The entire Bill can be read if you copy and paste the link below.  Careful, there is also some really graphic stuff about sexual misconduct.  Scroll down to sections 1031 and 1032 to read specifically about the new detainee information.  

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s1867pcs/pdf/BILLS-112s1867pcs.pdf

The military is required, through the passing of this law, to detain those thought to be tied with al Qaeda.  “ For foreign nationals accused of being members of Al Qaeda, military detention is mandatory; for U.S. citizens, it is optional. This section does not exempt U.S citizens from the presidential power of military detention: only from the requirement of military detention.”

The death of Anwar al-Awlaki involved a decision made by President Obama to kill an American citizen without a trial.  There was much discussion about the legal aspects of killing an American citizen accused of being an al Qaeda operative.   Doctrines and previous supreme court judgements deemed it permissable to kill him if capturing him was not feasible.  Another American named Sam Khan was also killed but was not targeted.  He was “collateral damage”.  Mr Khan’s family is petitioning a law suit.   Awlaki and Khan were killed by a missile strike in Yemen.  The Yemeni government secretly gave permission to the United States military to do so.  This secret permission was revealed by wikileaks. 

So there are sound reasons congress and the President might seek the ability to detain, capture or kill persons tied with al Qaeda.  They would like to be able to stop people like Awlaki before the bomb gets on the flight to Detroit or the car bomb is discovered in a SUV in Times Square.  They would like to be able to detain people like Awlaki who are plotting, but are currently protected by the rights of being an American. They want to take these people out before they take more innocent lives.  This is a good thing eh?

The concern is that this ability will be abused.  Where will the definition of al Qaeda activity begin and end?  If I wrote a book or a magazine highlighting stories about people who enjoy Taliban rule would I be considered an al Qaeda loyalist and therefore a terrorist?  Would I be an enemy of the state if I wrote such a story?  Does anyone enjoy the Taliban’s rules? –> why?   My sitting here in my American home writing my free American thoughts, could I be deemed supporting terrorism?  Could I be detained? 

This is the concern of many Americans.  Does this new law take it too far?  The President should be concerned about taking a life especially an American life without first considering whether the information he’s been given is factual and not just hateful.  Awlaki probably needed to be dead and I think the President made a good decision as did the Yemeni government in assisting that decision.  Maybe the Yemeni government wanted him dead, maybe the arms dealers wanted him dead, maybe the oil barons wanted him dead?

If  we let the dirty deeds of the bad guys destroy our free American life then the bad guys win.

The United States government pays companies to build tanks and jets to provide security and to protect the nation from bad guys.  But if the government pays a corporation to build solar panels, high speed rail, or windmills to provide energy independence  (which is a better source of security) than it is called socialist government intervention or “Big Government”.   Why isn’t it called socialist government intervention for us to subsidize the building of war machines?

Socialism is when the state owns the tank building company.  Capitalism is when the tank building company is owned by the corporation.  Subsidizing is when the state pays the corporation to build the tanks.  We have been doing this subsidizing for years.  The Federal Reserve loves it and so do the folks who build the tanks and especially those who own the tank building company.

Everybody is happy until the state says it would rather subsidize high speed rail.  The tank builder doesn’t know how to build high speed trains and therefore shouts SOCIALISM.  Corporate backed media gets on TV news and separates us.  Before you know it Americans are telling other Americans to leave the country if they’d rather have trains then tanks.

Did you know Tanks are only useful for war?  Tank builders therefore need war.  Good tanks protect our soldiers.  So here we are gladly subsidizing tank building to protect our sons.

Why can’t we also subsidize weapons of peace that contribute to energy independence?  Things like high speed rail, and Renewables.  Things that keep the planet clean and alive, and we get to live out our 70 to 80 years in peace?  Unfortunately, some people just don’t get peace.  Maybe a nice long clean peaceful life is just too boring to be enduring.

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and another thing…

What is with some politicians and their big oil and coal bedmates?  I met a very nice young man.  He plans to take his brand new engineering degree to Mexico and work for an oil company.  My heart sank.

If he’s excited about living in the tropics why doesn’t he take that brand new degree to Costa Rica and work for a geothermal company?  Geothermal, solar, wind, biodiesel, and other renewable sources of energy aren’t at the Universities recruiting these brilliant young minds.  They don’t have the federal funding for that.  Oil and coal receive federal funding and they use much of it for recruiting.

Meantime, we’re building tired old SUV’s in our auto plants and wonder why the rest of the world doesn’t want them.  Because the rest of the world has young brilliant minds too.  They are being recruited into the renewable energy industry and making fast and powerful cars that run on batteries and biodiesel.

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one more thing…

Why are we giving up our waterways and aquifers to industry and agriculture and the bottled water industry?  If we didn’t use tax payer money to clean up their messes, we wouldn’t have the beautiful country we have.  We’d have birdless skys and choked waterways and putrid lakes without the EPA and environmental groups bringing tragedies to their attention.   Taxpayers carry the brunt of expense to clean up after them.  We fine them, but, they don’t pay.  Instead they pay for politicians who cover for them or razzle dazzle the public with birthers to take attention away from the real issues.

Trickle down economics isn’t causing that drip you hear, its drool.  Who cares what S&P thinks?  Except, “after the Dow Jones Industrial Average,  the S&P 500 is the most widely followed index of large-cap American stocks.”

We should all be listening to Fred.  The news is full of Standard and Poor (S&P) credit downgrade of the US’s borrowing worth.  I say, OK, so lets not borrow from them.  Lets revoke their use of ratings as a political weapon. I’ve read and read and read and can’t really find an answer.  Numbers, economics, and resources all seem to play a part.

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It may be disturbing to some to find out that not all good comes out of the wealthy corporate interests represented by the S&P’s 500.  Japan is pulling themselves out of their natural and man-made financial woes.  How?  Innovation.  It also helps that they don’t have a tea-party or christian fundamentalists standing on their drowning heads.  OK, with that sentence, I’m guessing I’ve lost about 25% of you.

Economics is nothing more than realizing that all the Earth’s resources are scarce and the study of Economics is how those resources get allocated amongst people.  A comparison of 1961 to today was made that sparked more research.  I asked my smart friend Fred  If our tax rate were the same as it was is 1961, would our deficit get payed off quicker?

and like a true economics guru he gave this reply…

Your question about the tax rate being what it was in 1961 would eliminate the deficit is a good one. The math is correct but ignores what has happened to the dollar since 1961. The top tax rate today is 35% on $357,500 of taxable income. In 1961 it was 34% on $8,000 and went as high as 91% on $200,000, $400,000 joint filers.  See http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/federalindividualratehistory-20080107.pdf for historical rates.

Reagan fixed inflation and brought us trickle down economics, which did not work, by the way. (It just brought a lot of drooling)

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Bush jr brought us cheap efficient wars, which do not end, by the way. (Cheap and efficient?  Fred, I believe your stabbing at humor here.)

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Unions built America after their military service fighting to preserve it.

Mandatory arbitration is a part of every credit card and cell phone contract that you sign.  In so signing you agree to not take the card company or cell phone company to court.  Did you know that?   Tort reform makes it so companies are not found liable for harm.  They use the term frivolous but includes third degree burns and death.  An example of State mandated caps–> in West Virginia  miners are often killed in mining accidents their families can ask for and win millions, but the cap is about $10.000.   Susan Saladoff’s film “Hot Coffee” is effective and makes these confusing terms easy to understand.   Who would think the US government would allow this kind of abuse to happen to citizens of the USA?

This prompted some inquiry into lobbying groups who support arbitration, caps and tort reform.  Then you look up the politicians those lobby groups support and you realize why the government has allowed this abuse.

Two lobbying groups were made the focus–>Americans for Prosperity supported by Charles and David Koch and the US Chamber of Commerce which was created by US president William Howard Taft as a counterbalance to organized labor in  1912.  You may not realize that the US Chamber of Commerce is not a government agency it is a private astroturf  lobby.  (I’m not talking about football fields)

The term astroturf is the billionaire version of grassroots.   Astroturf coalitions are created and funded by corporations and industry trade associations.  They fund lobbying groups who’s job is to win over the middle class and manipulate facts.   Many describe (or disguise) themselves as public relations groups like Bonner and Associates.

In 2009, Jack Bonner and his Associates were working for the  American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) and were caught forging letters to Representative Tom Perriello. The letters were supposedly from true grassroots groups, like the  NAACP — urging him to oppose the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill.  Perriello is one of the co-sponsors of the Clean Water Protection Act. The Coal industry didn’t want this Act signed because it would slow the practice of Mountaintop removal.

Jack Bonner had his company design a fictitious web calculator.  This calculator convinced users the cost of fuel would rise exponentially if legislators signed the Kyoto treaty; while accusing real scientists of being eco-wacko.  They have pulled off the same brilliant shenanigans for pharmaceutical companies, Mobile oil, US tobacco, Citicorp and so forth. The Kochs love these guys and have them working for them through “Americans for Prosperity” and probably many others.

The US Chamber of Commerce seems to have morphed into a completely self-serving machine.  It is a private lobbying group funded by 45 billionaires.  Their common denominator is a dislike for public education and healthcare reform.  These billionaires love funding tort reform and judicial races.  The US Chamber of Commerce helped to shield AIG from liability lawsuits, funded the Tea-party in the 2010 midterm elections, distributed books on energy to children, funded the fight against SCHIP (healthcare for poor kids),  and so forth.  They are drooling over social security money and wanting to legally manipulate it by lobbying for social security, medicare and medicaid to be privatized.  They are funding politicians who get behind this agenda with their pens.  Rick Scott has quickly signed legislation to privatize medicaid in Florida.

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They are the conductor, we are the band.  If you don’t like the music, make your own.  Look up stuff and find out the truth.

he rambles on in the e-mail about being white, conservative, tax-paying, gun-owning, and patriotic.  He also states that America is for him and those like him and the rest of us need to shut up or leave.

so I wished him well and went on to read another e-mail.

The beautiful small town of Eureka Springs Arkansas celebrated another weekend of hugs and love.   This photo was included…

See the guy with the Rebel Flag? He is protesting the diversity weekend celebrated in Eureka Springs, Arkansas three or four times per year. Some attendees are gay and this guy thinks they are against God’s rules and rebel rules and the north should never have infiltrated the south. Not sure really what his message is but he is allowed to peacefully sit among the happy hugging and sign carrying revelers to present it.   No one is telling him he needs to go live somewhere else.  Although a few kids were creeped out when he “pet them”.

Many conversations involving politics in America end with someone telling someone to go live in a different country; which is an unacceptable response for one American to propose to another American. Loving this country involves a respect for what our founding fathers created and the subsequent Amendments that uphold their ideals. Our freedoms are for all people of all ethnic backgrounds and religions, including but not limited to Christian white men.

When people disagree with your love of the planet and each other–> wish them well and go on your way.

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We’ll exile ourselves to places like  Costa Rica, Italy, Germany and Norway for the same reasons our forefathers came to America.  Us worker bees will leave the tyrannical hedge fund managers and their big oil buddies to play with their –  own 401k’s.

It might be a good thing — no one left to fight their wars.  Perhaps they’ll stop booting out the illegal aliens;  who may be needed to clean their mansions and perform CPR on their stressed out hearts?

Voltaire

Senate Republicans pledge that their first crack at repealing The Affordable Care Act (ACA) won’t be their last.  Some refer to it as Obama’s Health Care Law or Obamacare.  The ACA is about Freedom.  Some factions are adamantly drilling in the idea that the ACA is taking away our freedom to not have insurance.  They push the idea that the government is trying to control your body and kill your grandma. When our presidents wife suggests we grow our own food and get more exercise she is compared to Stalin.  It is OK for a child to grow up and die in a war to protect our freedom to not have health insurance?  Please read the truth…

Today, employers can begin submitting applications for the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. Created by the Affordable Care Act, this program provides $5 billion in financial assistance to employers, unions and state and local governments to help them maintain coverage for early retirees age 55 and older who are not yet eligible for Medicare.

For too long insurance company bureaucrats have stood between Americans and their doctors. On Tuesday, President Obama announced new regulations that will crack down on unfair practices by insurers and change the balance of power back in favor of consumers – putting consumers back in charge of their health coverage and care.

Secretary Sebelius marks the three month anniversary of the Affordable Care Act with a live webchat where she will answer your questions.

Today, HHS announced new investments under the Affordable Care Act to support prevention activities and develop the nation’s public health infrastructure which will improve health and enhance health care quality.

To read more facts go to…

Most Americans without insurance don’t have insurance because they can’t afford it not because they don’t want it.  The gentleman who owns the small restaurant had to let his family plan go to keep the business afloat and ignored his chest pains.  The waitress let her private plan go after rates increased due to her kidney stones in order to pay for her condo she paid too much for in 2005.  Most emergency rooms are full of “self-pays”  because self-pays use ER’s as their only source of health care.  Preventative care does not exist for the average self-pay American.
Most restaurants and small businesses can’t afford to offer insurance plans and private plans are expensive, with high deductibles.  There are a those not yet experiencing problems with their health, but they have rent and weddings and cell phone plans to pay for and insurance premiums just don’t fit in to the budget.

The ACA will enhance our freedom — freedom from worry about accidents and sickness, freedom from worrying that if you use your insurance the rates will go up or worse yet you’ll no longer be covered, free from discrimination, free to provide insurance for our adult children, and free preventive care for seniors.

My favorite freedom is the freedom to have your own business because you are no longer forced to work in the corporate world to provide insurance for your family.  Many corporations don’t want us to have that kind of freedom and are backing politicians who convince us to keep things just as they are.

Just be careful what you wish for.

“…The health care law is little different from Social Security. The court unanimously recognized  in 1982 that it would be “difficult, if not impossible” to maintain the financial soundness of a Social Security system from which people could opt out. The same analysis holds here: by restricting certain economic choices of individuals, we ensure the vitality of a regulatory regime clearly within Congress’s power to establish. The justices aren’t likely to be misled by the reasoning that prompted two of the four federal courts that have ruled on this legislation to invalidate it on the theory that Congress is entitled to regulate only economic “activity,” not “inactivity,” like the decision not to purchase insurance. This distinction is illusory. Individuals who don’t purchase insurance they can afford have made a choice to take a free ride on the health care system. They know that if they need emergency-room care that they can’t pay for, the public will pick up the tab. This conscious choice carries serious economic consequences for the national health care market, which makes it a proper subject for federal regulation.

By LAURENCE H. TRIBE

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I feel that an individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune that one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace – anxiety, doubt, disappointment – these are definitely less.

Dalai Lama