In a decision supported by . . . → Read More: Bad things your mad dog government has got up to lately; the Unity Candidate arrives]]> The law is a ass, and it wants to see yours. Watch what you think; don’t think it out loud; don’t think it in the vicinity of a marijuana dispensary. Good news: the one candidate who can truly unite Americans of all political stripes has jumped into the race.

In a decision supported by the Obama administration, the Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that security services can strip search anyone they arrest even when they have no reason to think the search is necessary. Given the latitude police have to determine probable cause for arrests, the ruling licenses police to arrest and subject anyone to a strip search for no particular reason.

In his dissent to the ruling, Justice Stephen Bryer paraphrased the language of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” Breyer described unwarranted strip searches as an “affront to human diginity.”

Strip searches have long been used by police and other authorities to humiliate, coerce or intimidate prisoners—or even people outside of captivity, such as airline passengers—who annoy them or contest their authority. We are guaranteed to see an increase in strip searches of Occupy protesters and others who publicly oppose authorities and protest police tactics now that the court majority have in a stroke removed any official protection against the technique.

Meanwhile, federal authorities have imposed nearly two decades of jail time on Tarek Nehanna after convicting him of thinking bad thoughts and saying bad things. They’re attempting to do the same to CIA torture whistleblower John Kiriakou.

Elsewhere, the State Department is slow-roasting Iraq development expert Peter Van Buren for saying true things that the department doesn’t want said.

No drones were deployed in any of these cases, so that’s a good thing.

Cui bono? When not stalking whistleblowers or people with ideas that the state can’t abide, the feds are knocking over weed dispensaries in California, Colorado and other states where the dispensaries operate legally under state and local law.

Who benefits from those actions? Drug dealers and cartels, obviously; the prison industry, since the pool of potential marijuana offenders is enlarged; and, last but by no means least, the federal agencies whose budgets are swollen by drug war money.

Who loses? Medical marijuana users, obviously; municipalities and states that lose the tax revenues; people employed in the industry and related businesses.

And finally, the candidate I’ve been touting for six years jumps into the race:

“Today Secretary Panetta met with Greek Defense Minister Dimitris Avramopolous at the Pentagon to discuss a variety of mutual defense interests including the upcoming NATO Summit, the missions in Afghanistan and . . . → Read More: US Secretary of War Leon Panetta ponders the human cost of the Greek financial crisis]]> He’s concerned that the Greeks won’t have as much money to spend on killing humans in other countries as the US would like.

“Today Secretary Panetta met with Greek Defense Minister Dimitris Avramopolous at the Pentagon to discuss a variety of mutual defense interests including the upcoming NATO Summit, the missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo, and the impact of Greece’s financial crisis on its defense posture.”

We’re all heart, or possibly Soylent Green is people.

The staff members are reaching out to leaders of key advocacy groups . . . → Read More: Democrats agree to push for single-payer health care system if mandate falls]]> BTC News has learned that senior Congressional Democrats are quietly directing staff members to organize an effort to pass Medicare-for-all legislation in the event the Supreme Courts strikes down the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act, also know as Obamacare.

The staff members are reaching out to leaders of key advocacy groups for support of the effort. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee official told BTC News that the fight for universal health care in America will play a critical role in the reelection campaign of President Obama, and in the efforts of Democrats to regain control of the House and solidify control of the Senate.

“This is what we should have pursued initially in 2009,” the official said, “but frankly we’ve been catering to the fears of Members and Democratic party leaders who are still shell-shocked from the Clinton health insurance reform debacle. We realize now that if our party had pushed for universal health care during every Congressional session since 1993, it would have been a reality by now. We can’t change the past but we can damned sure make up for it.”

Other Democrats pointed to the budget plan devised by Republican Paul Ryan and passed by the House as an example of how persistence pays off. “He came out with that budget last year, and everybody including most of his own party ran screaming from it because it’s homicidally innumerate,” one Democratic House staffer said. “Did he give up? No: he’s back again, and this time he got it through the House. The Senate will kill it but he’ll be back again next year and every year after that until it or something close to it is a done deal.

“We have an issue that actually makes sense, so what’s stopping us from doing the same thing?”

White House sources say that while the President isn’t wild about the idea of taking up universal health care in the months before the election, he’s willing to leave the matter up to Congressional leaders and see what happens. “If it looks like it’s a winner,” said one aide, “he’ll ride it. We can always back out after the election.”

Republican sources say their leaders are salivating at the prospect of a fight over single-payer. “We don’t know why Democrats think they can sell the idea of providing health care to everyone in the country for less than we’re paying now with 50 million uninsured, but if they think it’s a political winner then the last thing we want to do is stop them from trying.”

Although most progressive groups support universal health care in theory, some activists are said to be worried that a premature effort to enact it will damage prospects down the road. “Yes,” said a senior executive at one group, “this is something that every other developed nation has had for decades, and yes, our system is insanely expensive and destructive, but if we go for it and don’t win then we’ll have gone for it without getting it, and we already don’t have it so what will we have won? We’re not sure that makes strategic sense.”

Some observers suggest that if the past prefigures the future, Democrats are more likely to regard a decision eliminating the mandate as a rebuke for overreaching than as an opportunity to bring the country into the company of civilized nations. “Democrats did not arrive at the point of electing a president who likes Ron Reagan and hates hippies by standing their ground,” said one wag. “If the mandate goes down they’ll probably be on the phone with Zell Miller trying to figure out how to salvage the situation.”

In other news, the FBI has announced that multiple arrests have been made in a case involving the theft of trillions of dollars from the US government and individual citizens.

UPDATE (April 2): Yes, this is completely made up so far as I know.

The Department of Homeland Security just extended an ammunition contract for up to 450 million .40 caliber hollow-point rounds. That works out to something like 150 15-round clips for . . . → Read More: Ain’t gonna study war … oh, never mind. Plus: torture inquiries! (Not here, of course.)]]> Like as not we’re now fighting three generations of Taliban in Afghanistan. Can we hold on long enough to make it four? Yes We Can!

The Department of Homeland Security just extended an ammunition contract for up to 450 million .40 caliber hollow-point rounds. That works out to something like 150 15-round clips for every DHS employee, including the IT guys. So don’t ask them to reboot the internet when your browser locks up.

Other countries actually attempt to hold people accountable for torture and stuff, even when it was on our dime. Novel!

This should be … interesting.

“Whether by land, sea or air, Defense Department leaders have long crafted rules of engagement to determine how, where and when forces can attack the enemy. They expect soon to complete the same for their newest domain: cyberspace, the assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs said today.”

The more times a story is told, the more likely it is to be true. True story!

Why no, since you ask, we won’t ever learn.

President Obama’s first known authorization of a missile strike on Yemen, on December 17, 2009, killed more than forty Bedouins, many of them women and children, in the remote village of al Majala in Abyan. Another US strike, in May 2010, killed an important tribal leader and the deputy governor of Marib province, Jabir Shabwani, sparking mass anger at the United States and Saleh’s government. “I think these airstrikes were based on false intelligence from the regime, because that is the nature of the contractor,” Qahtan charges. “The contractor wants to create more work in return for earning more money.”

The October drone strike that killed Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, a US citizen, and his teenage cousin shocked and enraged Yemenis of all political stripes. “I firmly believe that the [military] operations implemented by the US performed a great service for Al Qaeda, because those operations gave Al Qaeda unprecedented local sympathy,” says Jamal, the Yemeni journalist. The strikes “have recruited thousands.” Yemeni tribesmen, he says, share one common goal with Al Qaeda, “which is revenge against the Americans, because those who were killed are the sons of the tribesmen, and the tribesmen never, ever give up on revenge.”

Barack Obama is … No Ordinary Socialist!

“The Daily Show” interviewed a bunch of socialists . . . plus a New York college professor (even worse) . . . who all agreed that Obama is not a socialist. Obama just doesn’t go far enough for them. But I told them that’s not how Obama plays the game. That’s what makes him the most dangerous socialist this country has ever seen.

True story!