statism watch

Kenneth P Vogel, The Politico
March 15, 2009

Congressman Paul weighs in with his views on the Bilderberg group

The highest levels of the Obama administration are infested with members of a shadowy, elitist cabal intent on installing a one-world government that subverts the will of the American people.

It sounds crazy, but that’s what a group of very persistent conspiracy theorists insists, and they point to President Obama’s nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, as the latest piece of evidence supporting their claims.

It turns out that Sebelius – like top administration economists Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers and Paul Volcker, as well as leading Obama diplomats Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross – is a Bilderberger. That is, she is someone who has participated in the annual invitation-only conference held by an elite international organization known as the Bilderberg group.

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Joe Byrne, RawStory.com
March 15, 2009

Court documents filed Friday reveal that Obama’s lawyers are arguing that Ex-Guantanamo detainees have no constitutional rights.

The Center for Constitutional Rights(CCR), a non-profit legal advocacy group, is supporting four British citizens – Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal al Harith – in their suit alleging religious mistreatment and torture at Guantanamo Bay. Defendants in the case include Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, the retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The four men say that they were “beaten, shackled in painful stress positions, threatened by dogs and subjected to extreme medical care,” according to the Miami Herald. In addition, they reported being forced to shave their beards, being banned from prayer, being denied prayer mats, and watching a copy of the Koran get tossed in the toilet.

Last year, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in D.C. voted unanimously against the 4 ex-detainees. The Appeals Court claimed that the men did not fit the definition of ‘person’ in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because they were foreigners being held outside the United States. Months later, the Supreme Court instructed the Appeals Court to reconsider their decision, based on a Supreme Court ruling that Guantanamo detainees have some rights under the constitution. On Friday, the CCR re-filed their brief in the D.C. Court of Appeal.

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The irony is thick on the ground here – Musharraf, the previous puppet president of Pakistan, also touched off mass protests by the legal establishment when he dismissed top judges for their politics. (In that case, it seems likely Musharaff may have simply been taking a page from the White House).

Saeed Shah, Haroon Siddique. The Guardian
March 15, 2009

Officers launch baton charges at demonstrators, mobs accompanying oppposition leader’s convoy attack buses

Pitched battles broke out between police and demonstrators in Lahore today as the Pakistani opposition’s “long march” calling for restoration of an independent judiciary degenerated into ugly clashes.

Police in riot gear confronted a previously peaceful protest near the high court buildings, launching baton charges and firing teargas rounds at thousands of demonstrators, who in turn pelted officers with stones.

Mobs accompanying the convoy of opposition leader Nawaz Sharif smashed the windows of buses parked along the route. Others torched tyres, sending plumes of black smoke into the blue sky over a usually bustling boulevard littered with stones and empty teargas shells.

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