RIO DE JANEIRO – Four-plus years after the assassination of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco (38), social media giant Facebook has yet to provide investigators with the full stored data of Internet users who visited her social media account prior to the double homicide.
Big Tech Keeps Withholding Data that Could Help Solve Assassination of Rio de Janeiro Councilwoman Marielle Franco
Tag: due process
House GOP scorns bipartisan Senate guns deal
Republican members said to expect “15 or 20” of them to support the legislation, a far lower ratio of support than the bill has garnered across the Capitol.
House GOP scorns bipartisan Senate guns deal
Democrats and Republicans Have One Thing in Common — Both Suck on Free Speech
America, Meet Your New Dictator-in-Chief: The President’s Secret, Unchecked Powers
by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead | June 01, 2022
America, meet your new dictator-in-chief.
As the New York Times reports, “Newly disclosed documents have shed a crack of light on secret executive branch plans for apocalyptic scenarios—like the aftermath of a nuclear attack—when the president may activate wartime powers for national security emergencies.”< The problem, of course, is that we have become a nation in a permanent state of emergency. Power-hungry and lawless, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers and justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security. The seeds of this present madness were sown almost two decades ago when George W. Bush stealthily issued two presidential directives that granted the president the power to unilaterally declare a national emergency, which is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”
America, Meet Your New Dictator-in-Chief: The President’s Secret, Unchecked Powers
Missing Links/Links Behind Paywalls:
Secret Emergency Orders May Include Focus on Internet, New Files Show
Report: Military may have to quell domestic violence from economic collapse
Known Unknowns: Unconventional “Strategic Shocks” in Defense Strategy Development (PDF)
End the Imperial Presidency Before It’s Too Late
Too Much Presidential Power — We’ve Got to Address the ‘Unitary Executive’ Question
Re-post of The Rifle on the Wall: A Left Argument for Gun Rights (Reprise)
My personal notes:
Republicans will blame gun violence on mental health, psychiatric medications, or violent video games, yet they aren’t willing to support solutions, such as affordable healthcare, affordable prescriptions, or defund the military industrial complex! As for Democrats, all they will offer is banning guns!
Speaking of mental health, and psychiatric medications, Peace Labor May made some good points in her most recent YouTube video (you may have to turn your volume up).
Re-post of The Rifle on the Wall: A Left Argument for Gun Rights (Reprise)
In light of the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, and because I’m a glutton for punishment, I’m re-posting a link to my left argument for gun rights from 2017. (One among many. See links at end of article)
Some points covered in the article:
The class concept of the state. It’s not a neutral arbiter to be trusted with a monopoly of armed power. “The concentration of wealth and the concentration of armed power in the hands of a few, are both bad ideas—and the one has everything to do with the other.”
The net effect of eliminating the right of citizens to possess firearms will be to increase the power of the armed capitalist state. Whatever strict gun-control regime is instituted, ruling-class families and institutions will still have all the guns they want.
But what about horrible mass shootings? Recognize that *gun homicides have declined even as gun ownership has increased,*. that mass shootings are a small portion of gun deaths in the US & a lousy index of the social problem of gun violence. But they do grab one’s attention.
For the full argument, go to the article:
The Rifle on the Wall: A Left Argument for Gun Rights
(Reprise)
Related (including some random archived links that I noticed were behind paywalls and/or 404):
A Marxist-Leninist response to Gun Control
Read More »How the 14th Amendment Made Corporations Into ‘People’
Under U.S. law, some essential rights of the 14th amendment belong not only to American citizens, but also corporations—thanks to a few key Supreme Court cases and a controversial legal concept known as corporate personhood.
How the 14th Amendment Made Corporations Into ‘People’
Related:
‘Corporations Are People’ Is Built on an Incredible 19th-Century Lie
Smart War Disinformation and the U.S. Military State
Smart War Disinformation and the U.S. Military State
Should the elimination of citizens’ right to free speech by the government proceed, backed up by the threat of punishment, then no dissenter anywhere will be able to challenge official narratives without risking the fate suffered by U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. A formerly moderate Muslim cleric who spoke out publicly against the crimes of September 11, 2001, al-Awlaki was executed in 2011 without indictment or trial, having been put on the drone killers’ hit list when he began speaking out against the U.S. government’s own war crimes.
No, Biden Can’t Just Sell Off Seized Russian Yachts and Central Bank Assets to Help Aid Ukraine – International Law and the US Constitution Forbid It
Posted by Yves Smith
Yves here. It is instructive to see that a law professor who served as an expert witness for Naftogaz, the Ukrainian national oil and gas company, after Russia seixed its operations in Crimea, is concerned enough about the prospect of the Biden Administration selling confiscated Russian assets to speak up and advise against it.
However, I have my doubts that the US has been as scrupulous about not selling assets of sanctioned and belligerent nations as Professor Stephan suggests. Iraq owned a magnificent, very wide townhouse on East 80th Street between Park and Lexington as its embassy. It was promptly seized after the war started and sold within a couple of years. I sincerely doubt the proceeds were remitted to the new government.
No, Biden Can’t Just Sell Off Seized Russian Yachts and Central Bank Assets to Help Aid Ukraine – International Law and the US Constitution Forbid It
PayPal Blocks Multiple Alternative Media Figures Critical Of US Empire Narratives
Suspending Russia: A Precedent that Undermines the Credibility of the Human Rights Council
April 8, 2022 BY ALFRED DE ZAYAS
On 7 April the UN General Assembly decided to suspend Russia’s membership in the Human Rights Council. This establishes a destructive precedent not only for the future of the Human Rights Council, but for the future of other United Nations institutions.
Suspending Russia: A Precedent that Undermines the Credibility of the Human Rights Council
Related:
YouTube: UN Vote Russia out of Human Rights Council – No Investigation, No Impartial Ruling (via The New Atlas)
Russia’s Exclusion from the Human Rights Council Sets a Dangerous Precedent
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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