Ted Rall: Executive Privilege is a Lie Handed Down from President to President!

Presidents of both parties have asserted that the constitutional separation of powers grants the executive branch an "inherent" right to ignore subpoenas issued by Congress or the judiciary through "executive privilege." The standard argument is that compliance would reveal the internal deliberations of the president, his Cabinet officers, and other government officials who require the presumption of privacy in order to engage in internal debates and deliberations. The ongoing Fast and Furious debacle is President Obama's first use of "executive privilege" to avoid such subpoenas, but both by historical and current legal standards, the continued use of the tool is a radical overreach. I put "executive privilege" in quotes because, like terms as "enemy combatant," it does not appear in law. The closest we have to a definite word on executive privilege dates to the Watergate scandal, when the US Supreme Court ruled against Richard Nixon's attempt to stonewall Congress. As long as a prosecutor could argue that the relevant documents were essential to the justice of a case, and did not compromise national security, Chief Justice Warren Burger said, the president would have to fork over the documents. Operation Fast and Furious, a law enforcement matter, doesn't qualify under the Burger ruling. Yet, it's hard to imagine a credible case that national security would be compromised if the details were made public. Since run-of-the-mill Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives memos would be covered, the usual top-level internal deliberations justification doesn't apply either. Once again, Obama is following precedent established by George W Bush, whose legal advisers seem to have missed the class about how Americans decided not to be ruled by a King. Bush, who promoted another legal fiction, a "unitary executive" branch, invoked executive privilege six times.   

Grant Smith: Netanyahu Worked Inside Nuclear Smuggling Ring!

On June 27, 2012, the FBI partially declassified and released seven additional pages from a 1985-2002 investigation into how a network of front companies connected to the Israeli Ministry of Defense illegally smuggled nuclear triggers out of the US. The newly released FBI files detail how Richard Kelly Smyth, who was convicted of running a US front company met with Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel during the smuggling operation. At that time, Netanyahu worked at the Israeli node of the smuggling network, Heli Trading Company. Netanyahu, who currently serves as Israel's prime minister, recently issued a gag order that the smuggling network's unindicted ringleader refrain from discussing "Project Pinto." As revealed in previously released FBI files and the tell-all book, Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, the Hollywood producer was recruited into Israel's economic espionage division (LAKAM) in his 20s and learned how to establish front companies and secret bank accounts for smuggling operations. Arnon Milchan encouraged Smyth, a California engineer, to incorporate MILCO in 1972, and serve as a front for the Israel-based Heli Trading's, also known as Milchan Limited, acquisitions of sensitive military technologies on behalf of the Ministry of Defense. Smyth fled the US after being indicted for violating the Arms Export Control Act in the mid-1980s. In July 2001, Smyth was arrested in Spain by Interpol and returned to the US. In November, he was convicted of exporting 800 nuclear triggers, called krytrons. FBI agents interviewed Smyth on April 16-17, 2002, at the US attorney's office in Los Angeles. The secret interview report details how during a trip to Israel,Smyth was "spotted" by Milchan, who claimed he worked as an exclusive purchasing agent for the Ministry of Defense.  

Rick Rozoff: The Pentagon and NATO Rehearse for War against Russia.

Last month was a busy one for US-NATO military exercises in the Baltic Sea. Three major multinational training exercises, including naval maneuvers, amphibious landings and preparation for deployment to Afghanistan, occurred in the region in June, in one case overlapping. From June 10-22 the US Seventh Army's Joint Multinational Training Command (JMTC), based in Grafenwoehr, Germany, conducted this year's Saber Strike, the largest multinational military exercise in the area. Approximately 2,000 troops from seven NATO nations, the US, Britain, France, Canada, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania participated in training to "engage the enemy, as they overcome challenges in interoperability," according to the JMTC's account of the drills in Estonia and Latvia. The former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the rotating sites for Saber Strike exercises and "share resources and capabilities to meet the training requirements of organic units and elements, who may deploy in support of contingency operations in Afghanistan." JMTCs lead exercise planner, Tony Bonarti, said of the training: In pursuing operational cohesiveness, these nations expect to achieve vast improvements in their respective defense and host-nation governments that allow them to be prepared to address both national and international crisis events. Live-fire and field training exercises were conducted at the Adazi Training Area in Latvia and other events were held at facilities in Estonia. The scenario employed for the live-fire exercise was "defending a Forward Operating Base." A US Army Europe website report of a war game simulation held at the Tapa Training facility said: "Working cooperatively with allied partners, the Estonian forces are exercising a combat action scenario. 

David Rosen: Mass Arrests Likely at Political Conventions!

The Republican and Democratic Party conventions later this summer will probably witness the mass arrest of many American citizens assembling to exercise their First Amendment rights. Mass arrests accompanied the Republican conventions held in New York in 2004, when 900 people were busted, and in St Paul in 2008 when 300 were detained, including 30 journalists. A political convention is designated a National Special Security Event (NSSE), a category of state security originally established by President Clinton through a classified 1998 directive. NSSEs also include the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and gatherings of world leaders like the G20 or NATO summits. An event receiving a NSSE designation gives federal and local law enforcement wide discretion, often leading them to treat protesters as potential terrorists and threats to national security. This attitude was visible in the recent NATO summit held in Chicago, at which approximately 70 people were busted over two days, including three for "terrorism," allegedly planning to firebomb the Obama campaign headquarters. Less reported upon but perhaps more illuminating, law enforcement authorities cobbled together a small army to execute the Chicago NSSE campaign. In addition to the estimated 3,100 members of the Chicago Police Department, ground troops came from near and far. The Illinois State Police contributed 700 troopers, Milwaukee supplied 100 officers, a Philadelphia contingent consisted of 68 officers, and still other police personnel came from Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Federal agents had operational control of the Chicago NATO summit because it was designated a NSSE site. Meanwhile, federal agencies, including Department of Homeland Security and the FBI played advisory roles with local law enforcement to plan response activities. 

Christian Hill: The Way President Obama is Running The Country is "Stupid"

The United States could soon become a large-scale Spain or Greece, teetering on the edge of financial ruin. That's according to Donald Trump, who painted a very ugly picture of where this country is headed under its current leadership. Trump made the comments during a recent appearance on Fox News' "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren." According to Trump, the United States is no longer a rich country. "When you're not rich, you have to go out and borrow money. We're borrowing from the Chinese and others. We're up to $16 trillion in debt." Its clear that Trump holds President Barack Obama responsible for the ballooning debt. Trump stated that the way Obama is running the country is "stupid." He goes on to point out that the downgrade of US debt is inevitable. "We are going up to $16 trillion in debt very soon, and it's going to be a lot higher than that before he gets finished. When you have debt in the $21-$22 trillion, you are talking about a downgrade, no matter how you cut it." Ballooning debt and a credit downgrade aren't Trump's only worries for this country. He says that the official unemployment rate of 8.2 percent "isn't a real number" and that the real figure is closer to 15 percent to 16 percent. He even mentioned that some believe the unemployment rate to be as high as 21 percent. "Right now, frankly, the country isn't doing well," Trump added, "Recession may be a nice word." While 15 percent to 16 percent unemployment, a looming credit downgrade, and ballooning debt are a bleak outlook for the United States, they are hardly as alarming as the scenario laid out by another economist. Without earning celebrity status or having his own television show, Robert Wiedemer did something else that grabbed headlines across the country: He accurately predicted the economic collapse that almost sank the United States. 

Nile Bowie: Syria - War and Stabilization!

Diplomatic attempts to solve the Syrian crisis have been rejected by both members of the Syrian government and the opposition. As Ankara laments bold rhetoric and militarizes its border with Syria, this article attempts to foresee three possible outcomes to the ongoing crisis. From the start of the crisis in Syria, the possibility of open foreign military intervention has loomed uncomfortably over the series of diplomatic measures taken in an attempt to diffuse the situation. While earlier attempts to implement the Peace Plan have failed to materialize, Kofi Annan has proposed a new Syrian solution, mandating the creation of a transitional national unity government consisting of both representatives of Assads administration and members of the opposition, insinuating that Assad would not have a place in the new government. Although Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would categorically oppose the idea of foreign powers dictating the future of Syria, stating, We will not support and cannot support any meddling from outside or any imposition of recipes. This also concerns the fate of the president of the country, Bashar al Assad, a recent meeting of the "Syrian Action Group" excluding Riyadh, Tehran and Damascus in Geneva, saw world powers agree to a basic road-map for a Syrian-led power transition. On June 28, 2012, two large bomb explosions targeting a government building rocked Damascus, prompting President Assad to reassert the Syrian governments duty to annihilate terrorists i any corner of the country, adding, We will not accept any non-Syrian, non-national model, whether it comes from big countries or friendly countries. No one knows how to solve Syria's problems as well as we do. In response to the meeting, both Syrian state media and opposition groups condemned the UN-brokered peace plan for the formation of a unity government. 

Dartagnan: Robert Reich, Daily Kos

Robert Reich says the attacks on Romney's tenure at Bain Capital miss the larger point, one which the White House is not even prepared to acknowledge: Mitt Romney is not simply a callous vulture capitalist, he is the living embodiment of the financial catastrophe that brought this country to the edge of ruin. The real issue here isn't Bain's betting record. It's that Romney's Bain is part of the same system as Jamie Dimon's JPMorgan Chase, Jon Corzine's MF Global and Lloyd Blankfein's Goldman Sachs, a system that has turned much of the economy into a betting parlor that nearly imploded in 2008, destroying millions of jobs and devastating household incomes. The winners in this system are top Wall Street executives and traders, private-equity managers and hedge-fund moguls, and the losers are most of the rest of us. The thousands of job losses caused by Ban's "bad bets," while providing rich fodder for the Administration's campaign ads, are really just a microcosm of self-perpetuating, labyrinthine tax system geared to rewarding the wealthiest with the privilege of betting their fortunes on money they've neither earned nor done anything to deserve, with little or no personal risk. Reich calls it "casino capitalism." The biggest players in this system have, like Romney, made their profits placing big bets with other people's money. If the bets go well, the players make out like bandits. If they go badly, the burden lands on average workers and taxpayers. The fortunes raked in by financial deal-makers depend on special goodies baked into the tax code such as "carried interest," which allows Romney and other partners in private-equity firms, as well as in many venture-capital and hedge funds to treat their incomes as capital gains taxed at a maximum of 15 percent.