Topics discussed include President Obama’s speech at National Defense University on the Administration’s counter terrorism policy, Obama’s defense of drone use, killing U.S. citizens without due process, closing Gitmo, and future conquests of the US government, and more!

• Discussion about President Obama’s speech at National Defense University on the Administration’s counter terrorism policy. You can access the full transcript here.
  
• Discussion about Obama’s statement, “Americans are deeply ambivalent about war, but having fought for our independence, we know a price must be paid for freedom.” This is a true statement. There are so many people who claim to be anti-war, but really aren’t.
• Discussion about how Heit & Cheri have been talking about this for years. In an article entitled, “Obama Kill List: A Different Kind Of War,” Heit outlines the shift to the use of drone strikes as ushering in the era of a different kind of war–it’s not the end of war at all. Obama confirms this with his statement, “And then, on September 11, 2001, we were shaken out of complacency. Thousands were taken from us, as clouds of fire and metal and ash descended upon a sun-filled morning. This was a different kind of war..”
• Discussion about Obama saying, “So after I took office, we stepped up the war against al Qaeda but we also sought to change its course. We relentlessly targeted al Qaeda’s leadership.” This is what he wants the record to show, but it is not exactly true. He didn’t end the wars, he actually stepped them up.
• This is Obama’s most important speech he’s made to date. It is the Obama Doctrine.
• It was 19 minutes before he mentioned the word “drones.”
• Discussion about Obama saying, “Today, Osama bin Laden is dead, and so are most of his top lieutenants. There have been no large-scale attacks on the United States, and our homeland is more secure. Fewer of our troops are in harm’s way, and over the next 19 months they will continue to come home. Our alliances are strong, and so is our standing in the world. In sum, we are safer because of our efforts.”
• Discussion about Obama saying:
  

  Most, though not all, of the terrorism we faced is fueled by a common ideology — a belief by some extremists that Islam is in conflict with the United States and the West, and that violence against Western targets, including civilians, is justified in pursuit of a larger cause. Of course, this ideology is based on a lie, for the United States is not at war with Islam. And this ideology is rejected by the vast majority of Muslims, who are the most frequent victims of terrorist attacks.

• What we have here is that Obama is actually saying that the terrorists are Muslims. He is talking out of both side of his mouth. He’s saying that the US is not at war with Islam, yet most of the terrorists are Muslim.
• Discussion about Obama saying, “First, we must finish the work of defeating al Qaeda and its associated forces.” How do you defeat al Qaeda and who are its associated forces? This is too vague.
• Discussion about Obama saying, “In Somalia, we helped a coalition of African nations push al-Shabaab out of its strongholds. In Mali, we’re providing military aid to French-led intervention to push back al Qaeda in the Maghreb, and help the people of Mali reclaim their future.” Now he’s telling the truth about conquests in Africa. We told you about this back in 2011 in our article, “Gaddafi’s Death Temporarily Closes Middle East Chapter and Opens ‘Chapter Africa’” People didn’t believe us when we said that Africa was next on the list. In fact the US is already all over Africa, but you can expect these missions to ramp up.
• Discussion about Obama saying, Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless “global war on terror,” but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.’ this is one of the scariest parts of his statement, because if you have any association (or even if not) you can be labeled as an extremist.
• Obam tries to blame the questions about drones over the notion that it is new technology. A drone is really no different than having a hired hit man. You are still targeting people and others who are innnocent might be killed in the process. All a drone is is a remote-controlled aircraft. The issue is not the technology, but that you are sending drones places and killing people at will with no regard for life.
  

  As was true in previous armed conflicts, this new technology raises profound questions — about who is targeted, and why; about civilian casualties, and the risk of creating new enemies; about the legality of such strikes under U.S. and international law; about accountability and morality. So let me address these questions.

• Obama was sure to point out as his first point for using drones is that it is effective. The first question should be legal and moral. Does the fact that it is effective make it the right thing to do? he also talks about drones saving lives–whose lives?
  

  To begin with, our actions are effective. Don’t take my word for it. In the intelligence gathered at bin Laden’s compound, we found that he wrote, “We could lose the reserves to enemy’s air strikes. We cannot fight air strikes with explosives.” Other communications from al Qaeda operatives confirm this as well. Dozens of highly skilled al Qaeda commanders, trainers, bomb makers and operatives have been taken off the battlefield. Plots have been disrupted that would have targeted international aviation, U.S. transit systems, European cities and our troops in Afghanistan. Simply put, these strikes have saved lives.

• We don’t even know if the targets should even be targets. He also uses the justification that Muslims kill more Muslims, so what the US is doing is fine. He also has the nerve to say not to take his word for it, then tried to use supposed evidence that we have to take his word for.
• Anytime obama gets into skiddish territory he must bring up 9/11. he also says that America’s actions are legal–because he basically made them legal yesterday.
  

  Moreover, America’s actions are legal. We were attacked on 9/11. Within a week, Congress overwhelmingly authorized the use of force. Under domestic law, and international law, the United States is at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces. We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war — a war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in self-defense.

  And yet, as our fight enters a new phase, America’s legitimate claim of self-defense cannot be the end of the discussion. To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance. For the same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power — or risk abusing it. And that’s why, over the last four years, my administration has worked vigorously to establish a framework that governs our use of force against terrorists –- insisting upon clear guidelines, oversight and accountability that is now codified in Presidential Policy Guidance that I signed yesterday.

• Discussion about Obama talking about bringing the troops home, but where else might they go and who will they be killing with their drones.
• People always say the more war we get into the more peaceful the world will be. Obama is no different.
  

  But by the end of 2014, we will no longer have the same need for force protection, and the progress we’ve made against core al Qaeda will reduce the need for unmanned strikes.

• Discussion about Obama saying that they are only targeting al Qaeda.
  

  Beyond the Afghan theater, we only target al Qaeda and its associated forces. And even then, the use of drones is heavily constrained. America does not take strikes when we have the ability to capture individual terrorists; our preference is always to detain, interrogate, and prosecute. America cannot take strikes wherever we choose; our actions are bound by consultations with partners, and respect for state sovereignty.

  America does not take strikes to punish individuals; we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat. And before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set.

• This is a bunch of foolishness. The US has disrespected the sovereignty of many nations.
• Obama slips in the point that Americans are not to be messed with.
  

  That’s who the American people are — determined, and not to be messed with. And now we need a strategy and a politics that reflects this resilient spirit.

• Obama spends the entire speech contradicting himself–making a claim, then an admission that the US has not followed this.
• Obama basically calls the loss of innocent civilian lives are basically collateral damage:
  

  Now, this last point is critical, because much of the criticism about drone strikes — both here at home and abroad — understandably centers on reports of civilian casualties. There’s a wide gap between U.S. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental reports. Nevertheless, it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war. And for the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred throughout conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

  But as Commander-in-Chief, I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties — not just in our cities at home and our facilities abroad, but also in the very places like Sana’a and Kabul and Mogadishu where terrorists seek a foothold. Remember that the terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes. So doing nothing is not an option.

• Discussion about Obama’s statement that conventional missiles are far less precise than drones. Drones shoot missiles, so how are they less precise?
  

  As I’ve already said, even small special operations carry enormous risks. Conventional airpower or missiles are far less precise than drones, and are likely to cause more civilian casualties and more local outrage.

• Obama had the nerve to pull out a straw man argument. We have never heard people saying that we should put feet on the ground instead of using drones. people are saying they want neither drones nor boots on the ground.
  

  So it is false to assert that putting boots on the ground is less likely to result in civilian deaths or less likely to create enemies in the Muslim world. The results would be more U.S. deaths, more Black Hawks down, more confrontations with local populations, and an inevitable mission creep in support of such raids that could easily escalate into new wars.

• the whole speech is about perpetuating war. He’s talking about mission creep, but the whole next logical place to conquer is part of the accepted process.
• Do you think it is true that Congress is briefed on every drone strike, as the president asserted? They are probably briefed on a lot, but they probably aren’t briefed on EVERYTHING.
  

  And for this reason, I’ve insisted on strong oversight of all lethal action. After I took office, my administration began briefing all strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan to the appropriate committees of Congress. Let me repeat that: Not only did Congress authorize the use of force, it is briefed on every strike that America takes. Every strike. That includes the one instance when we targeted an American citizen — Anwar Awlaki, the chief of external operations for AQAP.

• Discussion about the classification of information preventing politicians from coming out with the full justification for actions taken.
• Obama says that he doesn’t beleive in the killing of U.S. citizens without due process, so then how does he justify the fact that his administration did exactly this?
  

  For the record, I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen — with a drone, or with a shotgun — without due process, nor should any President deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.

• If it is not constitutional for the government to kill US citizens, then how do we explain these police departments killing citizens all the time?
• Obama reveals his true plan.
  

  So the next element of our strategy involves addressing the underlying grievances and conflicts that feed extremism — from North Africa to South Asia. As we’ve learned this past decade, this is a vast and complex undertaking.

• All of this is prepping people for what is to come.
• So, what should the good Americans be doing, and why is democracy always the prescription?
  

  This means patiently supporting transitions to democracy in places like Egypt and Tunisia and Libya — because the peaceful realization of individual aspirations will serve as a rebuke to violent extremists.

• Discussion about Obama saying that the missiles and drones are resources too, thus are part of the foreign aid. Therefore, we need to give more Foreign aid. So basically take the money you wasted on war and put it into more war?
  

  And success on all these fronts requires sustained engagement, but it will also require resources. I know that foreign aid is one of the least popular expenditures that there is. That’s true for Democrats and Republicans — I’ve seen the polling — even though it amounts to less than one percent of the federal budget. In fact, a lot of folks think it’s 25 percent, if you ask people on the streets. Less than one percent — still wildly unpopular. But foreign assistance cannot be viewed as charity. It is fundamental to our national security. And it’s fundamental to any sensible long-term strategy to battle extremism.

  Moreover, foreign assistance is a tiny fraction of what we spend fighting wars that our assistance might ultimately prevent. For what we spent in a month in Iraq at the height of the war, we could be training security forces in Libya, maintaining peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors, feeding the hungry in Yemen, building schools in Pakistan, and creating reservoirs of goodwill that marginalize extremists. That has to be part of our strategy.

• Discussion about Obama saying:
  

  Targeted action against terrorists, effective partnerships, diplomatic engagement and assistance — through such a comprehensive strategy we can significantly reduce the chances of large-scale attacks on the homeland and mitigate threats to Americans overseas. But as we guard against dangers from abroad, we cannot neglect the daunting challenge of terrorism from within our borders.

• Obama says the only way to prevent extremism is to work with Muslims.
  

  And the best way to prevent violent extremism inspired by violent jihadists is to work with the Muslim American community — which has consistently rejected terrorism — to identify signs of radicalization and partner with law enforcement when an individual is drifting towards violence. And these partnerships can only work when we recognize that Muslims are a fundamental part of the American family. In fact, the success of American Muslims and our determination to guard against any encroachments on their civil liberties is the ultimate rebuke to those who say that we’re at war with Islam.

• Discussion about homegrown terrorism:
  

  Thwarting homegrown plots presents particular challenges in part because of our proud commitment to civil liberties for all who call America home. That’s why, in the years to come, we will have to keep working hard to strike the appropriate balance between our need for security and preserving those freedoms that make us who we are. That means reviewing the authorities of law enforcement, so we can intercept new types of communication, but also build in privacy protections to prevent abuse.

• He also mentioned Bradley Manning on the slick, then he turns around and talks about the need for a free press.
  

  To do so, we must enforce consequences for those who break the law and breach their commitment to protect classified information. But a free press is also essential for our democracy.

• What about Julian Assange, the AP scandal, and Fox News phone records?
  

  Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. Our focus must be on those who break the law.

• Obama basically says that Congress is in his way in terms of closing Gitmo. This is BS. If it is ruled that you cannot do it, then they need to shut that whole thing down. Obama comes at the whole Gitmo situation from the angle of “I want to close it too, but they’re not letting me.” Do not be fooled.
  

  The original premise for opening GTMO — that detainees would not be able to challenge their detention — was found unconstitutional five years ago. In the meantime, GTMO has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law. Our allies won’t cooperate with us if they think a terrorist will end up at GTMO.

  During a time of budget cuts, we spend $150 million each year to imprison 166 people — almost $1 million per prisoner. And the Department of Defense estimates that we must spend another $200 million to keep GTMO open at a time when we’re cutting investments in education and research here at home, and when the Pentagon is struggling with sequester and budget cuts.

  As President, I have tried to close GTMO. I transferred 67 detainees to other countries before Congress imposed restrictions to effectively prevent us from either transferring detainees to other countries or imprisoning them here in the United States.

  These restrictions make no sense. After all, under President Bush, some 530 detainees were transferred from GTMO with Congress’s support. When I ran for President the first time, John McCain supported closing GTMO — this was a bipartisan issue. No person has ever escaped one of our super-max or military prisons here in the United States — ever. Our courts have convicted hundreds of people for terrorism or terrorism-related offenses, including some folks who are more dangerous than most GTMO detainees. They’re in our prisons.

• Do you need Congress to close federal facilities?
• Discussion about what will be done with people who are in Gitmo?
  

  Where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts and our military justice system. And we will insist that judicial review be available for every detainee.

  Now, even after we take these steps one issue will remain — just how to deal with those GTMO detainees who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks but who cannot be prosecuted, for example, because the evidence against them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law. But once we commit to a process of closing GTMO, I am confident that this legacy problem can be resolved, consistent with our commitment to the rule of law.

• If they cannot be prosecuted, then don’t you have to let them go?
• Discussion about Obama seeming to be pointing to the idea of moving people to a “supermax” prison.
  

  These restrictions make no sense. After all, under President Bush, some 530 detainees were transferred from GTMO with Congress’s support. When I ran for President the first time, John McCain supported closing GTMO — this was a bipartisan issue. No person has ever escaped one of our super-max or military prisons here in the United States — ever. Our courts have convicted hundreds of people for terrorism or terrorism-related offenses, including some folks who are more dangerous than most GTMO detainees. They’re in our prisons.

  And given my administration’s relentless pursuit of al Qaeda’s leadership, there is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should have never have been opened. (Applause.)

• Discussion about Obama saying:
  

  I have asked the Department of Defense to designate a site in the United States where we can hold military commissions. I’m appointing a new senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries.

  I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen so we can review them on a case-by-case basis. To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries.



• Obama was questioned in the style of a heckler during his speech.
• Discussion about the different types of courts in which accused terrorists might be tried.
• He ends the speech with a bunch of fluff and BS.
• We have been pressing this issue for a long time, and it is good to get his contradictions on record.
• Everyone needs to watch this speech. Look at what he is saying.
• Discussion about the recent London killing of a soldier. This put a new face to the world’s terrorists.
  

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Watch the speech below:

See the full transcript of the speech below

President Obama’s remarks at the National Defense University on Thursday, as released by the White House:

Good afternoon, everybody. Please be seated.

It is a great honor to return to the National Defense University. Here, at Fort McNair, Americans have served in uniform since 1791 — standing guard in the earliest days of the Republic, and contemplating the future of warfare here in the 21st century.

For over two centuries, the United States has been bound together by founding documents that defined who we are as Americans, and served as our compass through every type of change. Matters of war and peace are no different. Americans are deeply ambivalent about war, but having fought for our independence, we know a price must be paid for freedom. From the Civil War to our struggle against fascism, on through the long twilight struggle of the Cold War, battlefields have changed and technology has evolved. But our commitment to constitutional principles has weathered every war, and every war has come to an end.

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a new dawn of democracy took hold abroad, and a decade of peace and prosperity arrived here at home. And for a moment, it seemed the 21st century would be a tranquil time. And then, on September 11, 2001, we were shaken out of complacency. Thousands were taken from us, as clouds of fire and metal and ash descended upon a sun-filled morning. This was a different kind of war. No armies came to our shores, and our military was not the principal target. Instead, a group of terrorists came to kill as many civilians as they could.

And so our nation went to war. We have now been at war for well over a decade. I won’t review the full history. What is clear is that we quickly drove al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, but then shifted our focus and began a new war in Iraq. And this carried significant consequences for our fight against al Qaeda, our standing in the world, and — to this day — our interests in a vital region.

Meanwhile, we strengthened our defenses — hardening targets, tightening transportation security, giving law enforcement new tools to prevent terror. Most of these changes were sound. Some caused inconvenience. But some, like expanded surveillance, raised difficult questions about the balance that we strike between our interests in security and our values of privacy. And in some cases, I believe we compromised our basic values — by using torture to interrogate our enemies, and detaining individuals in a way that ran counter to the rule of law.

So after I took office, we stepped up the war against al Qaeda but we also sought to change its course. We relentlessly targeted al Qaeda’s leadership. We ended the war in Iraq, and brought nearly 150,000 troops home. We pursued a new strategy in Afghanistan, and increased our training of Afghan forces. We unequivocally banned torture, affirmed our commitment to civilian courts, worked to align our policies with the rule of law, and expanded our consultations with Congress.

Today, Osama bin Laden is dead, and so are most of his top lieutenants. There have been no large-scale attacks on the United States, and our homeland is more secure. Fewer of our troops are in harm’s way, and over the next 19 months they will continue to come home. Our alliances are strong, and so is our standing in the world. In sum, we are safer because of our efforts.

Now, make no mistake, our nation is still threatened by terrorists. From Benghazi to Boston, we have been tragically reminded of that truth. But we have to recognize that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11. With a decade of experience now to draw from, this is the moment to ask ourselves hard questions — about the nature of today’s threats and how we should confront them.

And these questions matter to every American.

For over the last decade, our nation has spent well over a trillion dollars on war, helping to explode our deficits and constraining our ability to nation-build here at home. Our servicemembers and their families have sacrificed far more on our behalf. Nearly 7,000 Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice. Many more have left a part of themselves on the battlefield, or brought the shadows of battle back home. From our use of drones to the detention of terrorist suspects, the decisions that we are making now will define the type of nation — and world — that we leave to our children.

So America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us. We have to be mindful of James Madison’s warning that “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” Neither I, nor any President, can promise the total defeat of terror. We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society. But what we can do — what we must do — is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger to us, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all the while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend. And to define that strategy, we have to make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom. That begins with understanding the current threat that we face.

Today, the core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on the path to defeat. Their remaining operatives spend more time thinking about their own safety than plotting against us. They did not direct the attacks in Benghazi or Boston. They’ve not carried out a successful attack on our homeland since 9/11.

Instead, what we’ve seen is the emergence of various al Qaeda affiliates. From Yemen to Iraq, from Somalia to North Africa, the threat today is more diffuse, with Al Qaeda’s affiliates in the Arabian Peninsula — AQAP — the most active in plotting against our homeland. And while none of AQAP’s efforts approach the scale of 9/11, they have continued to plot acts of terror, like the attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009.

Unrest in the Arab world has also allowed extremists to gain a foothold in countries like Libya and Syria. But here, too, there are differences from 9/11. In some cases, we continue to confront state-sponsored networks like Hezbollah that engage in acts of terror to achieve political goals. Other of these groups are simply collections of local militias or extremists interested in seizing territory. And while we are vigilant for signs that these groups may pose a transnational threat, most are focused on operating in the countries and regions where they are based. And that means we’ll face more localized threats like what we saw in Benghazi, or the BP oil facility in Algeria, in which local operatives — perhaps in loose affiliation with regional networks — launch periodic attacks against Western diplomats, companies, and other soft targets, or resort to kidnapping and other criminal enterprises to fund their operations.

And finally, we face a real threat from radicalized individuals here in the United States. Whether it’s a shooter at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, a plane flying into a building in Texas, or the extremists who killed 168 people at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, America has confronted many forms of violent extremism in our history. Deranged or alienated individuals — often U.S. citizens or legal residents — can do enormous damage, particularly when inspired by larger notions of violent jihad. And that pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood and the bombing of the Boston Marathon.

So that’s the current threat — lethal yet less capable al Qaeda affiliates; threats to diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad; homegrown extremists. This is the future of terrorism. We have to take these threats seriously, and do all that we can to confront them. But as we shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.

In the 1980s, we lost Americans to terrorism at our Embassy in Beirut; at our Marine Barracks in Lebanon; on a cruise ship at sea; at a disco in Berlin; and on a Pan Am flight — Flight 103 — over Lockerbie. In the 1990s, we lost Americans to terrorism at the World Trade Center; at our military facilities in Saudi Arabia; and at our Embassy in Kenya. These attacks were all brutal; they were all deadly; and we learned that left unchecked, these threats can grow. But if dealt with smartly and proportionally, these threats need not rise to the level that we saw on the eve of 9/11.

Moreover, we have to recognize that these threats don’t arise in a vacuum. Most, though not all, of the terrorism we faced is fueled by a common ideology — a belief by some extremists that Islam is in conflict with the United States and the West, and that violence against Western targets, including civilians, is justified in pursuit of a larger cause. Of course, this ideology is based on a lie, for the United States is not at war with Islam. And this ideology is rejected by the vast majority of Muslims, who are the most frequent victims of terrorist attacks.

Nevertheless, this ideology persists, and in an age when ideas and images can travel the globe in an instant, our response to terrorism can’t depend on military or law enforcement alone. We need all elements of national power to win a battle of wills, a battle of ideas. So what I want to discuss here today is the components of such a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy.

First, we must finish the work of defeating al Qaeda and its associated forces.

In Afghanistan, we will complete our transition to Afghan responsibility for that country’s security. Our troops will come home. Our combat mission will come to an end. And we will work with the Afghan government to train security forces, and sustain a counterterrorism force, which ensures that al Qaeda can never again establish a safe haven to launch attacks against us or our allies.

Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless “global war on terror,” but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America. In many cases, this will involve partnerships with other countries. Already, thousands of Pakistani soldiers have lost their lives fighting extremists. In Yemen, we are supporting security forces that have reclaimed territory from AQAP. In Somalia, we helped a coalition of African nations push al-Shabaab out of its strongholds. In Mali, we’re providing military aid to French-led intervention to push back al Qaeda in the Maghreb, and help the people of Mali reclaim their future.

Much of our best counterterrorism cooperation results in the gathering and sharing of intelligence, the arrest and prosecution of terrorists. And that’s how a Somali terrorist apprehended off the coast of Yemen is now in a prison in New York. That’s how we worked with European allies to disrupt plots from Denmark to Germany to the United Kingdom. That’s how intelligence collected with Saudi Arabia helped us stop a cargo plane from being blown up over the Atlantic. These partnerships work.

But despite our strong preference for the detention and prosecution of terrorists, sometimes this approach is foreclosed. Al Qaeda and its affiliates try to gain foothold in some of the most distant and unforgiving places on Earth. They take refuge in remote tribal regions. They hide in caves and walled compounds. They train in empty deserts and rugged mountains.

In some of these places — such as parts of Somalia and Yemen — the state only has the most tenuous reach into the territory. In other cases, the state lacks the capacity or will to take action. And it’s also not possible for America to simply deploy a team of Special Forces to capture every terrorist. Even when such an approach may be possible, there are places where it would pose profound risks to our troops and local civilians — where a terrorist compound cannot be breached without triggering a firefight with surrounding tribal communities, for example, that pose no threat to us; times when putting U.S. boots on the ground may trigger a major international crisis.

To put it another way, our operation in Pakistan against Osama bin Laden cannot be the norm. The risks in that case were immense. The likelihood of capture, although that was our preference, was remote given the certainty that our folks would confront resistance. The fact that we did not find ourselves confronted with civilian casualties, or embroiled in an extended firefight, was a testament to the meticulous planning and professionalism of our Special Forces, but it also depended on some luck. And it was supported by massive infrastructure in Afghanistan.

And even then, the cost to our relationship with Pakistan — and the backlash among the Pakistani public over encroachment on their territory — was so severe that we are just now beginning to rebuild this important partnership.

So it is in this context that the United States has taken lethal, targeted action against al Qaeda and its associated forces, including with remotely piloted aircraft commonly referred to as drones.

As was true in previous armed conflicts, this new technology raises profound questions — about who is targeted, and why; about civilian casualties, and the risk of creating new enemies; about the legality of such strikes under U.S. and international law; about accountability and morality. So let me address these questions.

To begin with, our actions are effective. Don’t take my word for it. In the intelligence gathered at bin Laden’s compound, we found that he wrote, “We could lose the reserves to enemy’s air strikes. We cannot fight air strikes with explosives.” Other communications from al Qaeda operatives confirm this as well. Dozens of highly skilled al Qaeda commanders, trainers, bomb makers and operatives have been taken off the battlefield. Plots have been disrupted that would have targeted international aviation, U.S. transit systems, European cities and our troops in Afghanistan. Simply put, these strikes have saved lives.

Moreover, America’s actions are legal. We were attacked on 9/11. Within a week, Congress overwhelmingly authorized the use of force. Under domestic law, and international law, the United States is at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces. We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war — a war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in self-defense.

And yet, as our fight enters a new phase, America’s legitimate claim of self-defense cannot be the end of the discussion. To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance. For the same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power — or risk abusing it. And that’s why, over the last four years, my administration has worked vigorously to establish a framework that governs our use of force against terrorists –- insisting upon clear guidelines, oversight and accountability that is now codified in Presidential Policy Guidance that I signed yesterday.

In the Afghan war theater, we must — and will — continue to support our troops until the transition is complete at the end of 2014. And that means we will continue to take strikes against high value al Qaeda targets, but also against forces that are massing to support attacks on coalition forces. But by the end of 2014, we will no longer have the same need for force protection, and the progress we’ve made against core al Qaeda will reduce the need for unmanned strikes.

Beyond the Afghan theater, we only target al Qaeda and its associated forces. And even then, the use of drones is heavily constrained. America does not take strikes when we have the ability to capture individual terrorists; our preference is always to detain, interrogate, and prosecute. America cannot take strikes wherever we choose; our actions are bound by consultations with partners, and respect for state sovereignty.

America does not take strikes to punish individuals; we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat. And before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set.

Now, this last point is critical, because much of the criticism about drone strikes — both here at home and abroad — understandably centers on reports of civilian casualties. There’s a wide gap between U.S. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental reports. Nevertheless, it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war. And for the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred throughout conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But as Commander-in-Chief, I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties — not just in our cities at home and our facilities abroad, but also in the very places like Sana’a and Kabul and Mogadishu where terrorists seek a foothold. Remember that the terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes. So doing nothing is not an option.

Where foreign governments cannot or will not effectively stop terrorism in their territory, the primary alternative to targeted lethal action would be the use of conventional military options. As I’ve already said, even small special operations carry enormous risks. Conventional airpower or missiles are far less precise than drones, and are likely to cause more civilian casualties and more local outrage. And invasions of these territories lead us to be viewed as occupying armies, unleash a torrent of unintended consequences, are difficult to contain, result in large numbers of civilian casualties and ultimately empower those who thrive on violent conflict.

So it is false to assert that putting boots on the ground is less likely to result in civilian deaths or less likely to create enemies in the Muslim world. The results would be more U.S. deaths, more Black Hawks down, more confrontations with local populations, and an inevitable mission creep in support of such raids that could easily escalate into new wars.

Yes, the conflict with al Qaeda, like all armed conflict, invites tragedy. But by narrowly targeting our action against those who want to kill us and not the people they hide among, we are choosing the course of action least likely to result in the loss of innocent life.

Our efforts must be measured against the history of putting American troops in distant lands among hostile populations. In Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of civilians died in a war where the boundaries of battle were blurred. In Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the extraordinary courage and discipline of our troops, thousands of civilians have been killed. So neither conventional military action nor waiting for attacks to occur offers moral safe harbor, and neither does a sole reliance on law enforcement in territories that have no functioning police or security services — and indeed, have no functioning law.

Now, this is not to say that the risks are not real. Any U.S. military action in foreign lands risks creating more enemies and impacts public opinion overseas. Moreover, our laws constrain the power of the President even during wartime, and I have taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. The very precision of drone strikes and the necessary secrecy often involved in such actions can end up shielding our government from the public scrutiny that a troop deployment invites. It can also lead a President and his team to view drone strikes as a cure-all for terrorism.

And for this reason, I’ve insisted on strong oversight of all lethal action. After I took office, my administration began briefing all strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan to the appropriate committees of Congress. Let me repeat that: Not only did Congress authorize the use of force, it is briefed on every strike that America takes. Every strike. That includes the one instance when we targeted an American citizen — Anwar Awlaki, the chief of external operations for AQAP.

This week, I authorized the declassification of this action, and the deaths of three other Americans in drone strikes, to facilitate transparency and debate on this issue and to dismiss some of the more outlandish claims that have been made. For the record, I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen — with a drone, or with a shotgun — without due process, nor should any President deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.

But when a U.S. citizen goes abroad to wage war against America and is actively plotting to kill U.S. citizens, and when neither the United States, nor our partners are in a position to capture him before he carries out a plot, his citizenship should no more serve as a shield than a sniper shooting down on an innocent crowd should be protected from a SWAT team.

That’s who Anwar Awlaki was — he was continuously trying to kill people. He helped oversee the 2010 plot to detonate explosive devices on two U.S.-bound cargo planes. He was involved in planning to blow up an airliner in 2009. When Farouk Abdulmutallab — the Christmas Day bomber — went to Yemen in 2009, Awlaki hosted him, approved his suicide operation, helped him tape a martyrdom video to be shown after the attack, and his last instructions were to blow up the airplane when it was over American soil. I would have detained and prosecuted Awlaki if we captured him before he carried out a plot, but we couldn’t. And as President, I would have been derelict in my duty had I not authorized the strike that took him out.

Of course, the targeting of any American raises constitutional issues that are not present in other strikes — which is why my administration submitted information about Awlaki to the Department of Justice months before Awlaki was killed, and briefed the Congress before this strike as well. But the high threshold that we’ve set for taking lethal action applies to all potential terrorist targets, regardless of whether or not they are American citizens. This threshold respects the inherent dignity of every human life. Alongside the decision to put our men and women in uniform in harm’s way, the decision to use force against individuals or groups — even against a sworn enemy of the United States — is the hardest thing I do as President. But these decisions must be made, given my responsibility to protect the American people.

Going forward, I’ve asked my administration to review proposals to extend oversight of lethal actions outside of warzones that go beyond our reporting to Congress. Each option has virtues in theory, but poses difficulties in practice. For example, the establishment of a special court to evaluate and authorize lethal action has the benefit of bringing a third branch of government into the process, but raises serious constitutional issues about presidential and judicial authority. Another idea that’s been suggested — the establishment of an independent oversight board in the executive branch — avoids those problems, but may introduce a layer of bureaucracy into national security decision-making, without inspiring additional public confidence in the process. But despite these challenges, I look forward to actively engaging Congress to explore these and other options for increased oversight.

I believe, however, that the use of force must be seen as part of a larger discussion we need to have about a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy — because for all the focus on the use of force, force alone cannot make us safe. We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes root; and in the absence of a strategy that reduces the wellspring of extremism, a perpetual war — through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments — will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways.

So the next element of our strategy involves addressing the underlying grievances and conflicts that feed extremism — from North Africa to South Asia. As we’ve learned this past decade, this is a vast and complex undertaking. We must be humble in our expectation that we can quickly resolve deep-rooted problems like poverty and sectarian hatred. Moreover, no two countries are alike, and some will undergo chaotic change before things get better. But our security and our values demand that we make the effort.

This means patiently supporting transitions to democracy in places like Egypt and Tunisia and Libya — because the peaceful realization of individual aspirations will serve as a rebuke to violent extremists. We must strengthen the opposition in Syria, while isolating extremist elements — because the end of a tyrant must not give way to the tyranny of terrorism. We are actively working to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians — because it is right and because such a peace could help reshape attitudes in the region. And we must help countries modernize economies, upgrade education, and encourage entrepreneurship — because American leadership has always been elevated by our ability to connect with people’s hopes, and not simply their fears.

And success on all these fronts requires sustained engagement, but it will also require resources. I know that foreign aid is one of the least popular expenditures that there is. That’s true for Democrats and Republicans — I’ve seen the polling — even though it amounts to less than one percent of the federal budget. In fact, a lot of folks think it’s 25 percent, if you ask people on the streets. Less than one percent — still wildly unpopular. But foreign assistance cannot be viewed as charity. It is fundamental to our national security. And it’s fundamental to any sensible long-term strategy to battle extremism.

Moreover, foreign assistance is a tiny fraction of what we spend fighting wars that our assistance might ultimately prevent. For what we spent in a month in Iraq at the height of the war, we could be training security forces in Libya, maintaining peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors, feeding the hungry in Yemen, building schools in Pakistan, and creating reservoirs of goodwill that marginalize extremists. That has to be part of our strategy.

Moreover, America cannot carry out this work if we don’t have diplomats serving in some very dangerous places. Over the past decade, we have strengthened security at our embassies, and I am implementing every recommendation of the Accountability Review Board, which found unacceptable failures in Benghazi. I’ve called on Congress to fully fund these efforts to bolster security and harden facilities, improve intelligence, and facilitate a quicker response time from our military if a crisis emerges.

But even after we take these steps, some irreducible risks to our diplomats will remain. This is the price of being the world’s most powerful nation, particularly as a wave of change washes over the Arab World. And in balancing the trade4offs between security and active diplomacy, I firmly believe that any retreat from challenging regions will only increase the dangers that we face in the long run. And that’s why we should be grateful to those diplomats who are willing to serve.

Targeted action against terrorists, effective partnerships, diplomatic engagement and assistance — through such a comprehensive strategy we can significantly reduce the chances of large-scale attacks on the homeland and mitigate threats to Americans overseas. But as we guard against dangers from abroad, we cannot neglect the daunting challenge of terrorism from within our borders.

As I said earlier, this threat is not new. But technology and the Internet increase its frequency and in some cases its lethality. Today, a person can consume hateful propaganda, commit themselves to a violent agenda, and learn how to kill without leaving their home. To address this threat, two years ago my administration did a comprehensive review and engaged with law enforcement.

And the best way to prevent violent extremism inspired by violent jihadists is to work with the Muslim American community — which has consistently rejected terrorism — to identify signs of radicalization and partner with law enforcement when an individual is drifting towards violence. And these partnerships can only work when we recognize that Muslims are a fundamental part of the American family. In fact, the success of American Muslims and our determination to guard against any encroachments on their civil liberties is the ultimate rebuke to those who say that we’re at war with Islam.

Thwarting homegrown plots presents particular challenges in part because of our proud commitment to civil liberties for all who call America home. That’s why, in the years to come, we will have to keep working hard to strike the appropriate balance between our need for security and preserving those freedoms that make us who we are. That means reviewing the authorities of law enforcement, so we can intercept new types of communication, but also build in privacy protections to prevent abuse.

That means that — even after Boston — we do not deport someone or throw somebody in prison in the absence of evidence. That means putting careful constraints on the tools the government uses to protect sensitive information, such as the state secrets doctrine. And that means finally having a strong Privacy and Civil Liberties Board to review those issues where our counterterrorism efforts and our values may come into tension.

The Justice Department’s investigation of national security leaks offers a recent example of the challenges involved in striking the right balance between our security and our open society. As Commander-in-Chief, I believe we must keep information secret that protects our operations and our people in the field. To do so, we must enforce consequences for those who break the law and breach their commitment to protect classified information. But a free press is also essential for our democracy. That’s who we are. And I’m troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable.

Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. Our focus must be on those who break the law. And that’s why I’ve called on Congress to pass a media shield law to guard against government overreach. And I’ve raised these issues with the Attorney General, who shares my concerns. So he has agreed to review existing Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters, and he’ll convene a group of media organizations to hear their concerns as part of that review. And I’ve directed the Attorney General to report back to me by July 12th.

Now, all these issues remind us that the choices we make about war can impact — in sometimes unintended ways — the openness and freedom on which our way of life depends. And that is why I intend to engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorism without keeping America on a perpetual wartime footing.

The AUMF is now nearly 12 years old. The Afghan war is coming to an end. Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. Groups like AQAP must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states.

So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.

And that brings me to my final topic: the detention of terrorist suspects. I’m going to repeat one more time: As a matter of policy, the preference of the United States is to capture terrorist suspects. When we do detain a suspect, we interrogate them. And if the suspect can be prosecuted, we decide whether to try him in a civilian court or a military commission.

During the past decade, the vast majority of those detained by our military were captured on the battlefield. In Iraq, we turned over thousands of prisoners as we ended the war. In Afghanistan, we have transitioned detention facilities to the Afghans, as part of the process of restoring Afghan sovereignty. So we bring law of war detention to an end, and we are committed to prosecuting terrorists wherever we can.

The glaring exception to this time-tested approach is the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. The original premise for opening GTMO — that detainees would not be able to challenge their detention — was found unconstitutional five years ago. In the meantime, GTMO has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law. Our allies won’t cooperate with us if they think a terrorist will end up at GTMO.

During a time of budget cuts, we spend $150 million each year to imprison 166 people — almost $1 million per prisoner. And the Department of Defense estimates that we must spend another $200 million to keep GTMO open at a time when we’re cutting investments in education and research here at home, and when the Pentagon is struggling with sequester and budget cuts.

As President, I have tried to close GTMO. I transferred 67 detainees to other countries before Congress imposed restrictions to effectively prevent us from either transferring detainees to other countries or imprisoning them here in the United States.

These restrictions make no sense. After all, under President Bush, some 530 detainees were transferred from GTMO with Congress’s support. When I ran for President the first time, John McCain supported closing GTMO — this was a bipartisan issue. No person has ever escaped one of our super-max or military prisons here in the United States — ever. Our courts have convicted hundreds of people for terrorism or terrorism-related offenses, including some folks who are more dangerous than most GTMO detainees. They’re in our prisons.

And given my administration’s relentless pursuit of al Qaeda’s leadership, there is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should have never have been opened. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Excuse me, President Obama —

THE PRESIDENT: So — let me finish, ma’am. So today, once again —

AUDIENCE MEMBER: There are 102 people on a hunger strike. These are desperate people.

THE PRESIDENT: I’m about to address it, ma’am, but you’ve got to let me speak. I’m about to address it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: You’re our Commander-In-Chief —

THE PRESIDENT: Let me address it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: — you an close Guantanamo Bay.

THE PRESIDENT: Why don’t you let me address it, ma’am.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: There’s still prisoners —

THE PRESIDENT: Why don’t you sit down and I will tell you exactly what I’m going to do.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That includes 57 Yemenis.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, ma’am. Thank you. (Applause.) Ma’am, thank you. You should let me finish my sentence.

Today, I once again call on Congress to lift the restrictions on detainee transfers from GTMO. (Applause.)

I have asked the Department of Defense to designate a site in the United States where we can hold military commissions. I’m appointing a new senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries.

I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen so we can review them on a case-by-case basis. To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: — prisoners already. Release them today.

THE PRESIDENT: Where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts and our military justice system. And we will insist that judicial review be available for every detainee.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: It needs to be —

THE PRESIDENT: Now, ma’am, let me finish. Let me finish, ma’am. Part of free speech is you being able to speak, but also, you listening and me being able to speak. (Applause.)

Now, even after we take these steps one issue will remain — just how to deal with those GTMO detainees who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks but who cannot be prosecuted, for example, because the evidence against them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law. But once we commit to a process of closing GTMO, I am confident that this legacy problem can be resolved, consistent with our commitment to the rule of law.

I know the politics are hard. But history will cast a harsh judgment on this aspect of our fight against terrorism and those of us who fail to end it. Imagine a future — 10 years from now or 20 years from now — when the United States of America is still holding people who have been charged with no crime on a piece of land that is not part of our country. Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are being held on a hunger strike. I’m willing to cut the young lady who interrupted me some slack because it’s worth being passionate about. Is this who we are? Is that something our Founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave our children? Our sense of justice is stronger than that.

We have prosecuted scores of terrorists in our courts. That includes Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up an airplane over Detroit; and Faisal Shahzad, who put a car bomb in Times Square. It’s in a court of law that we will try Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is accused of bombing the Boston Marathon. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, is, as we speak, serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison here in the United States. In sentencing Reid, Judge William Young told him, “The way we treat you…is the measure of our own liberties.”

AUDIENCE MEMBER: How about Abdulmutallab — locking up a 16-year-old — is that the way we treat a 16-year old? (Inaudible) — can you take the drones out of the hands of the CIA? Can you stop the signature strikes killing people on the basis of suspicious activities?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re addressing that, ma’am.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: — thousands of Muslims that got killed — will you compensate the innocent families — that will make us safer here at home. I love my country. I love (inaudible) —

THE PRESIDENT: I think that — and I’m going off script, as you might expect here. (Laughter and applause.) The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to. (Applause.) Obviously, I do not agree with much of what she said, and obviously she wasn’t listening to me in much of what I said. But these are tough issues, and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong.

When that judge sentenced Mr. Reid, the shoe bomber, he went on to point to the American flag that flew in the courtroom. “That flag,” he said, “will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag still stands for freedom.”

So, America, we’ve faced down dangers far greater than al Qaeda. By staying true to the values of our founding, and by using our constitutional compass, we have overcome slavery and Civil War and fascism and communism. In just these last few years as President, I’ve watched the American people bounce back from painful recession, mass shootings, natural disasters like the recent tornados that devastated Oklahoma. These events were heartbreaking; they shook our communities to the core. But because of the resilience of the American people, these events could not come close to breaking us.

I think of Lauren Manning, the 9/11 survivor who had severe burns over 80 percent of her body, who said, “That’s my reality. I put a Band-Aid on it, literally, and I move on.”

I think of the New Yorkers who filled Times Square the day after an attempted car bomb as if nothing had happened.

I think of the proud Pakistani parents who, after their daughter was invited to the White House, wrote to us, “We have raised an American Muslim daughter to dream big and never give up because it does pay off.”

I think of all the wounded warriors rebuilding their lives, and helping other vets to find jobs.

I think of the runner planning to do the 2014 Boston Marathon, who said, “Next year, you’re going to have more people than ever. Determination is not something to be messed with.”

That’s who the American people are — determined, and not to be messed with. And now we need a strategy and a politics that reflects this resilient spirit.

Our victory against terrorism won’t be measured in a surrender ceremony at a battleship, or a statue being pulled to the ground. Victory will be measured in parents taking their kids to school; immigrants coming to our shores; fans taking in a ballgame; a veteran starting a business; a bustling city street; a citizen shouting her concerns at a President.

The quiet determination; that strength of character and bond of fellowship; that refutation of fear — that is both our sword and our shield. And long after the current messengers of hate have faded from the world’s memory, alongside the brutal despots, and deranged madmen, and ruthless demagogues who litter history — the flag of the United States will still wave from small-town cemeteries to national monuments, to distant outposts abroad. And that flag will still stand for freedom.

Thank you very, everybody. God bless you. May God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

Source: NPR

Check out more information on the U.S.’s drone program and details of the upcoming speech.

The White House House was due to announce a series of measures aimed at moving the controversial US drone killings programme out of the “legal shadows” on Thursday.

In a major counter-terrorism speech billed as marking the end of an unfettered “war” on terror, Barack Obama was expected to reveal that he will move responsibility for future drone operations from the CIA to the Pentagon so they can be more closely monitored by Congress.

A more limited range of strikes in countries such as Yemen are likely to be carried out by the US military working within a new set of legal guidelines agreed by Obama this week, giving greater clarification on how and when officials can target suspected terrorists operating abroad.

Attorney general Eric Holder told congressional leaders in a letter on Wednesday that they would be briefed in private on whether future drone attacks on suspected terrorists passed the new legal threshold.

Both the White House and the CIA declined to comment on details of the policy ahead of the speech but government sources told the Guardian they would add to existing congressional oversight measures in place. Until recently the administration did not even publicly admit the existence of the drone programme.

Human rights campaigners have cautiously welcomed the attempt to bring US drone warfare policy into the open, but called on President Obama to publish the new legal tests that he was due to announce later on Thursday.

Dixon Osburn, a director at Human Rights First, said: “On its own, it is not clear that taking things away from the CIA makes a difference – the special operations command at the Pentagon is also secret – but at least the military are schooled in the rules of war.”

“It looks like Obama is trying to return his counter-terrorism strategy to something that operates within the law. We want to know what that legal framework is though.”

Earlier, the White House marked this new effort to draw a line under the controversial drone-strike policy by admitting for the first time that four American citizens were among those killed by its covert attacks in Yemen and Pakistan since 2009.

In a letter to congressional leaders sent on Wednesday, attorney general Eric Holder Holder claimed one of the US citizens killed, Anwar al-Awlaki, was chief of external operations for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap) and had been involved in plots to blow up aircraft over US soil.

However, Holder said three others killed by drones – Samir Khan, Abdul Rahman Anwar al-Awlaki and Jude Kenan – were not “specifically targeted”. The second of these victims, Anwar al-Awlaki’s son, is said by campaigners to have been 16 when he died in Yemen in 2011.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that between 240 and 347 people have been killed in total by confirmed US drone strikes in Yemen since 2002, with a further 2,541 to 3,533 killed by CIA drones in Pakistan.

“The president will soon be speaking publicly in greater detail about our counter-terrorism operations and the legal and policy framework,” Holder told 22 senior members of Congress in Wednesday’s letter.

“This week the president approved a document that institutionalises the administration’s exacting standards and processes for reviewing and approving operations to capture or use lethal force against terrorist targets outside the United States and areas of active hostilities.”

The attorney general said this document would remain classified, but relevant congressional committees would be briefed on its contents. No further details were given of other killings in the five-page letter.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would also outline his renewed attempt to shut the Guantánamo Bay detention centre in the speech, and seek to explain why previous efforts had failed.

The White House said Thursday’s speech will cover “broad counter-terrorism policy, including military, diplomatic, intelligence, and legal efforts”.

“[Obama] will review the state of the threats that we face, particularly as the al-Qaida core has weakened but new dangers have emerged,” it added. “He will discuss the policy and legal framework under which we take action against terrorist threats, including the use of drones.

“He will review our detention policy and efforts to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. And he will frame the future of our efforts against al-Qaida, its affiliates and its adherents.”
Source: The Guardian

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While interviewing one of the Oklahoma tornado victims, Wolf Blitzer made a fool of himself, asking an atheist woman, “I guess you gotta thank the Lord, right? Do you thank the Lord for that split-second decision?”

The woman clearly feels the awkward moment and graciously responds through laughter, “I’m actually an atheist.” She later adds, “I don’t blame anyone for thanking the Lord.”

First of all, it is neither Wolf Blitzer, CNN, nor the viewing public’s business whether this woman thanks the Lord for being spared from death during the recent tornado.

Second, this is absolutely NOT NEWS. What this is is an attempt at a ratings grab by passing off opinion and entertainment as as factual news. No doubt that the shift of CNN off the cliff of minimally reliable mainstream newsmedia is part of Jeff Zucker’s new plan to garner better ratings for the network.

Seriously, this is the type of thing I would expect to hear on Fox News. But, maybe that’s the point–CNN IS becoming Fox News. After all, Fox News is the second most watched channel on cable television. Not the second most-watched news channel, but the second-most watched channel overall.

Once again, we see that it’s all about ratings and corporate ratings, so to hell with the news…

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Topics discussed include the expected 5-month renovation of Chicago’s “L” train displacing tens of thousands of passengers in poor and predominantly Black neighborhoods, cities that criminalize homelessness, Wisconsin labeling certain cheeses as “junk food” when it comes to those receiving food stamps, Harvard students demanding an investigation into a 2009 thesis claiming that Hispanics have lower IQs, Michelle Obama’s thesis on attitudes changes in Black Princeton alumni over time, a segment run on “This American Life” about people receiving disability payments, and more!

• Today is Wednesday–”Hump Day!”
• Discussion about the expected 5-month renovation of Chicago’s “L” train displacing tens of thousands of passengers in poor and predominantly Black neighborhoods.
  

  Chicago will shut down part of its “L” elevated rail system’s busiest line for five months starting on Sunday, forcing thousands of commuters to seek other routes and creating the biggest such U.S. transit disruption in two decades.
  The nation’s second-largest public transit system after New York will rebuild 10 miles of the “Red Line” on the city’s South Side, which passes through some predominantly poor and African-American neighborhoods.

  It will be the biggest U.S. public transit disruption for construction since the early 1990s, when another Chicago rail line closed for more than a year for repairs, according to Joseph Schwieterman, transportation professor at DePaul University in Chicago.

  “It’s going to be a long slog for people,” said Schwieterman. But he and other transit experts agreed that a total shutdown for five months is better than four years of weekend repairs on the elevated line, which serves 80,000 people a day.
  Source: Reuters

• Why has the line been neglected to the point that it needs FULL replacement now? It’s no coincidence that the areas serviced include poor and minority areas.
• Are they going to give the cost savings to the hood? Of course not!
• What will the train operators do during these five months?
• There are people who say that their commute times will double as a result of the renovations.
• Discussion about six cities that criminalize homelessness.
  

  The solutions to homelessness may not be simple, but that doesn’t mean we have to compound the problems. Yet that’s precisely the route that several of American cities have taken. Rather than finding ways to provide assistance to some of the country’s least fortunate citizens, lawmakers have developed strict regulations to criminalize homeless people’s activities, as if they were sleeping on the sidewalk and panhandling out of malice rather than necessity.

  Here are 6 cities that have tried to eliminate its homeless population – many of whom are either mentally ill, grappling with addiction, or facing financial woes – by declaring them criminals (Spoiler Alert: it doesn’t work):

  1. Los Angeles, California

  Advocacy groups have labeled L.A. the city that is the “meanest” toward homeless people. By prohibiting sleeping on sidewalks, holding belongings in certain public spaces, and asking passersby for change, the city has made life as difficult as possible for its homeless population.

  Perhaps most egregious is LAPD’s notorious “selective enforcement” of minor infractions like loitering and jaywalking. Homeless individuals in particular find themselves a target of these often overlooked crimes, resulting in fines they cannot pay and arrest. In fact, Los Angeles spends more money funding extra officers to monitor Skid Row (the area with the city’s highest concentration of homeless people) than it does on services for the homeless.

  2. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  Mayor Michael Nutter decided to ban “outdoor feeding of the homeless” to “prevent foodborne illness” and “help charitable agencies reach the homeless more easily.” While the first reason amounted to a lame excuse, the second proved to be just plain false. Hiding these services made them less accessible to those in need, and its real intentions were clear: move homeless individuals indoors so they are out of sight, out of mind to the general public. Church groups, however, have defied the law and continued to serve food outdoors anyway.

  3. Orlando, Florida

  Organizations in Orlando are facing similar problems due to the city’s ban on providing food to groups of people. Despite the law, volunteers at Food Not Bombs have continued offering free food in parks, claiming they won’t cower to an unjust law. This defiance has resulted in multiple arrests. In essence, the city has found a way to not only criminalize homelessness, but also criminalize people who offer aid to the less fortunate.

  4. Nevada City, California

  After the area’s homeless population grew in the past year, Police Chief James Wickham convinced the city council to pass new ordinances that banned people from setting up tents, sleeping in the woods and living in an automobile. While the city grants some exceptions to this law in the form of permits, since they are only offering 6-10 permits to a homeless population of at least 10 times that number, most of Nevada City’s homeless residents are subject to arrest.

  5. Kalamazoo, Michigan

  Though Kalamazoo cites its homeless population for trumped up infractions like the other cities, it also literally criminalizes them by turning something like sleeping on a park bench into a criminal charge, which stays on the individual’s permanent record. As a result, this criminal record prevents homeless people from obtaining housing, thus exacerbating their situation.

  The city also has a history of ticketing/arresting people waiting at bus stops police deemed were not actually waiting for the bus. Even after the citations were found to be discriminatory and dropped, similar citations have continued.

  6. St. Petersburg, Florida

  St. Petersburg has enacted harsh panhandling laws throughout the entire city. Those who are caught begging are fined $500 or sentenced to 90 days in jail. It’s a brutal tactic to drive impoverished people out of the city… or into prison.

  In fact, prison seems to be the city’s go-to approach. After the city banned outdoor sleeping entirely, police who find homeless individuals outside overnight give them an immediate proposition: find a space in a shelter, or come to jail.
  Source: Care2.com

• There are more than six cities for sure.
• Discussion about the homelessness itself not actually being criminalized, but rather the selective enforcement of minor laws.
• Heit & Cheri mention seeing more and more signs that say that stealing shopping carts is against federal law. They are targeting poor people and the homeless, because these are the people who might take the carts.
• Discussion about Wisconsin labeling certain cheeses as “junk food” when it comes to those receiving food stamps.
  

  Just when you think they’ve hit rock bottom in their hatred of poor people and stupidity comes this gem:

  Members of the state affairs committee are approving a bill that limits the amount of junk food that can be purchased with food stamp benefits
  “This bill does not allow for Wisconsinites who are utilizing the FoodShare program to purchase sharp cheddar cheese, Swiss cheese, shredded cheese or reduced sodium cheeses,” said State Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa, D-Milwaukee. (an opponent of the measure) “And I just want to indicate again how that hurts not just those individuals, those Wisconsinites using the FoodShare program…..but it hurts our dairy farmers.”
  (information in italics is my addition)
  Note that what we call “fake cheese” around here, like Velveeta and other “processed cheese products”, isn’t mentioned.

  Did they forget that Wisconsin is the nations Dairy State and that cheese is a dairy product? Did they forget that cheese has so much nutritional value it’s one of the primary foods on the WIC program that serves pregnant women and children? Did they forget that we love cheese so much that we wear plastic replicas of Swiss Cheese wedges on our heads at sporting events?

  No, they didn’t forget. They just hate poor people and put this in a bill that seriously limits what people can buy with food stamps. They’re sticking it to poor people again and likely catering to those makers of the real junk food “processed cheese product” cheese like Kraft.
  Source: Daily Kos

• The irony here is that the junk cheese is the cheese that they approve for purchase with food stamps. The basically just don’t want poor people to be able to buy specialty cheese.
• Discussion about Harvard students demanding an investigation into a 2009 thesis claiming that Hispanics have lower IQs.
  

  Over 1,000 Harvard students delivered a petition to Harvard University’s JFK School on Saturday, demanding an investigation into how and why the school approved a 2009 doctoral thesis arguing that Hispanics have lower IQs. The thesis was written by Jason Richwine, a co-author of a paper by the conservative Heritage Foundation that argued immigration reform would cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion. The discovery of Richwine’s paper by the Washington Post sparked a firestorm around the Heritage study, and several days later Richwine resigned from the think tank.

  Now Harvard students want to know how a thesis built on those views and assumptions was able to make it through the approval process in the first place. “Academic freedom and a reasoned debate are essential to our academic community,’’ the petition read. “However, the Harvard Kennedy School cannot ethically stand behind academic work advocating a national policy of exclusion and advancing an agenda of discrimination.”

  Several days ago, 24 student groups at Harvard wrote a letter condeming the university’s approval of Richwine’s dissertation, saying it “debases” all their degrees.

  Richwine himself hit back at the students on Friday, suggesting their demands were an attack on free speech and academic inquiry. David Ellwood, the dean of the Kennedy School, defended the committee that accepted Richwine’s thesis as “highly respected and discerning.” George Borjas, one of the members of that committee, characterized Richwine’s work as “sound.” Borjas himself previously lent his pen to arguments against immigration on economic grounds.
  Source: Think Progress

• There are probably plenty of theses with this kind of B.S. in it. In this case, the writer probably supported the claim with lots of facts and figures. Of course, the thing they always overlook is that we are in a white capitalist system that puts non-whites at a disadvantage.
• The implication that Hispanics are not as smart as white people is a lie. the claim is illegitimate.
• Why did the committee approve this?
• What f he was saying this about Blacks–which we have heard people say before? Cheri would be pissed off with the school because they would let this B.S. move forward.
• Discussion about the writer of the thesis using the IQ claim as an argument against immigration.
• Discussion about the politics of having a thesis approved.
• Discussion about Michelle Obama’s thesis.
  

  Obama, who concentrated in sociology and received a certificate in African-American studies, examined how the attitudes of black alumni have changed over the course of their time at the University. “Will they become more or less motivated to benefit the Black community?” Obama wrote in her thesis.

  After surveying 89 black graduates, Obama concluded that attending the University as an undergraduate decreased the extent to which black alumni identified with the black community as a whole.

  Obama drew on her personal experiences as an example.

  “As I enter my final year at Princeton, I find myself striving for many of the same goals as my White classmates — acceptance to a prestigious graduate school or a high-paying position in a successful corporation,” she wrote, citing the University’s conservative values as a likely cause.

  “Predominately White universities like Princeton are socially and academically designed to cater to the needs of the White students comprising the bulk of their enrollments,” she said, noting the small size of the African-American studies department and that there were only five black tenured professors at the University across all departments.

  Obama studied the attitudes of black Princeton alumni to determine what effect their time at Princeton had on their identification with the black community. “My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my ‘Blackness’ than ever before,” she wrote in her introduction. “I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong.”

  Much scrutiny and discussion has been focused on a single phrase contained within the thesis, the statement that “blacks must join in solidarity to combat a white oppressor.” This phrase has repeatedly been quoted out of context and presented as if it reflected Michelle Obama’s own philosophy, but in its full context it is clearly her speculation about what she thought some of the respondents she surveyed for her thesis (i.e., students who had attended Princeton in earlier years) might have been feeling:

  As discussed earlier, most respondents were attending Princeton during the 70′s, at a time when the Black Power Movement was still influencing the attitudes of many Blacks.

  It is possible that Black individuals either chose to or felt pressure to come together with other Blacks on campus because of the belief that Blacks must join in solidarity to combat a White oppressor. As the few blacks in a white environment it is understandable that respondents might have felt a need to look out for one another.

  Source: Snopes

• The subject of the Obama’s thesis came up during the 2008 election, but it wasn’t released until after.
• Discussion about Black elites are less motivated to benefit the Black community.
• Discussion about people who feel like outsiders at home when they return home after college–friends who feel like you don’t fit in anymore.
• Heit & Cheri discuss what it is like when they interact with their childhood friends.
• Would you blame your childhood friends for not making better decisions?
• You can’t set out to do that which you never imagined was a possibility.
• Discussion about a segment run on “This American Life” about people receiving disability payments.
  

  The number of Americans receiving federal disability payments has nearly doubled over the last 15 years. There are towns and counties around the nation where almost 1/4 of adults are on disability. Planet Money’s Chana Joffe-Walt spent 6 months exploring the disability program, and emerges with a story of the U.S. economy quite different than the one we’ve been hearing.
  Source: This American Life

• Discussion about the things we were forced to learn in school that we have no use for and the things we find most valuable.

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Topics discussed include a group being sued by a town for topping off parking meters so that people don’t get tickets, the Feds recommending that the drunk driving threshold be lowered from a blood alcohol level of 0.08 to 0.05, the difference between DWI and DUI, how alcohol-related accidents are tracked by the government, a woman who was sentenced to a year in jail for talking on the phone during an accident that led to her son’s death, a one-year-old who died after being left in a car, acceptance of authority to your own detriment, the CDC finding that there is more poop in pools than you might think, the shortage of toilet paper in Venezuela, the history of toilet paper, police shooting and killing a 21-year-old female hostage, a man who hit in his attic while his house was being robbed. he said he felt like he was letting it happen because he didn’t have a weapon, and more!

• Be sure to check out Heit & Cheri’s Album, “Improper Conduct.”
• Discussion about people who are in trouble for topping off parking meters so that people don’t get parking tickets.
  

  New Hampshire residents take the “Live Free or Die” slogan on their license plates seriously. Municipal governments use every shady trick to squeeze revenue from the citizenry, but Hampshiremen are fighting back. The bureaucrats are in enough lather to shave their whiskers.
  Good Samaritans in the city of Keene, styling themselves as “Robin Hood and his Merry Men,” are gallantly topping off parking meters before they expire, ensuring their neighbors will be spared an expensive and unnecessary ticket.

  Not unlike the Sheriff of Nottingham, Keene oppresses the locals with heavy taxation imposed by the meter maid, the modern tax collector. Those saved by the merry band of meter-feeders receive a note on their windshield encouraging more good deeds. “We saved you from the king’s tariffs,” says the note. “Please consider paying it forward.” An address is provided for voluntary donations to help promote the effort.
  The Robin Hooders have spared locals paying nearly 4,000 tickets, which so infuriated the city that it actually filed a lawsuit against the Good Samaritans, claiming something called meter-maid intimidation. The suit identifies six Robin Hooders by name and demands each be barred from coming within 50 feet of a “parking enforcement officer” — which would make it difficult to feed meters.

  The lawsuit claims the group “regularly, repeatedly and intentionally taunted, interfered with, harassed, and intimidated” the officers, and insisted the meter maids were offended by being videotaped at work.
  Source: Washington Times

• Discussion about why this practice might be wrong in the eyes of authority.
• The underlying issues is that the government wants to make money off of fines for infractions. This is their incentive to make things illegal–because it puts money in their pockets.
• We previously discussed the case of Texas woman who was arrested for warning motorists of a speed trap.
• Discussion about the Feds recommending that the drunk driving threshold be lowered from 0.08 to 0.05.
  

  Federal accident investigators recommended Tuesday that states cut their threshold for drunken driving by nearly half, matching a standard that has substantially reduced highway deaths in other countries.

  The National Transportation Safety Board said states should shrink the standard from the current .08 blood alcohol content to .05 as part of a series of recommendations aimed at reducing alcohol-related highway deaths.

  More than 100 countries have adopted the .05 alcohol content standard or lower, according to a report by the board’s staff. In Europe, the share of traffic deaths attributable to drunken driving was reduced by more than half within 10 years after the standard was dropped.

  A woman weighing less than 120 pounds can reach .05 after just one drink, studies show. A man weighing up to 160 pounds reaches .05 after two drinks.

  New approaches are needed to combat drunken driving, which claims the lives of more than a third of the 30,000 people killed each year on U.S highways — a level of carnage that that has remained stubbornly consistent for the past decade and a half, the board said.

  “Our goal is to get to zero deaths because each alcohol-impaired death is preventable,” NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said. “Alcohol-impaired deaths are not accidents, they are crimes. They can and should be prevented. The tools exist. What is needed is the will.”
  Source: CBS

• Discussion about the difference between DWI and DUI.
  

  DUI means Driving Under the Influence and DWI is Driving While Intoxicated or Driving While Impaired. Sometimes the term OWI (Operating While Impaired) is used. All these terms relate to driving after consuming alcohol or drugs, and are very serious crimes. The drugs don’t have to be illegal for a DUI to be issued – they can be illegal narcotics, over the counter medication, or prescription drugs.

  Depending upon the state where you live, the severity of the offense may vary. In some states, the drunk driving laws differentiate between a DUI and a DWI, where the DUI is a lesser charge. In these states, a DUI usually signifies a lesser degree of intoxication, which is determined by a person’s blood alcohol level at the time of arrest. Sometimes, states will allow the charges of a DWI to be reduced to a DUI. In the case of a reduction from a DWI to a DUI, certain conditions typically must be met, such as the incident being a first offense, the defendant’s display of remorse for the action, and a blood alcohol level that was not drastically over the legal limit. For example, the state of New York differentiates between DWI and DUI by establishing a blood alcohol level of .08 as the legal limit for DWI. If a person has a blood alcohol level of .07, the charges may be reduced to a DUI, which carries a lesser punishment.
  Source: Diffen

• The more people they charge with DUI/DWI, the more money they can make. Also, there are companies who make a lot of money offering services (counseling, etc.) to remedy these issues.
• They might start asking whether people have been drinking as a routine question when some gets pulled over. there is nothing that prevents them from asking you this question. They also pass laws that make them able to do other things if you refuse to comply.
• This will not prevent highway deaths, because people will continue to drink and drive.
• Maybe this will increase sales of home breathalyzer machines.
• Stats say that half of the people who are under the influence go undetected.
• Discussion about how alcohol-related accidents are detected. If anyone (including a passenger) has been drinking, this is considered an alcohol-related accident.
• Discussion about a woman who was sentenced to a year in jail for talking on the phone during an accident that led to her son’s death.
  

  A central Missouri woman whose son died in a car accident while she was talking on a cellphone has been sentenced to one year in a county jail.

  Thirty-one-year-old Stephanie Wiebold of Meta was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty to careless and imprudent driving.

  Her 2-year-old son, Dallen Rackers, died when Wiebold’s car went off the road and hit a rock embankment.

  The Jefferson City News Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/YQUCzB ) police said Meta was on the phone when the accident occurred.

  Police also said her son was unrestrained while riding in the back seat and was thrown forward by the impact. Dallen died a few weeks after the accident.
  Source: KSPR

• Discussion about a one-year-old who died after being left in a car.
  

  A 1-year-old child died after being left in a locked car in the parking lot of Frank Guzick Elementary School in Pleasant Grove. The child’s mother is a teacher at the school, according to a statement from Dallas ISD.
  A statement from the Dallas Police Department says that a witness observed the child unattended in a locked car around 1:20 p.m. The witness called 911, then broke a window out of the vehicle, removed the child, and started to perform CPR. Dallas Fire and Rescue arrived to taken the child to Baylor Hospital, where he or she was pronounced dead.

  Although the police haven’t confirmed this, FOX 4 reports that the witness was a student from a nearby school. NBC, meanwhile, reports that it was a teacher’s aid.
  Source: Dallas Observer

• Discussion about people leaving pets and kids in cars.
• Why doesn’t it seem like we heard stories of kids baking in cars back in the day. Heit & Cheri talk about being left in the car as a child.
• Discussion about acceptance of authority to your own detriment.
• Did you ever pee in the pool as a kid?
• Discussion about the CDC finding that there is more poop in pools than you might think.
  

  Just in time for pools to open across the state, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have come out with a new study about what’s lurking in that water.

  According to the CDC report, water sampled from 161 pools around the Atlanta area found 58 percent showed signs of E. Coli, which is the bacteria most commonly associated with fecal matter.

  Diapered babies and children who are not properly toilet trained can easily introduce poop into the water, the report stated.
  Children are not alone as culprits.

  Adults are also at fault, mainly those who do not shower with soap before entering the pool and bring traces of fecal matter with them.
  Number two isn’t the only problem.

  The report showed chlorine still isn’t strong enough to break down the waste of people who decide to “number one” in the pool, along with sweat.
  Source: KFOR

• Speculation about why there is crap in the pool. Maybe people are not wiping their butts properly.
• Heit theorizes that you cannot properly wipe your butt with dry toilet paper.
• Debate about the best way to wipe your @ss.
• Discussion about the shortage of toilet paper in Venezuela.
  

  First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities – toilet paper.

  Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the government says it will import 50m rolls to boost supplies.

  That was little comfort to consumers struggling to find toilet paper on Wednesday.

  “This is the last straw,” said Manuel Fagundes, a shopper hunting for tissue in Caracas. “I’m 71 years old and this is the first time I’ve seen this.”

  One supermarket visited by the Associated Press in the capital on Wednesday was out of toilet paper. Another had just received a fresh batch, and it quickly filled up with shoppers as the word spread.

  “I’ve been looking for it for two weeks,” said Cristina Ramos. “I was told that they had some here and now I’m in line.”

  Economists say Venezuela’s shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods available to the poorest parts of society and the government’s controls on foreign currency.

  “State-controlled prices – prices that are set below market-clearing price – always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union,” said Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University.
  Source: Guardian

• This is just a symptom of Capitalism.
• Perhaps rumors either started to help to fuel the shortage.
• When was toilet paper invented? What did they do before they had toilet paper? They used a wet rag. Heit points out that we think we are so sophisticated, but your @ss is dirtier than it used to be.
  

  Today it’s difficult to imagine life without toilet paper. The evolution of toilet paper is an interesting story and the toilet paper has an amazing past.

  If we could travel back in time, what would we found about the first use of toilet paper? Who invented toilet paper? Who was using paper for personal hygiene? Who invented modern toilet paper roll?

  Nobody is too sure when toilet paper was first used. Before the invention of toilet paper, people from different parts of the world had many different ideas for personal hygiene. Some people used stones or sponges (especially rich Romans), but a variety of other things were used also.

  The first “official” toilet paper was introduced in China in 1391, but the first mention of toilet paper (paper for personal hygiene) dates back to the year 589 AD in Korea. Between 875 and 1317 AD, paper was produced in large sheets (2-foot x 3-foot sheets and even perfumed) for Chinese emperor’s family hygiene.

  In the Colonial America, the common means was corncobs.

  Paper was a rare commodity until the 17th or 18th centuries. The first reference to paper as toilet paper was recorded in 1718. After invention of paper pages from newspapers and magazines were also commonly used (newspapers became widely available at 1700s.)

  Joseph C. Gayetty invented the first packaged toilet paper in the United States in 1857. Joseph C. Gayetty is credited as the inventor of modern commercially available toilet paper. “Gayetty’s Medicated Paper” was sold in packages of flat sheets, medicated with aloe and watermarked with his name. Gayety’s toilet paper was available as late as the 1920′s.

  In 1871, Seth Wheeler (to some sources Zeth Wheeler) of Albany became the official “inventor” of toilet paper. Seth Wheeler patents rolled and perforated wrapping paper. His Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Company began selling the first toilet paper on a roll.

  Rolled and perforated toilet paper was invented around 1880. In 1879, Thomas Seymour, Edward Irvin and Clarence Wood Scott founded the Scott Paper Company in Philadelphia. Scott brothers came up with the idea of customizing rolls for every merchant-customer they had. They began selling packages of small rolls and stacked sheets. Scott Paper Company began producing toilet paper under its own brand name in 1896. By 1925 Scott Company became the leading toilet paper company in the world.

  The first documented use of a roll of toilet paper was in 1882 in New York State.

  In 1935 Northern Tissue invented splinter free toilet paper. Simple paper making procedures often failed to remove small splinters from the finished product but Northern Paper engineers solved the problem (method called linenizing). Softer, splinter-free toilet paper then became a reality for consumers and provided an advertising slogan for Northern Tissue.

  In 1942 St. Andrew’s Paper Mill (England, Walthamstow, London), produced the first soft, two ply toilet tissue.

  In 1954 was produced the first colored toilet tissue by Northern.

  In 1964 was produced perfumed one-ply toilet tissue by Charmin

  America experienced its first toilet paper shortage in 1973 because Johnny Carson’s (one of America’s most loved comedians) jokes.

  Who invented toilet paper? So many inventors, so many contradicting historical recourses… Who do you think was the inventor of toilet paper?
  Source: Toilet Paper History

• Discussion about the Dewey Decimal System.
• Discussion about the police shooting and killing a 21-year-old female hostage.
  

  A 21-year-old university student who was taken hostage in her apartment and then shot to death during a police standoff with an armed robber on New York’s Long Island was killed by a bullet fired from an officer’s gun, investigators said on Sunday.
  Andrea Rebello was shot in the head on Friday by one of eight rounds fired at Dalton Smith, who had the woman in a headlock with a 9mm gun pointed at her head at the time, Nassau County Police Department spokesman James Imperiale said.

  Smith, 30, was struck by seven bullets and died in the apartment in Uniondale, about a half a mile from Hofstra University. Rebello, who was studying public relations at Hofstra, was taken to a nearby hospital where she later died.

  Investigators determined that Smith, who had an extensive criminal history and had been released from prison earlier this year, did not fire his gun during the incident, Imperiale said.

  Nassau County Police Commissioner Thomas Dale traveled to Tarrytown, New York, on Saturday to inform Rebello’s parents that their daughter had been killed by an officer’s bullet.

  “He sat down with them and went over the findings,” Imperiale said. “The whole situation is completely tragic.”

  Smith entered Rebello’s apartment about 2:20 a.m. (0620 GMT) on Friday, brandished his gun and demanded money and valuables from the student and her three roommates, including her sister, Imperiale said.

  Smith then told one of the roommates to go to an ATM and withdraw money, according to police. That roommate left and immediately called police, according to Imperiale.

  When police arrived, Rebello’s sister answered the door and ran out of the apartment, he said.

  “He pushed the male (roommate) down the stairs. The roommate comes crashing down the stairs … and jumps behind a sofa,” Imperiale said.

  According to Imperiale, Smith came down the stairs with Rebello in a headlock and the gun pointed at her head, saying “I’m going to kill her. I’m going to kill her.” He then used her as a human shield as he attempted to flee the rear of apartment, the spokesman said.

  “He raised his weapon at the officer and officer was forced to fire,” Imperiale said.

  Students graduating from Hofstra on Saturday wore white ribbons in memory of Rebello, according to the local media.

  “A young member of the Hofstra family has been taken from us in a senseless act of violence,” Hofstra President Stuart Rabinowitz said in a statement.

  The school also flew flags at half-staff to honor Rebello. A candlelight vigil was held on Saturday night at the school, located in Hempstead, about 30 miles east of New York City.

  The officer who fired the shots during the standoff was on leave as the department continued its investigation, Imperiale said.
  Source: Reuters

• Is it possible that these people knew each other? The story sound fishy.
• Discussion about a man who hit in his attic while his house was being robbed. he said he felt like he was letting it happen because he didn’t have a weapon.
  

  What would you do to escape armed burglars? A college student in Humble saw men with guns breaking into his home, and he had to think fast.

  It happened last Friday at about 11:30 a.m. in the 17000 block of Dawn Shadows Drive in Humble.

  Darrell Southworth, 20, said he wanted to fight back, but these guys had guns and he didn’t.

  “I hear a big pound on the door, about five times, like boom, boom, boom,” Southworth said.
  Southworth’s family was working, and he was home alone when the criminals came knocking. First, one of the criminals knocked on the front door.
  “I look down, and he had a gun about right here in his back pocket,” Southworth said.

  Moments later, he saw a green Ford Explorer backing into his driveway.

  “They popped the trunk at first, and I could see more guns,” said Southworth. “I’m thinking, I’m about to die.”

  The criminals walked into the backyard and began kicking in the back door. Southworth made his way up toward the attic. He said he pulled the steps to the attic down and sat there to listen.

  “I didn’t hear anything at first. Then I heard, ‘Get it, get it,” Southworth recalled.

  He quickly crept up into the attic and closed himself in. Southworth said he was on the phone with 911, telling the operator the danger he was in.
  Source: KHOU

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Topics discussed include First Lady Michelle Obama’s commencement speech at Bowie State University, the FLOTUS saying too many kids are trying to be “rappers and ballers”, the educational industrial complex, a Black teen who gave up a college scholarship to pursue a rap career, New York Mayor Bloomberg suggesting that mediocre students forego college and become plumbers, the idea of academics versus vocational training, President Barack Obama’s commencement speech at Morehouse College, Obama saying that racism is not an excuse that Black men can use, Dr. Dre giving $70 million to USC for a music program, and more!

• It’s graduation time for colleges and high schools–and other schools too!



• Discussion about First Lady Michelle Obama’s commencement speech at Bowie State University.

  Mrs. Obama typically gives a few commencement addresses each year and has spoken at several other historically black colleges and universities since President Barack Obama became the nation’s first black chief executive. She received an honorary doctorate from Bowie State on Friday.
  The first lady said education was a lifeline to the first students at the nearly 150-year-old school. Its founding “was in many ways an act of defiance, an elegant rebuttal to the idea that black people couldn’t or shouldn’t be educated,” she said. “Back then, people were hungry to learn.”

  But Obama said too much of the black community has lost that desire. One in 3 African-Americans are dropping out of high school, she said, and only 1 in 5 between the ages of 25 and 29 has a bachelor’s degree. She also cited statistics that show college graduates make more money and live longer than high school dropouts.
  Source: New York Daily News

• Discussion about the FLOTUS saying too many kids are trying to be “rappers and ballers”.
  

  During her commencement speech, Mrs. Obama challenged students to continue to learn and encouraged them to always aspire to achieve more — after mentioning that “too many young people today can’t be bothered.”

  “Instead of walking miles every day to school, they’re sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV. Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they’re fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper,” she said.

  “Please reject the slander that says a black child with a book is trying to act white,” Obama added. “In short, be an example of excellence for the next generation.”

  Source: Grio

• Why does she think that everyone wants to be a rapper or baller in the first place? This is a stereotype about the black community and this is a disconnect between Obama and “regular” Black folks.
• Why did she choose to say this in a commencement speech to students who obviously didn’t take this route. Obviously, this speech was for the world to hear–not simply for these students. She was making a commentary on like-aged people who are not doing what these students are doing.
• Isn’t a rapper a business man? Who do they think that Jay-Z is? he is a rapper and a businessman.
• Being opposed to what Obama is saying does not make one anti-education, but rather anti-this educational industrial complex we see in place right now. Today, people get into deep debt going to college, and can barely get a job to pay off the loans they take out when they are finished.
• Discussion about Obama basically saying that only certain types of occupations
• For Obama to reduce this whole situation down to “Black kids just cannot be bothered” is her own failure to see the connection between her husband’s policies and the current state of black education in this country.
• What is the whole point of a college education? Should everyone go to get a college degree in the areas she discussed? What if the person wants to be in a profession that doesn’t require a degree. Obama doesn’t address the people who choose not to go to college. Basically, you’re overlooked and marginalized if you decide not to go the route that they suggest.
• Discussion about a Black teen who gave up a college scholarship to pursue a rap career.
  

  We first told you about this story Wednesday on “Good Day.” A high school senior gives up a free ride to college to pursue a rap career.

  Now, we’re hearing from the young man himself.

  Jay Harris is one of the top high school football prospects in Pennsylvania.

  The Downingtown High School East senior and wide receiver had a scholarship to play college football at Michigan State University next year, and was heavily recruited.

  But, in a surprising move, Harris says he decided to give it all up to be a rap star.

  Harris says his father supports him, and he says he’s working on getting signed to a record deal and can always go to college later.

  “You gotta chase your dreams. You gotta do what you really want. If I go up there to MSU, a Division I program, and I go up there and my whole heart’s not in it, I’ll just be wastin’ their time. This is really what I want to do for my life,” Harris said.

  Harris, who goes by the rap name “Jay DatBull,” says his mix tape will be released on June
  Source: My Fox Philly

• The college ball players are only in school to live out the fantasy of becoming a famous ball player, so what is the difference is he chooses to chase a different long-shot dream.
• College is a scam for the most part. It basically just provides credentials for you to gain access to be able to make a better living.
• A lot of people are brainwashed into believing that college is the best way for them and their children to go to better their living conditions. All people want is better lives for them and their children, and the current college education dream is sold as the means to that end.
• If you have a dream that doesn’t follow the mainstream agenda, at least try to make it happen. If it doesn’t work out, the mediocre jobs and opportunities will still be there later… They ain’t going nowhere.
• Discussion about people who manage to be successful making a living doing what they love. Maybe they aren’t rich, but they are able to get by.
• Discussion about Michelle Obama honoring a white student as someone with a struggle, who was determined to get a college education against all odds. Really? At a HBCU, the best story of struggle is a white student?
• Discussion about New York Mayor Bloomberg suggesting that mediocre students forego college and become plumbers.
  

  Some advice from career counselor Mayor Bloomberg: If you are a so-so high school student, steer clear of college — and learn to clear clogged drains.

  Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show Friday that going to trade school to become a plumber is a better economic bet for many teenagers than obtaining an undergraduate degree.

  “The people who are going to have the biggest problem are college graduates who aren’t rocket scientists, if you will, not at the top of their class,” he said.

  “Compare a plumber to going to Harvard College — being a plumber, actually for the average person, probably would be a better deal.”
  He said plumbers make a good living without having to pay off college loans.

  “You don’t spend … four years spending $40,000, $50,000 in tuition without earning income,” he explained.
  Source: New York Daily News

• Discussion about the idea of academics versus vocational training.
• Why is it that every time someone is talking about education they never mention the good-paying jobs that don’t require a degree? Nobody ever says, “Yeah, you can be a construction worker…”
• Bloomberg is saying this to other people’s children, not his own.
• Discussion about people being in the jam of not being able to pass welath from generation on down because of the debt people are saddled with when they take loans to finance college educations.
• Discussion about people who do make it out of poverty, only to lose their fortunes and wend up back where they started.
• Discussion about NBA legend Allen Iverson and music mogul Damon Dash both claiming they are broke, despite millions haivng passed through their hands.
• Discussion about Master P and how he has managed to maintain his wealth, and will clearly be able to pass this down to his children.
• When rich people lose their money, they still have their names on which they can make money.



• Discussion about President Barack Obama’s commencement speech at Morehouse College.

  President Obama, on Sunday, delivered a rare, very personal commencement address at Morehouse College, the historically black, all-male institution that is the alma mater of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

  It was a short speech, but Obama did not shy away the subject of race and responsibility. We’ve embedded video of the address above, but here are two excerpts you should read. They are taken from his prepared remarks:

  On Personal Responsibility:

  “We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices. Growing up, I made a few myself. And I have to confess, sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. But one of the things you’ve learned over the last four years is that there’s no longer any room for excuses. I understand that there’s a common fraternity creed here at Morehouse: ‘excuses are tools of the incompetent, used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness.’ We’ve got no time for excuses – not because the bitter legacies of slavery and segregation have vanished entirely; they haven’t. Not because racism and discrimination no longer exist; that’s still out there. It’s just that in today’s hyperconnected, hypercompetitive world, with a billion young people from China and India and Brazil entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything you haven’t earned. And whatever hardships you may experience because of your race, they pale in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured – and overcame.
  “You now hail from a lineage and legacy of immeasurably strong men – men who bore tremendous burdens and still laid the stones for the path on which we now walk. You wear the mantle of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, Ralph Bunche and Langston Hughes, George Washington Carver and Ralph Abernathy, Thurgood Marshall and yes, Dr. King. These men were many things to many people. They knew full well the role that racism played in their lives. But when it came to their own accomplishments and sense of purpose, they had no time for excuses.”
  On Family:

  “I was raised by a heroic single mother and wonderful grandparents who made incredible sacrifices for me. And I know there are moms and grandparents here today who did the same thing for all of you. But I still wish I had a father who was not only present, but involved. And so my whole life, I’ve tried to be for Michelle and my girls what my father wasn’t for my mother and me. I’ve tried to be a better husband, a better father, and a better man.

  “It’s hard work that demands your constant attention, and frequent sacrifice. And Michelle will be the first to tell you that I’m not perfect. Even now, I’m still learning how to be the best husband and father I can be. Because success in everything else is unfulfilling if we fail at family. I know that when I’m on my deathbed someday, I won’t be thinking about any particular legislation I passed, or policy I promoted; I won’t be thinking about the speech I gave, or the Nobel Prize I received. I’ll be thinking about a walk I took with my daughters. A lazy afternoon with my wife. Whether I did right by all of them.

  “Be a good role model and set a good example for that young brother coming up. If you know someone who isn’t on point, go back and bring that brother along. The brothers who have been left behind – who haven’t had the same opportunities we have – they need to hear from us. We’ve got to be in the barbershops with them, at church with them, spending time and energy and presence helping pull them up, exposing them to new opportunities, and supporting their dreams. We have to teach them what it means to be a man – to serve your city like Maynard Jackson; to shape the culture like Spike Lee. Chester Davenport was one of the first people to integrate the University of Georgia law school. When he got there, no one would sit next to him in class. But Chester didn’t mind. Later on, he said, ‘It was the thing for me to do. Someone needed to be the first.’ Today, Chester is here celebrating his 50th reunion. If you’ve had role models, fathers, brothers like that – thank them today. If you haven’t, commit yourself to being that man for someone else.”
  Source: NPR

• There was so much hypocrisy in his speech.
• Obama actually twisted his mouth to say that racism is not an excuse that Black men can use. He went on to talk about how “nobody” cares about the adversity they have faced in their lives. Well, maybe people SHOULD care.
• Obama said that previous generations overcame and so can these men. Did they overcome? No. they did the best they can to advance conditions for the race. To say that they didn’t overcome is not to say that their actions weren’t valuable, noble, and worthwhile.
• Obama said that nobody is gonna give you anything free, and that things are given to those who earn it. This is what you tell people who will be part of the working class. This is a load of crap. Our whole system of capitalism is based on cronyism and inter-generational wealth–people being born into wealth who did absolutely nothing to earn it.
• Did the Walmart children earn their wealth? Absolutely not! Their DNA is earning. The Queen of England didn’t earn anything. These people were merely born into wealth.
• Discussion about worldwide, regional, and local classim.
• Discussion about the culture of achievement and how to take care of yourselves is different in other places in the world. In the U.S., we are socialized to rely on a third party–the government, a corporate job, etc.–for our sustenance.
• Discussion about how the implication is that the competition for these graduates is not the top-tier leaders in this country, but rather the best of the third-world countries.
• Why do people always like to compare Black Americans to immigrants who come from other countries and “make it” here?
• When you look at what both of the Obamas had to say during their speeches, it is clear that your worth as a person is being determined by how hard you are willing to work toward THEIR narrow idea of what success is. Basically, if you are not striving to be a part of a system that exploits others, then you are worthless.
• Discussion about Dr. Dre giving $70 million to USC for a music program.
  

  A $70 million donation from the rapper Dr. Dre and music industry executive Jimmy Iovine will allow USC to create what it described as an “entirely new model for training and inspiring a new generation of innovators,” the university announced today.

  The goal of the USC Jimmy Lovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation “is to shape the future by nurturing the talents, passions, leadership and risk-taking of uniquely qualified students who challenge conventional views of art and industry,” according to USC.

  The academy will enroll its first class of 25 students in fall 2014.

  Applicants will be accepted based on a rigorous review process encompassing demonstrated academic excellence as well as proven ability for original thought.

  The academy is seeking students whose interests span fields such as marketing, business entrepreneurship, computer science and engineering, audio and visual design and the arts.

  The academy will focus on four core curriculum areas — arts and entrepreneurship; technology, design and marketability; concept and business platforms; and creating a prototype.

  The four-year academic program will include one-on-one faculty mentoring, opportunities to interact with luminaries from the arts and entertainment industry serving as guest speakers and lecturers, and a broad array of internship opportunities for students.

  Source: KESQ

• How ironic it is that a rapper is the one who donated all of this money to USC for music academics.
• Discussion about the goal of the program being to train the future of people who will work in and control the industry.
• Why did the program have to be connected to USC? Maybe so it can be given more credibility because it is an academic program.
• This money could have gone for so many more pertinent issues.
• Discussion about rappers, who don’t have degrees, becoming college professors. When you think about it, who gave the first person to get a degree their degree? Did they have a degree? Nope!

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Topics discussed include Malcolm X’s birthday on May 19th, examination of the “Who taught you to hate yourself” speech, examination of the “Ballot or the Bullet” speech, relating the things Malcolm X said in his speech to modern day conditions–not much has changed, Black folks STILL not being brought up in mainstream conversations and we have a Black president, how people don’t know what the numbers and stats mean–whether to interpret them as “good” or “bad”–until the media or some other entity tells them how to feel about the numbers, Blacks generally being anti-gay and anti-immigration–two groups whose issues the Democratic party IS ACTUALLY addressing, Hillary Clinton as president, Malcolm X’s speech at Oxford, Huey P. Long, the physical expectations of the president, the impressive nature of presidents who weren’t born rich–like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, the exceptional nature of Blacks who hold high-profile government positions, how hard it must be to resist going over to “the dark side”, the choice between building your own brand and building the world to make it better for all of us, and more!

• Sunday, May 19th is Malcolm X’s birthday. He would have been 89 years old.
• Take a moment and listen to one of Malcolm’s speeches.
  
  

  Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don’t want to be around each other? You know. Before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you.

  Source: Malcolm X

• The core message of this speech is something that is just as applicable today–if not more–as it was years ago.
• Discussion about people still being dissatisfied with the texture of their hair, their facial features, and the overall quest to appear more anglo.
• Discussion about Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech.
  

  You’re the one who has that power. You can keep Johnson in Washington D.C., or you can send him back to his Texas cotton patch. [applause] You’re the one who sent Kennedy to Washington. You’re the one who put the present Democratic administration in Washington, D.C. The whites were evenly divided. It was the fact that you threw 80 percent of your votes behind the Democrats that put the Democrats in the White House.

  When you see this, you can see that the Negro vote is the key factor. And despite the fact that you are in a position to be the determining factor, what do you get out of it? The Democrats have been in Washington, D.C. only because of the Negro vote. They’ve been down there four years. And they’re – all other legislation they wanted to bring up they’ve brought it up, and gotten it out of the way, and now they bring up you. And now they bring up you! You put them first and they put you last. Because you’re a chump! [applause] A political chump.

  In Washington, D.C., in the House of Representatives there are 257 who are Democrats. Only 177 are Republican. In the Senate there are 67 Democrats. Only 33 are Republicans. The party that you backed controls two-thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate and still they can’t keep their promise to you. ‘Cause you’re a chump. [applause]

  Any time you throw your weight behind a political party that controls two-thirds of the government, and that party can’t keep the promise that it made to you during election-time, and you’re dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that party, you’re not only a chump but you’re a traitor to your race. [applause]
  Source: America Radio Works

• It is 2013 and Black folks are STILL not brought up in the mainstream conversation and we have a Black president.
• Discussion about how Blacks who criticize Obama are viewed as the traitors to the race. Ironically peoples’ support of Obama for nothing in return is being a traitor to the race.
• Making the comparison of between how Obama disregards Black people to being in a bad relationship. Just take a look at Black unemployment and you will see. It’s over 13 percent for Blacks!
• Discussion about how people don’t know what the numbers and stats mean–whether to interpret them as “good” or “bad”–until the media or some other entity tells them how to feel about the numbers.
• Majority control means nothing when you are not a priority.
• Discussion about Blacks generally being anti-gay and anti-immigration–two groups whose issues the Democratic party is addressing.
• Discussion about the voting bloc as a strategic position. In terms of Obama, there was never even the threat of him not having the Black vote.
• In this “bad” relationship Blacks have with Obama, they cannot see how he really is–they are almost blind to it.
• Discussion about how Obama is starting to receive more criticism as people begin to wake up.
• Discussion about all the excuses people make for why Obama isn’t doing what he said he would do.
• Discussion about Hillary Clinton as president. She wouldn’t hesitate to drop bombs. It might be worse than a male president because of the need to prove herself as being just as tough as men.
• Discussion about Malcolm X’s speech at Oxford. If you haven’t hear it, you should check it out.
  
• Heit was surprised when Melissa Harris-Perry brought up Huey P. Long on her show. His mantra was to share the wealth–take fromt he rich and give to other people.
  
• Discussion about Long’s big gestures he used when talking.



• Discussion about how they teach people to hold their body during politics. They don’t move around much while talking.
• Discussion about the physical expectations of the president–no facial hair, not fat, tall, etc.
• Discussion about how not everyone ca be president, despite what some of you think.
• Discussion about how presidents are selected years prior to them ever running for office.
• Discussion about the impressive nature of presidents who weren’t born rich, like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
• Obama is highly intelligent, and everything he did at least from college on to calculate his steps
• Discussion about Obama admitting to smoking weed, versus Bill Clinton who said he didn’t inhale.
• Discussion about people feeling like Obama is “just like me.” He is not a regular person. He’s very extraordinary in areas like intelligence, drive, planning his life…
• Heit talks about his mother saying that Obama is someone she could hang out with.
• Michelle Obama is not a “regular” person either. Their daughters were NEVER regular kids. Your kids cannot go and play with Obama’s kids!
• If the country, buildings, etc belong to the people, who do the people not have open access to all of these places. You cannot just go to the White House and chill… There is a process before you can even think about gaining access.
• Thinking about how exceptional Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Condoleeza Rice, Susan Rice, Eroc Holder, and other Blacks in high-level government positions reminded Cheri of the song “Young, Gifted, and Black.” Thes are extrordinary people, which is why it is so disappointing when they sell out.
  
• Discussion about what it would be like to have a “first gentleman” instead of “first lady”.
• Discussion about how hard it must be to resist going over to “the dark side”.
• Discussion about the choice between building your own brand and building the world to make it better for all of us.

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Topics discussed include President Obama’s bad week of scandals, the government busting down the AP and demanding phone records and emails, today’s latest scandal related to losing track of alleged “former suspected terrorists” in the witness protection program, The IRS scandal, public trust in law enforcement–or lack thereof, police busting down a couple’s front door and tasing everyone on site, the judge throwing out the Ramarley Graham case, racial profiling by cops, cops of one race policing people of other races, privatizing police, New Orleans Mother’s Day parade shooting, Ariel Castro’s family turning on him, Charles Ramsey being told he needs to be more mainstream, why we should be checking ourselves about the expectations we have of other people to adhere to the system that we ourselves hate, and more!

• Discussion about President Obama’s bad week of scandals.
• We’ve been telling y’all tht Obama is 10 times worse than Bush, but now you’re beginning to see.
• Discussion about the government busting down the AP and demanding phone records and emails to try to find out whhere government leaks came from.
  

  Four members of the House of Representatives introduced legislation on Thursday that would prevent agencies from obtaining phone records from Americans without a court order, in the wake of the controversy involving the Justice Department subpoenaing Associated Press phone records.

  H.R. 2014, the Telephone Records Protection Act, was introduced by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) and Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and would require court approval for the government to demand phone records from service providers.

  “The Justice Department’s seizure of the AP’s phone records — likely without the sign-off of a single judge — raises serious First and Fourth Amendment concerns. Regardless of whether DOJ violates the legitimate privacy expectations of reporters or ordinary Americans, we deserve to know that the federal government can’t seize our records without judicial review,” Amash said in a statement.

  “Americans of all political stripes were shocked to find out that the Department of Justice had been accessing telephone records of reporters at the Associated Press,” Polis stated. “The Department of Justice claims that they operated within the confines of the law, which makes it abundantly clear that we need to provide a higher level of protection against government intrusion into an individual’s private records. I am excited to be working with Representatives Amash, Lofgren, and Mulvaney on this important privacy protection bill.”

  Source: Huffington Post

• Discussion about today’s latest scandal related to terrorists in the witness protection program.
  

  U.S. officials lost track of two suspected terrorists after they were given cover in the federal witness protection program, according to a bombshell report.

  In July, the U.S. Marshals Service said it was “unable to locate two former WITSEC (Witness Security Program) participants identified as known or suspected terrorists,” according to a Justice Department Inspector General report obtained by CNN.

  After investigating the incident, the service “concluded that one individual was (a known terrorist) and the other individual was believed to be residing outside of the United States,” the report stated.

  A Justice Department official, responding the report, told CNN that the two witnesses had left the witness program “years ago” and had been accounted for.
  Source: New York Daily News

• Discussion about Obama’s press conference with the prime minister of Turkey. At one point the president confirms that he has not lost confidence in Attorney General Eric Holder.
  
• It’s only a scandal if it is your political opposition.
• Discussion about the government making leaks on purpose, but getting mad when there are unauthorized leaks from their ranks. They are mad about not controlling the spin.
• Obama always says he didn’t know about [insert scandal], and then turns the direction to addressing the problem. They also say there is an ongoing investigation and they can’t give details. Foolishness!
• No organization should be tax exempt. If we have to pay taxes, so should they.
• Discussion about the unequal application of government policies and laws.
• Discussion about mixing of church and politics. Remember when Eric Holder and others visited Black churches to tell them how to talk about voting for Obama without getting into IRS trouble.
  
• Discussion about the replacement of the head guy at the IRS–Steven Miller. How does firing the head guy change the culture? It doesn’t, which is how you know this is all just for show.
  

  Steven Miller, who resigned on Wednesday as the acting head of the Internal Revenue Service, said in a message to colleagues that there is a “strong and immediate need” to restore public trust in the nation’s tax agency.
  Miller resigned after the IRS became embroiled in a controversy over the agency’s targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny.

  “It is with regret that I will be departing from the IRS as my acting assignment ends in early June,” Miller said in an internal message that was released by the IRS. “This has been an incredibly difficult time for the IRS given the events of the past few days, and there is a strong and immediate need to restore public trust in the nation’s tax agency.”
  Source: Reuters

• If the IRS is not part of the government, what is it?
• Discussion about public trust in law enforcement–or lack thereof.
• Discussion about police busting down a couple’s front door and tasing everyone on site.
  
• Remember Ramarley Graham–the unarmed teen NYPD police chased into the bathroom of his own home and executed back in February 2012?

  A judge has thrown out the manslaughter indictment against the officer on a technicality related to jury instructions. The judge says prosecutors can present the case again. Ramarley’s mother could not contain her cry, “they killed my child,” when it because evident that the case would be thrown out.

  There will always be a “technicality” to let folks off when it comes to justice for police killings and brutality, or so it seems…

  A judge threw out manslaughter charges on Wednesday against a New York Police Department officer accused of killing an unarmed suspect last year in a Bronx home — a ruling that prompted a courtroom outburst by the victim’s mother and a vow by prosecutors to still pursue the case.

  Constance Malcolm screamed “they killed my child” when it became clear that the judge was about to rule in favor of Officer Richard Haste. Court officers immediately removed her.

  When order was restored, Judge Steven Barrett told spectators, “I regret that there are people who are hurt by this,” but insisted that the law required him to dismiss the indictment.

  As Haste left the courtroom, protesters yelled, “Murderer!” The officer did not speak to news reporters.

  Haste had been charged in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham during a police operation targeting street-corner drug dealing. He and other officers pursued Graham into his Bronx apartment where the teen was shot at close range. No gun was recovered.

  The judge ruled Wednesday that prosecutors, in giving instructions to grand jurors, had improperly left the impression the jury shouldn’t consider evidence that other officers had radioed Haste in advance to warn him that they thought Graham had a gun. The defense claimed that was one of the reasons Haste used deadly force. Haste has said he believed Graham had a gun and was going to shoot him.
  Source: New York Post

• What would be cause for the cops to bust in someone’s home? Nothing! The cops need to accept if they lost the suspect. When they lose sight, they feel it is okay to shake up the entire neighborhood.
• We should not be in a situation that we fear the police.
• People are being killed by the police–murdered. They are not being charged, which says that these deaths are deemed necessary by the state.
• You cannot call the police on the police.
• Discussion about a man who was arrested by an off-duty cop basically for nothing. The cop though that the man was drinking in public and felt embarrassed so he had to make an arrest. To top it off, the police who came to take the man in refused to view the evidence on video of what happened.
  
• The police feel like they can just come in and do whatever they like.
• Discussion about racial profiling by cops.
• The authority of police offers is too easily abused. In addition, there is the issue of having one race police another. It sends the wrong message to the community–especially the children. It establishes the white authority as the authority at a young age.
• Discussion about privatizing police. A group of officers charge affluent neighborhoods to police them, then use the money they make to police the poor neighborhoods. Police are police. Authority is authority.
  
• Discussion about people try to control others by suggesting that what they want is “best for everyone”.
• Discussion about the 19 people getting shot or somehow injured at a New Orleans Mother’s Day parade. The media barely covered this event. It’s probably because those affected were poor and/or Black.
  

  The New Orleans Police Department has arrested 19-year-old Akein Scott in connection with the shooting of 19 people on Mother’s Day, according to sources.

  Police charged Scott with 20 counts of attempted second-degree murder.

  Sources say Scott was apprehended in the Little Woods area of New Orleans East. Police haven’t released details on how they arrested him.
  Scott had been on the run for the three days since the shooting.

  NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas said on Monday they had “multiple identifications” of Scott as the shooter. Serpas said his department received a “tremendous” amount of tips from Crimestoppers. There had been a $10,000 reward for information leading to Scott’s arrest.
  Surveillance video captured the shooting. There was a chaotic rush away from the gunman after shots rang out, and in all 10 men, seven women, a boy and a girl were shot. The children, both 10 years old, suffered graze wounds. No one died in the shooting.
  Source: WWLTV

• Discussion about Ariel Castro’s family saying that he is dead to them and that they hope he tors in prison.
  
• In the end, that is still their brother. Obviously he has issues, so how can they say they hope he rots?
• Apparently they are trying to distance themselves from him, but how they have responded is sad.
• The reporters are calling Castro a monster.
• Discussion about the changes in CNN. More British people, a few new Blacks, and fewer single show hosts.
• The Blacks on CNN are “exotic” looking Black people with ambiguous race features. There are absolutely no brown or dark brown people on CNN now.
• They should give Charles Ramsey a show. The way people are talking about him reinforce what he said about being a Black man.
• Discussion about Monique basically saying that what Charles Ramsey did was great, but now he needs new clothes and his hair done. If his look was good enough to resuce those women, then it is good enough.
  
• Why must people be expected to adhere to the mainstream ideal of dress and appearance when they have done something good. What he looks like or sounds like has nothing to do with the good that he did.
• We should be checking ourselves about the expectations we have of other people to adhere to the system that we ourselves hate…

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• Heit & Cheri discuss their decision to bring back the music shows on a weekly basis.

Song 1: “Gangsta” – Kat Dahlia

[Hook]
You say you a gangsta, that don’t impress me none
You say you a gangsta, ain’t seen a thing you done
I do it all on myself, I ain’t getting help
From no one, from no one

Yeah I’m young, 21, living in a crazy world
But I know the difference between a man and a herb
You frontin like you got it, claim they hittin on your wallet
Gucci tellin you the time and you watch it,
Now I ain’t stuntin like my daddy, he’s livin with my grammie
Used to be a big baller, he’s survivin off of gamblin
But I love him, he’s my daddy, yeah I love him he’s my daddy
Put him in a big house, before I ever see a grammy

And my mommy started working days at the church
Finding faith in God ’cause the real world hurts
So much evil lurks, they just make us work
But we can’t find work
Abuella, mommy and the girls, in a one bedroom
South beach lifestyle, they just paying for the view
Mommy on the couch, since she was 42
Sacrificing for the kids, ’cause that’s what mommys do
So I smoke my spliff, I spliff it hard
Candy says to stop, my voice is getting too harsh
So I sobered up, and my thoughts they rush
And now I think of you behind bars
Cross state lines, they spliffin’ good
In Miami you catch a charge
And the whole family tears apart

[Hook] x 2
You say you a gangsta, that don’t impress me none
You say you a gangsta, ain’t seen a thing you done
I do it all on myself, I ain’t getting help
From no one, from no one

And this recession’s so depressin
My parents don’t stop stressin
Just hopin I learned all their lessons
And I’m paying for this session
I’m paying for this session
And I’m paying rent, food, clothes, phone, christmas presents
6 shots in, I’m just countin all my blessings
No days off baby I ain’t restin
I told my sins, now I’m done confessin

[Hook] x 2
You say you a gangsta, but that don’t impress me none
You say you a gangsta, ain’t seen a thing you done
I do it all on myself, I ain’t getting help
From no one, from no one

On way to the top, I make with what I got
You want my number baby, I’m on a mission, catch up
Men sellin love like thieves
But when the girlie leaves, he’ll stop flirtin with me
So I took my heart off my sleeve
Never trust a man ’cause they all hungry
Yeah they all hungry
Never trust a man ’cause they all hungry

Right when you thought you had me
Baby you just lost someone
Finally got over you, baby time to move on
Never learned your lesson, ain’t even gonna question
Why it went so wrong
Right when you thought you had me
Baby you just lost someone
Finally got over you, baby time to move on
Never learned your lesson, ain’t even gonna question
Why it went so wrong

You say you a gangsta, that don’t impress me none
You say you a gangsta, ain’t seen a thing you done

• The delivery and the lyrics of this song are awesome!
• The beat has the fusion of Hip Hop and Soul at the same time. She delivers the songlike a rap song, which allows her to get a lot of lyrics into the song.
• Heit & Cheri both liked the lyrics:
  

  Now I ain’t stuntin like my daddy, he’s livin with my grammie
  Used to be a big baller, he’s survivin off of gamblin
  But I love him, he’s my daddy, yeah I love him he’s my daddy
  Put him in a big house, before I ever see a grammy

• Cheri also liked the part where Kat talks about her mother and her connection to religion. So many people go to church for some semblance of hope–they’re searching for something and go to church to feel better about the condition.
  

  And my mommy started working days at the church
  Finding faith in God ’cause the real world hurts

• Discussion about Kat saying that she confessed everything and now she’s done confessing.
• Discussion about Kat’s other songs and how this song stands out.
• Discussion about the lyric where she says that people are just paying for the view in the South Beach lifestyle. A lot of people can’t even pay for the views
  

  South beach lifestyle, they just paying for the view

• Discussion about the materialistic culture explored in the lyrics “Gucci telling you the time and you watch it.” They are telling you both the literal and figurative time, what you should be wanting in your life, and you’re watching it.
• Discussion about the relationship aspect of the song.
• Discussion about the person who is basically posing as a gangsta, rather than actually being a gangsta–taking control of your environment.
• Discussion about Kat saying that she’s on her way to the top and the guy posing as a gangsta is actually behind her.
• Discussion about the duality of the line
• Discussion about the Spanish version of the song. Cheri preferred the Spanish because it seems more natural and smooth. Heit liked the English version better because of the roughness of her voice.
  
• Gangsta is gangsta no matter the language.
• Discussion about listening to a song that is in a foreign language and not being able to understand the lyrics. Think about people who live in other countries, but listen to American music and don’t speak English.
• Discussion about people learning to speak English by listening to the music and watching American TV.
• Discussion about material pursuits in life and the question of whether our ideals align with the way we have chosen to live our lives. We say material things are not important, but we set up our lives in such a way that we are enslaved into maintaining a lifestyle of excess. If we can figure out how to minimize our lifestyle such that we don’t have to participate in wage slavery. Of course, people need to be able to distinguish between wants and needs.

Song 2: “No Guns Allowed” – Snoop Lion Featuring Cori B. and Drake

[Verse 1: Snoop Lion & Cori B]
Money makes a man and that’s a crime
If we all were rich we’d spend more time
With our daughters and sons, they’re loosing their minds
We all feel hurt here’s mine, here me now

[Chorus: Snoop Lion & Cori B]
Cause, no guns are allowed in here tonight
We’re gonna have a free for all, no fights
I wanna get lost in the crowd in here tonight
I need to hear my thoughts turn the music up loud

[Hook: Snoop Lion]
Let the music play, me don’t want no more gun-play
When the bodies hit the ground, there’s nothing let to say ay ay
Me don’t want to see no more innocent blood shed
Me don’t want to see no more youth dead
Come hear me now

[Chorus:]

[Verse 2: Drake]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, news from back home
This is when it hurts to be gone
Two more young names to be carved out of stone
one summer day that went horribly wrong
Got my dawg on the phone
Crying and saying to leave him alone
But I’m not leaving his side
I know that somebody died, somebody’s child
Some people ducked down and some people hide
Some people just cannot react in time
Bullets do not choose a victim
It is the shooter that picks them
They just cant wait to get you in the system
The district attorney could use a conviction
Told you no guns and then you didn’t listen
Life is so heavy with that on your soul
Dedicate this to Shayne and Josh
and pour something out for the lives that they stole
416

[Chorus:]

[Outro: Snoop Lion & Cori B]
Money makes a man and that’s a crime [2x]
I wanna get lost in the crowd in here tonight

• Discussion about Snoop Dogg changing his name to Snoop Lion and taking a more Reggae turn with his music.
• Discussion about a conversation with Daniel Coffeen in which Heit mentioned people having difficulty viewing others in a different light. People wanted Snoop to do more positive music, yet they criticize him when he tried to do this.



• Cori B is Snoop’s daughter.
• The song has an awesome message. People were trying to say this song was a gun control song, but they’re wrong. What they’re saying is that there is no NEED to have guns because they are having a good time. This is an anti-violence song, not an anti-gun song.
• The auto-tuning in this song worked.
• Cheri liked the hook as her favorite part of the song. Heit liked the line, “If we all were rich, we’d spend more time.” It’s pointing to the point that you don’t need money to be rich, but if you were rich with money, you wouldn’t have to spend your efforts trying to get money–you could just live and spend time doing what you enjoy. this is the envy of people who have money. the money buys things and time. You don’t have to slave away just to maintain yourself.
• Discussion about Drake’s verse. Heit thinks this is the best verse he’s ever heard from Drake.
• Discussion about the line, “Bullets do not choose the victim, it’s the shooter that picks them. It is the shooter’s or droner’s decision to take that action that resulted in the injury and or death of others.
• Discussion about Israel’s bombing of Syria being the same as American taxpayers doing it because that’s who helped to pay for it.

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Topics discussed include the completion of the spire on One World Trade Center, the hotel in Vegas that cooks people alive due to the glare of the sun off of the building, it costing $900K per “detainee” per year at Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility, an 83-year-old nun who broke into a federal depleted uranium storage facility as a protest, the NRA’s new president who plans to help them fight anti-gun laws in court, a comparison between the effectiveness of the ACLU versus the NAACP, a theater that paid an actor to dress up as a gunman and enter theaters playing Iron Man 3 as a promotional stunt, John McCain pushing legislation for a la carte cable channels, people who watch and believe Fox News, Heit buying a New Edition cassette tape for $0.49 and then telling his Facebook friend Ron DeVoe (of New Edition) that he got the tape at a deep discount, basic cable not including CNN and other news channels, Hulu and Netflix, TV series with terrible endings, and more!

• Discussion about the completion of the spire on One World Trade Center, making it the tallest building in the Northern Hemisphere–1776 feet tall. Symbolism!

  Workers cheered and whistled as they completed the spire on New York’s One World Trade Center on Friday, raising the building to its full height of 1,776 feet and helping fill a void in the skyline left by the September 11, 2001 attacks.

  The spire makes the building the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, 47 feet taller than Chicago’s Willis Tower, though it is substantially shorter than towers in the Middle East and Asia.
  Source: Reuters

• Discussion about other tall buildings in Asia and the Middle East.
• Discussion about a building that gave people sun burns and caused accidents due to the glare. Here’s a discussion about a similar building receiving complaints in Dallas.
  

  The mirrored siding on the new museum tower in downtown Dallas is racking up more complaints, this time from residents down the street at One Arts Plaza.

  They said the city’s newest skyscraper gives off a blinding glare.

  If the sun’s out, the problem is clear.

  “You really cannot look outside,” said Petey Parker, a resident at One Arts Plaza.
  Parker has a stunning view from her home on the 19th floor. But every morning, she said she is confronted by the sun’s blinding glare reflected off the Museum Tower.

  “This will last anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes,” Parker said. “It just depends. That’s too long.”
  No one disputes the new skyscraper is an attractive addition to Dallas’ skyline. But the Nasher Sculpture Center was the first to express concern and request that the building’s mirrored siding be muted.

  The museum worries that the sharp glare from the 42-story Museum Tower is damaging its priceless art.

  The city asked attorney Tom Luce to mediate between both sides, but so far, no fix has been found.

  Parker says it’s not just the Nasher facing this glaring problem. “We’re worried about our property value,” she said.
  And she’s not alone.

  At least one other resident in One Arts Plaza has also expressed concern about the Museum Tower’s mirrored siding.
  “You cannot destroy somebody else’s property,” Parker said.

  Residents here want in on Luce’s negotiations. They’re happy to have neighbors, but demand the Museum Tower finds a fix.
  Source: WFAA



• Discussion about the Vdara Hotel in Vegas that cooks people alive due to the glare of the sun off of the building. The temperatures were estimated at 210 degrees Farenheit!

  Holidaymakers at a new hotel in Las Vegas have been left with severe sunburn after the building’s windows reflected ‘death rays’ onto certain areas around the pool.

  The Vdara hotel has a concave shape which reflects the blistering Nevada sun from its all-glass front and directly onto sections of the swimming pool area below

  The result has left some guests with burns from the powerful rays and even plastic bags have been recorded as melting in the heat.
  Source: Daily Mail

• Discussion about the buildings that will replace the twin towers.
• Discussion about it costing $900K per “detainee” per year at Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility.
  

  It’s been dubbed the most expensive prison on Earth and President Barack Obama cited the cost this week as one of many reasons to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, which burns through some $900,000 per prisoner annually.
  The Pentagon estimates it spends about $150 million each year to operate the prison and military court system at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, which was set up 11 years ago to house foreign terrorism suspects. With 166 inmates currently in custody, that amounts to an annual cost of $903,614 per prisoner.

  By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in the United States spend about $60,000 to $70,000 at most to house their inmates, analysts say. And the average cost across all federal prisons is about $30,000, they say.

  The high cost was just one reason Obama cited when he returned this week to an unfulfilled promise to close the prison and said he would try again. Obama also said that the prison, set up under his Republican predecessor George W. Bush and long the target of criticism by rights groups and foreign governments, is a stain on the reputation of the United States.
  Source: Reuters

• For that kind of money, the detainees should be living in a lap of luxury. It’s iornic that Obama was the one talking about the expense of the prison.
• It is misleading that the $900K per year per inmate is the amount they say goes for each inmate. Actually, they probably took the total cost to operate the prison and divided it by the number of prisoners.
• Close the prison already!
• How will the government know how to operate the prison efficiently?
• Discussion about an 83 year-old nun who broke into a federal depleted uranium storage facility as a protest.
  

  An 83-year-old nun who broke into a Tennessee depleted uranium storage facility in 2012 and splashed human blood on several surfaces, exposing a massive security hole at the nation’s only facility used to store radioactive conventional munitions, was convicted Wednesday and faces a term of up to 20 years in prison.

  The only regret Sister Megan Rice shared with members of her jury on Wednesday was that she wished 70 years hadn’t passed before she took direct action, according to the BBC. She and two other peace activists, 64-year-old Michael Walli and 56-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed, were convicted of “invasion of a nuclear facility” in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, even though investigators admitted they did not get close to any actual nuclear material.

  The three activists are part of a group called “Transform Now Plowshares,” a reference to the book of Isaiah, which says, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares. They shall learn war no more.” All three face individual sentences of up to 20 years, along with a litany of fines.

  As they invaded the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, a perimeter fence was cut, several surfaces were spray-painted, banners were hung and activists read from the Bible. They also spread human blood on several surfaces, saying its use was symbolic, meant to remind people “of the horrific spilling of blood by nuclear weapons.”

  “The shortcomings in security at one of the most dangerous places on the planet have embarrassed a lot of people,” the activists’ attorney, Francis Lloyd, told members of the jury according to the BBC. “You’re looking at three scapegoats behind me.”

  Sister Rice has been arrested between 40 or 50 times committing acts of civil disobedience, according to The New York Times, including once in Nevada after she physically blocked a truck at a nuclear test site.
  Source: Raw Story

• They let three senior citizens break into the nuclear facility… Think about that for a minute.
• Maybe we need more senior citizen activists, because they seem to have less fear–they’ve already raised their children and have fewer career concerns.
• Discussion about the NRA’s new president who plans to help them fight anti-gun laws in court.
  

  Alabama lawyer Jim Porter, in line to become the next president of the National Rifle Association, is expected to spearhead the group’s court challenges of gun-control laws enacted in several states since the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting massacre.

  Porter, 64, the son of another Alabama lawyer who served as NRA president from 1959 to 1961, is likely to succeed David Keene on Monday in the two-year post at the nation’s leading gun-rights organization.

  The longtime member is chairman of the legal affairs committee for the NRA, which has headed off federal attempts to approve new gun ownership restrictions, including a U.S. Senate proposal last month for expanded background checks.

  Porter told NRA members at their annual convention in Houston on Saturday that President Barack Obama was “AWOL” on border security, the deficit and national security, but “scheming and plotting” to take away Americans’ gun rights.
  Source: Reuters

• every time folks talk about gun rights, the conversation always turns to the NRA. Nevertheless, individuals can benefit from their efforts to maintain gun rights, even if they disagree on their overall ideology.
• Discussion about Texas enacting laws to prevent the federal government from instituting gun control. They have even written in the right to arrest federal officers attempting to enforce gun control in the state.
  

  The Texas House approved a bushel of bills Saturday to further soften gun laws that were already among the country’s most firearms-friendly, allowing college students to carry handguns in class, putting potentially armed marshals in public schools and exempting the state from any future federal bans on assault rifles, high-capacity magazines or universal background checks.

  Dubbed “gun day” by supporters and opponents alike, the parade of votes came as tens of thousands of members of the National Rifle Association attended the group’s annual convention in Houston. Gov. Rick Perry welcomed convention attendees Friday with a video of him taking target practice using a semi-automatic rifle.

  The 12 approved gun bills must all clear final, procedural votes before heading to the state Senate. Still, they advanced with only minimal delay, cruising past Democrat-led efforts to block or stall them. Nearly all were approved by simple voice votes.
  Source: Fox News

• Discussion on a comparison between the ACLU and the NAACP. The ACLU is actually fighting a lot of pertinent issues.
• Discussion about the NAACP being on the wrong side of history with a lot of the B.S. that they push–things like co-signing the jailing of people who sag their pants.
• We cannot forget that the ACLU has lots more money than the NAACP.
• Discussion about a theater that paid an actor to dress up as a gunman and enter theaters playing Iron Man 3 as a promotional stunt.
  

  Operators of a Missouri movie theater apologized Friday for a stunt in which an actor dressed in black, wearing body armor and carrying a fake rifle walked in to the movie house.

  The stunt occurred during a promotion for the movie “Iron Man 3″ last weekend at the Goodrich Capital 8 Theaters in Jefferson City. Actors appeared at the theater, including some dressed as officers and one as Iron Man. Another actor was wearing what appeared to be assault gear and carrying a rifle.

  Some moviegoers were frightened and called 911, recalling the shooting in July at a Colorado theater during the premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises.” That attack killed 12 people and injured dozens others, and authorities said the gunman was dressed in police-style body armor.
  Management of the Jefferson City theater apologized on the theater’s Facebook page, saying it was meant to be part of the entertainment. They noted that similar dress-up promotions have occurred at past movies.

  “We apologize and are sympathetic to those who felt they were in harm’s way with our character promotion for Iron Man 3,” the Friday posting read. “We didn’t clearly tell our customers and some people didn’t realize it was for entertainment purposes only.”
  Source: Fox News

• Is an apology enough for the experience that the moviegoers endured?
• It is hard to believe that there was a consensus on sending what appeared to be an armed person entering a theater after the Aurora Colorado shootings.
• Discussion about Iron Man 3 breaking all sorts of box office records. It was the second-most grossing film of all time.
  

  Even though “Oz the Great and Powerful” was the number one movie during the quarter, and “Iron Man 3”, which kicks off the 2013 summer movie season, is off to a very strong start there is some concern for the movie box office this year. Part of that is fueled by such a strong year last year with Disney’s “The Avengers”, Time Warner TWX -0.05%’s “The Dark Knight Rises”, Lions Gate Entertainment LGF -0.65%’s “The Hunger Games”, Sony ’s latest James Bond adventure in “Skyfall”, the first movie in “The Hobbit” trilogy and another “Twilight” movie. Those movies and others led to a $10.8 billion movie box office in 2012, the highest on record. Helping the box office was the increasing percentage of movies that came in the 3D and IMAX formats as they bumped up ticket prices. Average ticket prices finished 2012 at $7.96, a new record.
  Source: Forbes

• Discussion about John McCain pushing legislation for a la carte cable channels.
  

  Hate having to pay for hundreds of cable TV channels when you watch less than a dozen? How about those blackout rules that make it so you can’t watch your favorite NFL team when a home game isn’t sold out?

  If Sen. John McCain gets his way — and that’s a big “if” — those two annoyances could be a thing of the past.

  Sen. McCain introduced a bill Thursday in Congress, the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013. The act would “encourage the wholesale and retail unbundling of programming by distributors and programmers.”

  That means if you want to subscribe to a single cable channel, such as ESPN, you would be able to do that without subscribing to any others.

  Here’s how the senior Senator from Arizona introduced his bill: “For over 15 years I have supported giving consumers the ability to buy cable channels individually, also known as ‘a la carte’ — to provide consumers more control over viewing options in their home and, as a result, their monthly cable bill.”

  In theory, this bill would make compliance with his a la carte plan voluntary. But program providers would be enticed into complying because of another law he wants to attach to the bill: one that makes dealing with copyright much easier for cable networks.

  If cable and satellite programming purveyors wanted to enjoy the sweet deal they enjoy now — one where broadcast stations are forced to license their content to the cable and satellite providers — they’ll have to play along with McCain’s a la carte plan.
  Source: Mashable

• Speculation about the cost of a la carte cable channels to the consumers.
• Discussion about whether expanding market share or bottom line profits are more important to the cable providers.
• Discussion about basic cable not including CNN and other news channels.
• Discussion about Fox News being the number two cable station overall and people who believe the foolishness that they push.
• Discussion about the ways cable companies will nickle and dime consumers.



• Discussion about Heit buying a New Edition cassette tape for $0.49 and then telling Ron DeVoe that he got the tape at a deep discount.



• Discussion about the logistics of having to rewind a cassette tape.
• Discussion about Hulu and Netflix.
• Discussion about Heit & Cheri watching Doogie Howser MD on Hulu Plus. The ending was terrible! The worst ending that we’ve ever seen was Hawthorne though. They just shut that down before they could finish the storyline. It ended on a cliffhanger.
• Cedric the Entertainer talking about how Black shows end abruptly.
• Heit & Cheri talk about the one series that they are watching in real time–Grey’s Anatomy.
• Maybe John McCain should just stick to cable and domestic entertainment issues–not foreign policy…

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