"...followed by a brisk mauling."

burntbythesun:

And I’m definitely voting for him because he plans to:

+ Oppose retroactive immunity for individuals or companies that have violated federal law.

+ Abolish the right of federal agencies to spy on US citizens without a warrant, based upon a showing of good cause.

+ Eliminate the obligation of third parties to hand over documents concerning other persons to federal agencies without a court-issued warrant.

+ Abolish “sneak and peak” provisions enabled by the Act; searches should only be conducted with a warrant delivered prior to the search, not subsequently (absent exigent circumstances).

+ End indefinite detention of foreign and U.S. citizens; everyone has the right to charges, legal representation, habeas corpus, and a fair trial.

+ Eliminate militarism and empire-building: The US will never again engage in an illegal war of aggression.

+ Moral leadership: We will no longer support regimes that abuse human rights and suppress democracy.

+ Economic rationality: We will close down all overseas military bases that are not demonstrably critical to our security, along with at least a 50% reduction in the Pentagon budget. (The U.S. military budget is now larger than the military budgets in all other nations combined.)  This money will be allocated to domestic priorities, including reducing the accumulated debt and interest burden. As Martin Luther King said, every dollar spent on a missile is a dollar taken from a child’s education, or the food budget of a poor family.

+ The Anderson Administration would adopt the same principles towards Israel that it would to any and every country – namely, to withdraw diplomatic and financial support if that country is in flagrant violation of international law or abuses human rights.

+ Legalize industrial hemp. [Hemp’s remarkable advantages are hard to beat: it thrives without herbicides, it reinvigorates the soil, it requires less water than cotton, it matures in three to four months, and it can yield four times as much paper per acre as trees.  Hemp can be used to create building materials that are twice as strong as wood and concrete, textile fiber that is stronger than cotton, better oil and paint than petroleum, clean-burning diesel fuel, and biodegradable plastics.  In addition, it can produce more digestible protein per acre than any other food source.  These advantages are in tune with the environmental and health preferences of today’s North American public.  The growing curiosity of consumers, the interest shown by farmers and processors, and Canada’s excellent growing conditions for industrial hemp allow optimistic views for its future.]

+ Empty Guantanamo Bay of its inmates, and close it down. 

+ Try terrorist suspects in civilian courts.

+ Put Bush and Obama-era torturers on trial.

+ Take back international leadership in the research, development and commercialization of low-carbon energy technologies. 

+ End taxpayer subsidies of fossil energy and shift them to a revenue-neutral public investment in research and commercialization of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.  Among these subsidies is the multi-billion-dollar research effort to scrub carbon from coal burning and bury it underground. If the coal industry wants to remain part of America’s energy future, it can pay for this research on its own. 

+ Require the gas industry to clean up the production of shale gas, to protect groundwater and water quality, and to reveal the contents of its “fracking” agents. Natural gas has the potential to help us make the transition to a clean energy economy, but fracking has unacceptable environmental costs.

+ Launch an economy-wide initiative to make the United States the most energy-efficient industrial economy in the world within 20 years. 

+ Insist that the world’s top 20 industrial nations fulfill their commitment to end fossil energy subsidies and exert US leadership to make the G-20 the Green-20, in which the major economies implement aggressive clean energy goals for government operations.

+ Reform national transportation policy to stop favoring highways over mass transit and other options for clean mobility.

+ Improve education and job training programs, including training for green-collar jobs, to build the workforce we need for a clean energy economy. 

+ End public subsidies for nuclear energy, an industry that has never existed without taxpayer support.  While nuclear power generation does not produce carbon emissions, it should not be a high priority until the industry solves the problem of wastes, until power plants are better protected from terrorist attack, and until the international community creates a reliable way to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

+ Promote economy-wide collaboration in the transition to a clean energy economy by engaging industry, state and local leaders, economists, the national laboratories and other stakeholders to create a national policy and investment roadmap with clear goals and milestones.

+ Put the United States on course for a zero-net-carbon economy by mid-century.  Rocky believes that because the damages and costs of climate change grow larger with each passing year, America’s plan for reductions must be front-end-loaded.

+ Insist on full funding and scientific integrity in the national climate change science program, as well as U.S. support for the ongoing research of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

+ Champion a market-based approach to reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, but support and defend the authority of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions if market mechanisms are not promptly put in place by Congress or prove insufficient.

+ Fully use the authorities past Congresses have granted the President to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from government operations and to aggressive goals for government use of low-carbon materials and resources. Fight for sufficient funding by Congress to make the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense, leaders in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

+ Direct appropriate federal agencies to modify their grant and loan programs to support low-carbon development and climate adaptation measures by state and local governments and the private sector.

+ Push for greater economy-wide transparency on climate risks. For example, President Anderson will push for state insurance regulators to require that property-casualty insurance companies annually assess and report their climate-related risks – an exercise similar the Security and Exchange Commission’s guidance that publicly traded companies do the same.

+ Reinstate FEMA’s Project Impact, a program under the Clinton Administration that helped communities create public-private partnerships to prevent and respond to natural disasters.

+ Institute policies to make carbon “visible”, including carbon-impact statements for federally funded projects and carbon-impact analysis of federal agency budget requests.

+ Make the reduction of America’s carbon debt as high a priority as reducing its financial debt; and deliver a “State of the Nation’s Ecosystems” address to a joint session of Congress each Earth Day.

+ Direct the EPA and Energy Information Administration to count the carbon impact of America’s imports when they calculate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

+ Direct America’s National Laboratories to increase their collaboration with U.S. industry in the development of critical carbon-cutting technologies, including advanced batteries, utility-scale energy storage, cellulosic ethanol and low-wind-speed turbines

+ Make the United States a constructive and proactive leader in the effort to negotiate an effective and enforceable international treaty that reduces the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, conserves the world’s forests, and transfers clean energy technologies to developing nations.

+ Direct the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation to develop guidelines for designs and materials that reduce the carbon footprints and increase the resilience of America’s infrastructure, particularly as it is repaired and modernized in the years ahead.

+ We must end the bizarre reliance in the United States on for-profit insurance companies for essential health care.  We should adopt a health care system like Taiwan’s single-payer system (the most efficient in the world) or Canada’s single-payer system (which is consistently Canada’s most popular social program).  Single-payer National Health Insurance systems provide excellent, timely basic health care, in a manner very similar to Medicare in the U.S.  In those systems, the medical providers are private, but the bills are paid by one government-run insurance program toward which every citizen contributes.  Those systems are far less expensive and more efficient because there is relatively little paperwork; there is no need for marketing; there are no underwriting personnel whose jobs are to deny claims; and there is no profit for shareholders.  The single payer insurance program has the market power to negotiate for lower prices.  Examples of National Health Insurance programs are found in Canada, Australia, Taiwan and South Korea.  (In 2005, health expenditures in Canada were 10.1% of GDP; in Taiwan, 6.2%; and in the U.S., 16.5%.)

+ Anderson proposes boosting the minimum wage to no less than $10.00 an hour, with future increases to be tied to the rising cost of living, as a vital step to ensure that low wage earners can better bridge the gap between income and expenses.  Raising the minimum wage would be a small step to restoring dignity for millions of workers, enabling many ordinary Americans to become part of the economic recovery, rather than its collateral damage.  According to the Economic Policy Institute, every dollar increase in wages for a worker on the bottom rung of the pay scale creates more than $3,500 in new spending after one year, actively greasing the wheels of the economy overall.

(via rockyanderson2012)

rockyanderson2012:

Justice Party Presidential Candidate Rocky Anderson has joined two U.S. Senators in calling on the U.S. Justice Department and the Obama Administration to disclose classified legal opinions which deal with the killing of American citizens.

“Our government is saying it has the right to kill Americans whom it believes are part of a terrorist organization, but it refuses to disclose to Congress the legal opinion that justifies these actions,” says Anderson. “The killing of U.S. citizens as a part of an official assassination campaign is unprecedented in U.S. History,” notes Anderson.  “There are no charges filed; no trial, no due process whatsoever.  This is a subversion of the U.S. Constitution and absolutely un-American.” 

Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon and Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, have both expressed their concerns to Attorney General Eric Holder.  Anderson agrees, 

“I thank Senators Wyden and Leahy for their patriotism. The Bush Administration displayed no regard for international law. It broke treaties and it undermined the rule of law. Many of us thought an Obama Presidency would restore our inherent respect for liberty and justice. We were wrong.  This administration has created secret legal opinions allowing the killing of American citizens and it refuses to share those opinions with Americans. This latest example of the imperial presidency should outrage all who value our constitution and our nation’s most noble traditions.”

Anderson questions where the Administration is going with this kind of thinking.

“The Bill of Rights says that no American shall ‘be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.’ Many current elected officials have little regard for due process.  The NDAA provisions allowing for indefinite detention are subversive to our form of government.  We must act in every way to protect the rule of law. Due process is one of the most important features of a free society. All true patriots should demand accountability and compliance with our Constitution.”

Rocky Anderson is the former Mayor of Salt Lake City, the founder of High Road for Human Rights, and current Justice Party nominee for President of the United States.