The Decline Of (Free) America

It's amazing that this story is hard to find and not being covered by the MSM:

"Indefinite Detention" Bill Passes Senate 93-7

The Senate last night codified into law the power of the U.S. military to indefinitely detain an American citizen with no charge, no trial and no oversight whatsoever with the passage of S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act.

One amendment that would have specifically blocked the measures from being used against U.S. citizens was voted down and the final bill was passed 93-7.

“The bill puts military detention authority on steroids and makes it permanent, American citizens and others are at greater risk of being locked away by the military without charge or trial,” said Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

As Spencer Ackerman highlights, the bill completely violates the sixth amendment in that it allows American citizens to be locked up indefinitely, including in a foreign detention center, without any burden of proof whatsoever. An American merely has to be declared a terrorist and they can be abducted off the streets and never seen again.

And don't be fooled by a token, meaningless amendment:

Feinstein was able to include a largely symbolic amendment which states that “nothing in the bill changes current law relating to the detention of U.S. citizens and legal aliens,” but this measure is meaningless according to Republican Congressman Justin Amash, a fierce critic of the bill.

“Some have asserted that Sen. Feinstein’s amendment, S Amdt 1456, protects the rights of American citizens and preserves constitutional due process. Unfortunately, it does not. It’s just more cleverly worded nonsense,” Amash wrote on his Facebook page.

Senate Wants The Military To Lock You Up Without Trial

Someone the government says is “a member of, or part of, al-Qaida or an associated force” can be held in military custody “without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” Those hostilities are currently scheduled to end the Wednesday after never. The move would shut down criminal trials for terror suspects.

So despite the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a right to trial, the Senate bill would let the government lock up any citizen it swears is a terrorist, without the burden of proving its case to an independent judge, and for the lifespan of an amorphous war that conceivably will never end.

Senate Bill 1867 Would Allow U.S. Military To Detain And Murder Anti-Government Protesters In American Cities

Those who have been burying their heads in the sand over the coming police state need to wake up and face the music.

That U.S. Senators would knowingly and willfully attempt to pass a bill that legalizes the indefinite detainment, torture and killing of American citizens with no due process whatsoever -- and on American soil! -- is nothing less than a traitorous betrayal of the once-free American people.

"The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself," says the ACLU

And YES, it has now been confirmed that the indefinite detainment and murder provisions do apply to American citizens on the streets of American cities.

As Sen. Lindsey Graham explained in plain language on the Senate floor: "...1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland."

For some related articles - see below:

A Stern Vision Of America

Yesterday, in a lengthy op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Andy Stern laid out his vision of America's future in remarkably unambiguous, and chilling, terms.

That vision hinges on state planning and government control of a kind practically indistinguishable from that practiced in communist China.

The fact that Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), holds such opinions is not really surprising.

But the fact that he has been and remains a close confidant of President Obama should sound warning bells.

Stern makes it abundantly clear that in his view, the capitalist economic model that fostered American prosperity over the last two centuries is now obsolete. The "free-market fundamentalist, shareholder-only model," as he calls it, "is being thrown onto the trash heap of history."

Yikes. That alone is pretty scary and it gets worse:

What has replaced it is the centrally planned economy, with its 5-year plans and state allocation of resources, as practiced in China and other communist states.

In particular, Stern lauds the achievements of Chinese communist hard-liner Bo Xilai, mayor of Chongqing and popular spokesman for a resurgent Chinese nationalism.

Stern seems to have swallowed the Chinese communist hype hook, line, and sinker.

Not content to laud the achievements of the state-run economy, Stern seems to go out of his way to diminish the recent accomplishments of American capitalism. He sneeringly refers to "Team USA's results" of high unemployment, stagnant wage growth, trade deficits, and income inequality. All of this, he believes, is the consequence of America's inability to emulate China and other state-planned economies.

Worse still:

It is clear that Stern's thinking has had a profound influence on President Obama. No outside adviser has visited the White House more often than Stern during Obama's presidency, and no one has had freer access to the Oval Office.

Every major policy decision coming out of the Obama administration has had to be cleared with Big Labor, and Stern has been Big Labor's point man in this regard.

It is no accident that Obama's massive stimulus spending contained such largesse for states and municipalities to reward their public-sector employees. Nor is it accidental that ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and other administration initiatives are designed to extend state control over major sectors of the economy.

The problem with all of this is that Stern's vision of the future modeled on that of mainland China is not only fanciful, but dangerously misguided. It contains so many errors of interpretation that one hardly knows where to start.

At the risk of stating the obvious, we see this:

I find it striking that Andy Stern's paean to Chinese economic planning contains no mention of the fact that Chinese citizens do not enjoy even the most basic of human rights.

Do basic human rights matter to a communist?

Nor does there seem to be any realization on Stern's part that the freedoms enjoyed in America, including the protection of free speech and the rights of property, evolved within a free-market economy and are to a great extent intertwined with and dependent upon the continuation of capitalism.

The freedom to engage in business, to earn and retain profits, and to decide how and where to invest capital are inextricably bound up with basic human liberties of freedom of speech and assembly, religious freedom, the free conduct of marriage and family life, and other essential liberties. The fact that neither Andy Stern nor President Obama recognizes this fact is incredibly alarming.

Andy Stern: In Praise Of Communist China

Oh, the irony! If former SEIU Thug-in-chief Andy Stern tried to set up a union independent of the Chinese government, he would be thrown in prison for a very long time.

And yet, here he is on the pages of the (just whisper it, Andy) WALL STREET Journal, praising the Chinese "model" (whatever that is) and gloating over the "death" of free market capitalism:

Of course China has a "plan" - that's what Communists do. They can dictate where to invest, who wins and who loses - and the only way you're going to win is if you join the Communist party.

There is no freedom of action, little entrepreneurship (the hoops they make you jump through to start a business in China are mind boggling), and a regimented labor force who can't strike, can't lobby for worker safety (the coal mining safety record is appalling), and are forced to take what the government gives them and like it.

The 'funny' thing is - Stern doesn't even interpret what is happening in China correctly:

Stern has been taken in by the usual blather from Communists about how great they're doing. Andy evidently hasn't been paying much attention to what's happening in the world lately. This from the LA Times 3 days ago:

Backed by data showing a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy, doomsayers have taken center stage. Unbridled optimism has given way to fears over widening cracks in the Chinese economic miracle.
The gloomy sentiment has spilled into financial markets, whose investors have been running for the exits.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises index, which tracks the stock performance of major mainland companies listed in Hong Kong, is down 26% this year , making it the worst-performing market gauge in Asia.

Now China's housing bubble is deflating. Home prices reversed in October for the second consecutive month as cash-strapped developers became desperate to unload homes. An index of 35 major cities showed 29 had experienced a decline in sales from a year ago; sales plunged more than 50% in six of them, including Beijing.

Behind China's gleaming new high-rises, freeways and bullet trains, the bears see ghost towns, empty roads and superfluous rail lines. Public debt has exploded, raising fears of an overload that could weigh on China's economy.

See the article below for his (Stern) own words :

China's Superior Economic Model

We all know something has to happen to remove America as a world power, and we are watching it happen before our very eyes. Many of us believed that the Rapture of the Church would bring down America (and it may still represent the final blow), but it is becoming rapidly apparent that America's fall could occur prior to the Rapture. Right now, it's a work in progress.

Two main questions emerge:

Who would have ever guessed that a powerful and influential member of our White House "inner circle" would be a devout communist?

And

Will this new bill ultimately be used in the coming war against Christians and Jews - as expected during the Tribulation?

We know that draconian measures will be implemented against those who refuse to worship the antichrist, namely Christians and Jews. This bill would be a very convenient means to 'round up' such 'terrorists'.

The road to the Tribulation continues to be paved. This bill is simply one more step in that direction.