Skip to main content

First indefinite detention. Now your assets can be seized if you criticize the war in Yemen

Thankfully, my "assets" pretty much consistent of $11.62 in an old savings account and a will leaving same to be distributed "by law."

Because now President Obama is apparently coming for me, and others who oppose US involvement in Yemen:

President Obama plans to issue an executive order Wednesday giving the Treasury Department authority to freeze the U.S.-based assets of anyone who “obstructs” implementation of the administration-backed political transition in Yemen.
The unusual order, which administration officials said alsotargets U.S. citizens who engage in activity deemed to threaten Yemen’s security or political stability, is the first issued for Yemen that does not directly relate to counterterrorism.
You could reasonably argue, I guess, that my own little posts on Yemen are so inconsequential that nobody could possibly want to freeze my assets (unless some Treasury Department agent really wants a cheap pizza, which is about what they would buy), but you'd be wrong.


The Obama administration has prosecuted people for speaking out against the so-called "War on Terror," has suggested that people could rceive the death sentence without trials, has executed American citizens abroad without notice or due process, and has asked for the power to detain American citizens indefinitely.


So let's be clear:  I oppose US involvement in Yemen.  I believe that US intervention and imposition of one-party rule in Yemen (ala Guatemala in the 1950s) is a disaster, and that "Yemen's security" is a euphemism for a foreign policy based on militarism and intimidation.


If anything I write is capable of threatening Yemen's security or stability, my $11.62 is waiting.


Why is it that anybody wants to re-elect this man?


Because he pretended to give you health care while he was removing your civil rights?

Comments

tom said…
And any day now, the IRS will be able to revoke your passport simply by alleging that you owe more than $50,000 in taxes--no proof necessary.

This lovely little bit of stealth fascism appears in the Transportation bill H.R.4348 / S.1813 AKA "MAP-21" which sailed through both the House and Senate and is now in a Conference Committee, once again demonstrating how desperately we need the Read the Bills Act and the One Subject at a Time Act.

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

Libertarian National Committee Deathwatch Part 1

As the LNC continues to lurch towards collapse, with the latest news of mass layoffs at HQ, I've decided to begin tracking those things leading the national party to irrelevance, even as state and local parties gain power. As news, rumors and rhetoric break out, I shall chronicle them in this ongoing series at Delaware Libertarian. Organizations approaching failure have a number of characteristics. One of the most striking is renunciation of their purpose and effort to reinvent themselves as a "me-too" provider of services in the marketplace. In this, the LNC has been on a collision course with destiny for a while now. Recently, for example, it hired Republican Party web site developer TerraEclipse to redesign the LNC web site . Terra created a web site very similar to those of the clients it brags most about -- far-right Republican conservatives like Tom McClintock and BJ Lawson. A quick look at the web site they built for the LNC is instructive. The tagline on the ...

The disturbing decline of the Delaware blogosphere: a very unfortunate Around the Horn (even if it's not Friday)

I've noticed a change in my own blog-checking habits over the past several weeks, and I don't know if it's just me or the reality of the last month of a divisive political campaign. I automatically used to check out Delawareliberal first and several times a day, because it was where I could find edgy, thought-provoking, and (dare I say it) funny banter going on. These days visit several other spots first, and my visits to DL are both shorter and less engaged. Why? Because the combination of invading neo-con commenters with the stridency of some of the major contributors has led to such pleasant exchanges as a post dedicated to labeling another blogger racist by donviti, whose own sense of provocative humor is generally so far out there that he makes John Belushi doing Samurai bartender on the SNL look positively pro-Asian. Or I can find Delawaredem and jason periodically spewing the idea that anybody who is not a liberal or progressive Democrat is somehow a non-American,...