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Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines. I don’t think they will need to idle for very much longer.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2993865/posts

Obama Administration Says President Can Use Lethal Force Against Americans on US Soil
Mother Jones ^ | Tue Mar. 5, 2013 | Adam Serwer

Posted on Tuesday, March 05, 2013 9:13:35 PM by nickcarraway

Yes, the president does have the authority to use military force against American citizens on US soil—but only in “an extraordinary circumstance,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday.

“The US Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening,” Paul said Tuesday. “It is an affront the constitutional due process rights of all Americans.”

Last month, Paul threatened to filibuster the nomination of John Brennan, Obama’s pick to head the CIA, “until he answers the question of whether or not the president can kill American citizens through the drone strike program on US soil.” Tuesday, Brennan told Paul that “the agency I have been nominated to lead does not conduct lethal operations inside the United States—nor does it have any authority to do so.” Brennan said that the Justice Department would answer Paul’s question about whether Americans could be targeted for lethal strikes on US soil.

Holder’s answer was more detailed, however, stating that under certain circumstances, the president would have the authority to order lethal attacks on American citizens. The two possible examples of such “extraordinary” circumstances were the attack on Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. An American president ordering the use of lethal military force inside the United States is “entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront,” Holder wrote. Here’s the bulk of the letter:

As members of this administration have previously indicated, the US government has not carried out drone strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so. As a policy matter moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat. We have a long history of using the criminal justice system to incapacitate individuals located in our country who pose a threat to the United States and its interests abroad. Hundreds of individuals have been arrested and convicted of terrorism-related offenses in our federal courts.

The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront. It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States. For example, the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances like a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.

The letter concludes, “were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the president of the scope of his authority.”

In a Google+ Hangout last month, President Obama refused to say directly if he had the authority to use lethal force against US citizens. As Mother Jones reported at the time, the reason the president was being so coy is that the answer was likely yes. Now we know that’s exactly what was happening. “Any use of drone strikes or other premeditated lethal force inside the United States would raise grave legal and ethical concerns,” says Raha Wala, an attorney with Human Rights First. “There should be equal concern about using force overseas.”

This post has been edited to include Paul’s statement and the final line of Holder’s letter.

A threat matrix ping prompted this email to a long time friend committed to ‘holding their feet to the fire’ tactic of dubious value compared to ‘vote them all out.’

As I wrote above, Margaret, I am constantly bewildered by activists who cling to the liars who have usurped the power from We the Constitutionally empowered. It used to be said the political criminals and traitors sitting in office have only one job in mind and that is to get re-elected.

Well, it appears they now have taken on another task. It includes the willing dismantlement of our Nation and embraces the dismemberment of the American body once beautiful.

Those who refuse to see that are still going to end up as dead as those of US who will resist to the end but their end I dare say will be an ignoble sputtering protestation ended by a 9mm report they will most likely never hear as the round will enter their brain just a wee bit quicker than the sound will bounce off their ear drum.

Those deluded, trusting activists who will surely mock any possibility of an American soldier internment specialist as a jailer for an American citizen as tinfoil material might want to go back to that US Army link and recheck the skills required for such a job. Noticeably absent is a foriegn language requirement.

You’ve likely received the politico story a number of times in the last 48 hours but I’ve not noticed any outrage from the keyboard rangers. Why do you think that is? Maybe ‘it can’t happen here’ is still a viable argument for the hard headed ostrich Americans to shriek into the space they hide their heads while their asses (and their families asses) hang out in a free fire zone the criminal traitors in office could be forced to declare if they felt they had no other choice.

That Russian troop story might sound a little flakey to us but it is not the first report of foriegn troops being spotted as you know.

What this is all leading to is getting pretty obvious. At least it should be. But the citizens still rally around the criminal parties. Wait. Do you think calling them criminal parties controlled by traitors is unrealistic or too harsh? Is there something in the last fifty years that I missed that will explain their eagerness to flush our babies down toilets and other assorted drains and send the young men who escaped that fate off to wars with no defined purpose or meaningful ending? How about the millions of women who brought that ‘it’s our body and we’ll do what we want with it’ argument, and had an abortion or three and discovered that crushing guilt the politicians never mentioned never goes away.

I know you never thought you would still be holding politicians accountable for the open borders all these years later. Do you remember sitting in Santorums office in Washington and hearing his chief of staff blithely answer, ‘oh there is no benefit from illegal aliens for the citizens but for the corporations...’ Do you remember that?

Margaret, there are so many other glaring attacks on our culture, our way of life that we can not, nor must not, continue to ignore. Muslim Brotherhood in the white house. Obama’s destructive economic policies that make absolutely no sense other than a purposeful emptying of our treasury. The gun running into Mexico, Benghazzi and even allegedly to domestic groups located in, strangely enough, a town in Indiana where certain Islamic clergy have quarters.

That stuff is tip of the iceberg and alone should be cause for alarm.

Nada.

What about the millions and billions of dollars taken from US to fund foreign enemies and a global government intent on enslaving the world?

These few examples can not get the American people to take a more jaundiced view of the political class? What the hell is wrong with everyone? Why do they remain blind to the truth? It is not that difficult to effect change.

Our Second Amendment is under the fiercest attack in it’s history that I know of. Lines are being drawn because of it. Sheriffs are asserting their authority and people are backing them up.

Here in Bucks county, we have a sheriff who takes a month to decide that he supports the Constitution and formerly angry citizens immediately role over and assume the position of trust, nay submission and prepare to hail him as a hero and re-elect him, much like they did for Fitzpatrick. Margaret have you been tracking Fitzpatricks performance??? He is no more a friend than Arlen Specter was.

Our Nation is about to reap it’s judgement and we elect the people who are only too willing to execute it. We suffer, they thrive.

We are a bass ackward people, after all. Margaret. People like Tom Lingenfelter fight the system and the people who have the most to gain from his efforts believe what the newspaper’s political propagandists write and he has to fight and scratch his way onto the ballot only to get rejected by those who will openly complain that the system is corrupt yet who, mostly out of fear I suppose, refuse to vote for those like Tom, who want to do something to fix it.

Bah.

Look, I didn’t intend to go on like this. What I intended to share was a story, an article, written back in the nineties when clinton was in office and Waco and Ruby Ridge was causing great discomfort for the comfortable middle class of America.

There was concern then about the collection of weapons and one author put forth this thought: When they come for your guns kill them. You’ll likely die on the scene, too but you were targetted for death anyway. Dieing before the ride on the train is much more honorable than dieing after the train reaches it’s destination.

Or words to that effect.

Goodnight, Margaret.

John

Please continue to encourage your friends in Bucks to do something. Even getting ten signatures for Tom on his ballot petition is an important, and when you think about it, revolutionary act.