself. While this may sound frightening at first, it is not. If the truth be told, this is really the only choice you have whether you live in a free society or not. In all but the rarest of cases, the government simply is not there at the moment you are attacked. You must defend yourself the best you can and try to survive. It is only after the fact that the law can come to your aid. This is only one reason that liberty and the right to bear arms are inseparable from one another.

Finally, you must conclude that in addition to destroying your liberty in the process, crime prevention will always fail. A just law is one that prohibits aggression, such as the law against murder. However, once an aggressor has decided to violate this just and natural law, he is certainly not going to be dissuaded by some societal rule of conduct that attempts to prevent him from having the opportunity to commit the real crime. He will simply break that law, too, as so many murderers do when they use "illegal firearms to commit murder. Only the innocent are punished by attempts to prevent crime. They either follow the unjust law and surrender their liberty or are unjustly punished when they break the law while committing no aggression.

This inevitable failure gives rise to the most ominous aspect of government's misguided attempt at crime prevention: its equally inevitable expansion. With each new failure, the preventative measures must be increased in intensity to prevent further failure. The actions of all must be more and more limited until all opportunity to commit a crime is eliminated, which even under martial law can never be achieved. So, it is a steady march onward, with a police state as the only logical end. Each new failure in the war on drugs or the war on terror takes us another step down that road.

Life in a state of liberty is not perfect. It makes no guarantees other than the opportunity to pursue your happiness. You may prosper or you may be poor. You may be safe or you may come to harm. Chance will certainly have some effect on your life -- we all deal with unexpected circumstances that we cannot control, both good and bad. However, liberty gives you the ability to act upon those things in life that you can control in the way that you believe will be the best for you and those you care about. Without liberty, you can control nothing, and it is only a fool who believes that any government can guarantee that he will never be poor or will never come to any harm. There is only one thing that life without liberty does guarantee: you will never truly be able to pursue your happiness. Robbed of that, why live at all?

[aaronman]

Watch it while you can, Bruno embarrassing the only principled statesmen in the US government:

YouTube - Full Brüno Ron Paul Scene

[MountyBounty]

^^^ wasn't even funny.... Barney Frank woulda have loved that dance.

[MountyBounty]

Greening the Internet: How much CO2 does this article produce?

CNN) -- Twenty milligrams; that's the average amount of carbon emissions generated from the time it took you to read the first two words of this article. Now, depending on how quickly you read, around 80, perhaps even 100 milligrams of C02 have been released. And in the several minutes it will take you to get to the end of this story, the number of milligrams of greenhouse gas emitted could be several thousand, if not more.

This may not seem like a lot: "But in aggregate, if you consider all the people visiting a web site and then all the seconds that each of them spends on it, it turns out to be a large number," says Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross, an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University who studies the environmental impact of computing.

Wissner-Gross estimates every second someone spends browsing a simple web site generates roughly 20 milligrams of C02. Whether downloading a song, sending an email or streaming a video, almost every single activity that takes place in the virtual environment has an impact on the real one.

As millions more go online each year some researchers say the need to create a green Internet ecosystem is not only imperative but also urgent.

"It is part of the whole sustainability picture," Chris Large, head of research and development at UK-based Climate Action Group, told CNN.

"Scientists are saying to us that we have 10 years to take some serious action to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change so taking some sort of initiative is absolutely vital."

A number of studies have highlighted the growing energy demands of computers. A 2007 report from research firm Gartner, for example, estimates the manufacturing, use and disposal of information and communications technology generates about two percent of the world's greenhouse gases -- similar to the level produced by the entire aviation industry.

Anti-virus software firm McAfee reports that the electricity needed just to transmit the trillions of spam emails sent annually equals the amount required to power over two million homes in the United States while producing the same level of greenhouse gas emissions as more than three million cars.

"Most people don't appreciate that the computer on your desk is contributing to global warming and that if its electricity comes from a coal power plant it produces as much C02 as a sports utility vehicle," said Bill St. Arnaud of Canarie, a Canada-based internet development organization.

"Some studies estimate the internet will be producing 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gases in a decade. That is clearly the wrong direction. That is clearly unsustainable," added St. Arnaud.

What do you include when working out IT's carbon footprint?

Calculating the carbon footprint of the entire web however is not as easy as measuring the greenhouse gas emissions of a car.

Data centers -- massive buildings housing hundreds, if not thousands, of power hungry servers storing everything from Facebook photos and YouTube videos to company web sites and personal emails -- are often labeled as the worst offenders when it comes to harming the environment.

In 2002, global data center emissions amounted to 76 million tons of carbon dioxide -- a figure that is likely to more than triple over the next decade, according to a 2008 study by the Climate Group and Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI).
Don't Miss

The footprint of network infrastructure, which is responsible for transporting information from data centers to personal computers, mobile phones and other devices, is harder to pinpoint.

However the same study estimates fixed broadband accounts for around four million tons of carbon emissions and could account for nearly 50 million tons of emissions by 2020.

The manufacturing, transport and use of personal computers and laptops also has what some say is the most significant impact, producing roughly 200 million tons of emissions in 2002.

As millions of people buy new laptops and computers every year, this figure could triple by the end of the next decade, according to the Climate Group report. And it is also true that, like driving a car compared to taking public transportation, some online activities produce more greenhouse gases than others.

More electricity is needed to store, transmit and download a video compared to a simple email, for example. A single search using Google releases 0.2 grams of C02 into the atmosphere, according to Google.

"And what that includes is the energy that we at Google use to be able to receive your search, process it and then send it back to you," Erik Teetzel, one of Google's "green" engineers, told CNN.

"If people are counting things outside the activity that we do, then we don't have control over that so we don't factor that into the equation," said Teetzel.

"We can measure exactly the number of queries that we service and come up with a very accurate estimate and answer from measured results of our actual emissions or energy use per query that we serve."

The drive for energy efficiency

Citing competitive reasons, Teetzel declined to divulge Google's annual power bill, yet he said the internet company has been taking steps to make its main six, five megawatt server farms green as well as the other, smaller data centers it has around the world. It is doing this by using more renewable energy, recycled water and efficient software that requires less electricity to run.

"From a business perspective, it makes sense to get the most what you want to call useful work done using the least amount of resources," said Teetzel.

"Our energy efficiency efforts really did stem from us making our business more competitive."

A number of other companies are also working to take the various pieces that comprise the infrastructure of the internet in a more sustainable direction. Wissner-Gross of Harvard has a company called C02Stats that enables businesses to monitor and manage the environmental impact of their web sites and then purchase renewable energy certificates based on their sites' monthly carbon footprint.

Netherlands-based Cleanbits lobbies web sites to go green by either by purchasing carbon offsets or switching to green hosting providers, like AISO.net, a solar-powered data center based in California. And, like Google, Yahoo also incorporates renewable power and other efficiency measures in its data centers.

However as more of the world joins an age characterized by global flows of information and communication, some say the role the internet plays in making the lives of millions not only more efficient but also environmentally friendly should not be discounted.

"I don't think we've done a good deal with articulating the fact that IT is inherently an efficiency tool," said Teetzel. "That is why you and I use the internet now to find out a lot of information that would have previously been found by us getting in a car and driving somewhere."

"It is a little bit unfair to say that you have this huge carbon cost of the IT industry without articulating the fact that in many, many cases it offsets what I would call heavier, more carbon intense activities that we do in our daily lives," he added.

"Moving electrons is far more efficient than moving atoms. It is actually a paradigm change."

CNN

[aaronman]

Computers in US linked to cyber attack, none in North Korea

(AP) Cyber attacks that caused a wave of Web site outages in the U.S. and South Korea used 86 IP addresses in 16 countries, South Korea's spy agency told lawmakers Friday, amid suspicions North Korea was behind the effort.

The countries include South Korea, the United States, Japan and Guatemala, Chung Chin-sup, a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee, told reporters.

He spoke after being briefed by the National Intelligence Service, or NIS, on preliminary investigations of the IP addresses - the Internet equivalent of a street address or phone number.

The assaults on Web sites in the U.S. and South Korea have been described as so-called denial of service attacks in which floods of computers try to connect to a single site at the same time, overwhelming the server.

The NIS also briefed lawmakers on circumstantial and technical reasons for believing that North Korea could be behind the attacks, Chung said without elaborating.

But the spy agency cautioned it was too early to conclude that North Korea was responsible as the investigations were still under way, according to Park Young-sun, another member of the intelligence committee.

"So far, North Korea was not included among the 16 countries' IP addresses," she told reporters.

U.S. authorities also eyed North Korea as the origin of the trouble, though they warned it would be difficult to identify the attackers quickly.

Three U.S. officials said this week while Internet addresses have been traced to North Korea, that does not necessarily mean the attack involved Kim Jong Il's government in Pyongyang. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

It follows a turbulent few months in which secretive North Korea has engaged in a series of threats and provocative actions widely condemned by the international community, including a nuclear test and missile launches.

North Korea has not responded to the allegations of its involvement in the Web site outages.

On Thursday, seven South Korean Web sites - one belonging to the government and the others to private entities - were attacked in the third round of cyber assaults, said Ku Kyo-young, an official from the state-run Korea Communications Commission, but most were back up and running quickly.

As previously, it was caused by so-called denial of service attacks, Ku said, adding that attacks were continuing on the seven sites Friday, but they were still accessible.

Some 50 cases of problems regarding computer hard disks or data were reported Friday morning in South Korea, the commission said, without giving details.

Park, the South Korean lawmaker, said Thursday that a senior intelligence official told her the NIS suspects the North because the country earlier warned it won't tolerate what it claimed were South Korean moves to participate in a U.S.-led cyber warfare exercise, according to a statement from the opposition Democratic Party.

South Korean media reported in May that North Korea was running a cyber warfare unit that tries to hack into U.S. and South Korean military networks to gather confidential information and disrupt service.

Japan was also being extra vigilant against possible cyber attacks, although there was no sign it had been targeted, officials said.

Japan has a "cyber clean center," set up in 2006, to protect its government computers from attacks, including a decoy computer to analyze possible viruses, Kazuaki Nakakoshi, an information security official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, said Friday.

"No attacks targeting Japan have been confirmed," he said in a telephone interview.

[stoned budda]

Palin says she's not leaving politics

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announces that she is stepping down from her position as Governor ...


Sun Jul 12, 3:10 PM EDT

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said she's not only staying involved in national politics, but she plans to jump back into the national scrum when she leaves office at the end of the month.
The former Republican vice presidential nominee said she plans to write a book, campaign for political candidates from coast to coast — even Democrats who share her views on limited government, national defense and energy independence — and build a right-of-center coalition.
"I will go around the country on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation," she said during an interview published Sunday in The Washington Times.
Palin shocked critics and allies alike when she announced on July 3 that she would leave the governor's office while in the middle of her first term. The governor chose not to seek re-election and suggested it was unfair to hold onto the office as a lame duck. Instead, she will step down July 26 and pursue a national profile. She has not said whether she is building toward a presidential campaign for 2012.
Republican Women Federated of Simi Valley announced Palin was scheduled to speak to the group's private gala on Aug. 8 at the Ronal Reagan Presidential Library in California. The event — reporters will not be allowed to attend — will take place in an airplane hangar that houses a retired presidential aircraft Air Force One and will stir more questions about he curious resignation.
Palin defended the decision because "pragmatically, Alaska would be better off" if her state weren't spending time on ethical complaints against her. She also said the plan to resign had been in the works for months.
Her 2008 running mate disputed suggestions the telegenic and plainspoken soon-to-be-former-official was a quitter.
"Oh, I don't think she quit," said Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008 who plucked Palin out of near-obscurity and made her a household name. "I think she changed her priorities."
For now, though, Palin isn't detailing those priorities.
"I'm not ruling out anything. It is the way I have lived my life from the youngest age," she said in the Washington Times interview. "Let me peek out there and see if there's an open door somewhere. And if there's even a little crack of light, I'll hope to plow through it."
The self-described hockey mom plans to write a memoir but declined to discuss any potential deal for her to become a television commentator.
"I can't talk about any of those things while I'm still governor," she said.
Yet she's already reminding audiences of her bipartisan and family-oriented appeal.
"People are so tired of the partisan stuff even my own son is not a Republican," Palin said.
Like his father, 20-year-old Track Palin is registered as "nonpartisan" in Alaska, she said.
McCain said he believes Palin will play a major role in politics, telling NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that "she has the ability to ignite our party and to galvanize us and get us going again and give us a strong positive message."
That said, McCain declined to endorse a Palin for President campaign.
"We've got a lot of good, strong, young, attractive, articulate spokespersons for our party and our principles," McCain said, citing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Deutschbag]

Budget deficit tops $1 trillion for first time
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER – 3 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nine months into the fiscal year, the federal deficit has topped $1 trillion for the first time.
The imbalance is intensifying fears about higher interest rates and inflation, and already pressuring the value of the dollar. There's also concern about trying to reverse the deficit — by reducing government spending or raising taxes — in the midst of a harsh recession.
The Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit in June totaled $94.3 billion, pushing the total since the budget year started in October to nearly $1.1 trillion.
The deficit has been propelled by the huge sum the government has spent to combat the recession and financial crisis, combined with a sharp decline in tax revenues. Paying for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also is a major factor.
The country's soaring deficits are making Chinese and other foreign buyers of U.S. debt nervous, which could make them reluctant lenders down the road. It could force the Treasury Department to pay higher interest rates to make U.S. debt attractive longer-term.
"These are mind boggling numbers," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at the Smith School of Business at California State University. "Our foreign investors from China and elsewhere are starting to have concerns about not only the value of the dollar but how safe their investments will be in the long run."
Government spending is on the rise to address the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and an unemployment rate that has climbed to 9.5 percent.
Congress already approved a $700 billion financial bailout and a $787 billion economic stimulus package to try and jump-start a recovery, and there is growing talk among some Obama administration officials that a second round of stimulus may be necessary.
This has many Republicans and deficit hawks worried that the U.S. could be setting itself up for more financial pain down the road if interest rates and inflation surge. They also are raising alarms about additional spending the administration is proposing, including its plan to reform health care.
President Barack Obama and other administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have said the U.S. is committed to bringing down the deficits once the country has emerged from the current recession and financial crisis.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.





The Associated Press: Budget deficit tops $1 trillion for first time

[Dickie4:20]

Kulongoski will sign fusion voting bill - Jeff Mapes on Politics

[aaronman]

Britain revokes 5 arms export licenses to Israel

Britain has revoked several licenses granted to British companies to sell weapons parts to Israel because of concerns over their use in Israel's recent war in the Gaza Strip, British and Israeli officials said Monday.


The decision, which an Israeli official said applied to parts for missile boats, does not appear to affect Israel's military capabilities significantly. But it was symbolic given the international outcry against the Israeli military's conduct during the three-week war early this year. While recognizing Israel's right to defend itself, Britain has characterized Israeli actions during the bruising war as "disproportionate."

An Israeli official said Britain canceled five licenses that applied to Saar-class missile boat parts after reviewing 182 licenses in all. He had no further details on what parts were at issue, and spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Britain's decision.

Saar boats fired missiles and artillery shells at targets along Gaza's coast and as cover for ground operations during Israel's three-week war against the territory's Hamas rulers, which the military termed Operation Cast Lead. The operation was meant to quell eight years of militant rocket and mortar barrages on southern Israel.

In London, a spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign Office confirmed a "small number" of export licenses were revoked, but added that there was "no partial U.K. arms embargo on Israel."

After reviewing export licenses after the Gaza fighting, "we judged that in a small number of cases Israeli action in Operation Cast Lead would result in the export of those goods now contravening" EU and British arms-export licensing criteria. "These licenses have been revoked," the spokeswoman said.

The Foreign Office did not specify how many licenses were reviewed or revoked, or which companies held the licenses.

Britain has revoked or rejected arms-exporting licenses to Israel in the past, Israeli and British officials said. Britain is not a major Israeli defense supplier.

There was no comment from the Israeli military or from the Defense Ministry, which oversees military purchases.

The war provoked an international uproar because of the high civilian death toll it exacted and the large-scale destruction it wrought. More than 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed, thousands of homes were destroyed and Gaza's infrastructure suffered heavy damage, according to Gaza health officials and human rights groups.

Israel says about 1,100 Palestinians were killed and that the overwhelming majority were militants, though it has not backed up that claim with documented proof. Thirteen Israelis also died.

International human rights groups have said Israel's overwhelming use of force violated international laws of war — an allegation it denies. Rights groups have also accused Hamas of war crimes for allegedly using civilian areas for cover to carry out attacks and firing rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas.

[Dickie4:20]

The Media Consortium » Weekly Audit: Unions and Wage Growth Can Fuel Recovery

[aaronman]

Corporate Favoritism

Beginning Tuesday, any honey that is sold in Florida is required to be 100 percent pure.

In 2006, Florida agriculture officials began to see a flood of honey that was sold with additives and chemicals.

Beekeepers petitioned the federal government to establish a national honey standard, but nothing happened. Now, the honey industry is embarking on a state-by-state effort to establish rules for pure honey.

This is how "political entrepreneurs" take advantage of state power to eliminate competition. Sad.

[aaronman]

Israeli Soldiers Admit to using Human Shields in Gaza

In a report published this week by Breaking the Silence, a human rights group that publishes testimonies from Israeli soldiers, a soldier involved in the January invasion of the Gaza Strip testified that his unit used Palestinian civilians as human shields while raiding houses. The revelation comes despite a 2005 ban on the practice by the Israeli High Court.

Other testimonies reveal that commanders urged the troops to “shoot first and worry later about sorting out civilians.” The Israeli invasion killed an enormous number of civilians in the densely populated strip and destroyed many residential neighborhoods.

The Israeli military condemned the publication of the testimonies, saying that they were not “as a matter of minimal fairness” given a chance to inspect them before publication. It also said the testimonies were similar to ones given by soldiers shortly after the war.

On March 19, the Israeli military announced it was going to investigate the numerous testimonies from soldiers saying they were encouraged to indiscriminately kill civilians.

On March 30 they announced that they were abandoning the probe, and that every claim was a lie.

[aaronman]

Clinton "Promises" CFR: We won't hesitate to use military against Iran

In a high-profile policy address before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the US wouldn’t not hesitate to use its military to “defend our friends, our interests, and above all, our people” during the segment discussing Iran.

She elaborated on the declaration with “this is not an option we seek nor is it a threat; it is a promise.” Clinton also warned Iran that the US offer to hold talks, which she had previously said she didn’t expect to work to begin with, would not be open-ended and that “our willingness to talk is not a sign of weakness.”

Today’s comments are the latest in a long line of bellicose rhetoric coming from the Secretary of State. Last month during a television interview she said that Iran was risking the possibility of a US invasion, citing the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq as a model.

The US has been demanding that the Iranian government abandon its civilian nuclear energy generation program, and several officials have claimed, despite a stark lack of evidence, that Iran is working on nuclear weapons. The IAEA has pointed out no evidence for the accusation exists, and America’s own National Intelligence Estimate says they don’t believe Iran has an active weapons program either.

[MountyBounty]

Senate votes big expansion of federal hate crimes

By JIM ABRAMS (AP) – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday approved the most sweeping expansion of federal hate crimes law since Congress responded four decades ago to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The legislation, backed by President Barack Obama, would extend federal protections granted under the 1968 hate crimes law to cover those physically attacked because of their gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

"This bill simply recognizes that there is a difference between assaulting someone to steal his money, or doing so because he is gay, or disabled, or Latino or Muslim," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

Voice vote passage came immediately after supporters cleared a 60-vote procedural hurdle imposed by Republicans trying to block consideration of the legislation. That vote was 63-28.

The hate crimes bill was offered as an amendment to a must-pass defense spending bill that the Senate is expected to finish some time next week. Several Republican amendments to the hate crimes legislation still could be considered on Monday, but Thursday's vote determined that it will be part of the defense bill when it passes.

The 1968 hate crimes act covers violence related to a person's race, color, religion or national origin. Federal involvement is confined to a narrow range of circumstances, such as when the victim is using a public facility or attending a public school, serving on a jury or participating in a government program.

The proposed legislation, in addition to expanding the categories covered, ends the "federally protected activities" requirement.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., now being treated for cancer and unable to be on hand for the debate, first proposed the bill in 1997. While coming close on several occasions, he has never been able to overcome opposition from those who contend it infringes on states' rights and First Amendment rights to free speech. Former President George W. Bush said he would veto the bill if it reached his desk.

This time, however, pro-bill Democrats control both houses of Congress and Obama is a strong supporter. Attorney General Eric Holder has urged Congress to give his department authority to prosecute cases of violence based on sexual orientation, gender or disability.

The measure still has a way to go. Obama has told Congress he will veto the defense bill if it includes more money for an F-22 fighter program he is trying to terminate. The House in April passed a similar hate crimes bill, but did it as independent legislation not tied to a larger bill.

The Senate bill, also sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., only authorizes federal prosecutions of hate crimes when the state or local authorities are unwilling or unable to do so. It provides $5 million in grants to state and local law enforcement officials who have trouble meeting the costs of investigating and prosecuting these crimes.

Reid, D-Nev., recalled that Laramie, Wyo., was overwhelmed by the costs of pursuing the case against Matthew Shepard, the gay college student killed in 1998 whose name is attached to the bill. "When this bill becomes law, that will never happen again in Laramie, Wyo., or anyplace else in the country."

Supporters also emphasized that prosecutions under the bill can occur only when bodily injury is involved, and no minister or protester could be targeted for expressing opposition to homosexuality, even if their statements are followed by another person committing a violent action.

To emphasize the point, the Senate passed provisions restating that the bill does not prohibit constitutionally protected speech and that free speech is guaranteed unless it is intended to plan or prepare for an act of violence.

The Traditional Values Coalition had expressed concern in a letter to senators that a pastor could be prosecuted for "conspiracy to commit a hate crime" if a sermon resulted in a person acting aggressively against someone based on sexual orientation.

Another opponent, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said it was "patently offensive" that violence against one class of victims would be considered worse than violence against others. "We cannot have a colorblind society if we continue to write color-conscious laws," he said. "It violates all the principles of equal justice under the law."

Some 45 states have hate crimes statutes on their books, and about half the states have laws covering crimes based on sexual orientation.

The FBI receives reports of nearly 8,000 hate crimes every year. Of those, about 15 percent are linked to sexual orientation, which ranks third after those involving race and religion.

[aaronman]

Spiffy New F-22's added to Obama's War Bill, despite threats of Veto

Despite adding money for two programs that the White House has said will result in a veto of the defense spending bill, a key House Democrat said Thursday he's confident the legislation will avoid that fate.




"We'll work it out," John Murtha, head of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, told reporters following a markup of the bill. "In the end, the bill won't be vetoed."

The panel included $369 million as a down payment for a dozen more F-22 fighter jets, and $560 million for an alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, both actions which the White House has said will lead to a veto.

Murtha's optimism, which comes after a Senate committee also recently added F-22 funding in its version of the bill, sends a signal to the administration that Democrats want to engage in a compromise negotiation on the fighter jet issue, industry analysts say.

Any concession won't mean buying 20 more planes, but perhaps ordering fewer jets over several years to gradually close the production line, said defense consultant Jim McAleese. The outcome must be perceived as in line with Defense Secretary Robert Gates' goal of shifting resources to the Joint Strike Fighter.