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Don't they know we live in a totalitarian state?

Wed, 03/18/2009 - 10:31pm — Xenophon

I saw this news article about troops "policing" in Alabama. didn't these folk get the memo that posse comitatus is dead? The Military Comissions Act is now in force.

“On March 10, after a report of an apparent mass murder in Samson, Ala., 22 military police soldiers from Fort Rucker, Ala., along with the provost marshal, were sent to the city of Samson,” Harvey Perritt, spokesman for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at Fort Monroe, Va., told CNSNews.com on Monday. Link

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Conspiracy theory

By ElizabethF on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 4:55am

or reality. Thinking about this as the financial crisis hit and wondering if it was known how bad it was going to be when TRADOC was created.

I find it almost impossible that congresspeople were so surprised and declared ignorance of the State of the Union the day Paulson informed them that we were nearing the edge.
How can you sit in that chair in the chamber and not know that the country is heading off a cliff?

Are they fearful of the public rage? Then again, people sat thru Bush v Gore 2000 and then the next eight years with hardly a shout.

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Curiouser and curiouser

By lambert on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 7:17am

From the link above**:

But Stromenger said it wasn’t the Samson Police Department that called for the troops.

“I don’t know who called Fort Rucker. But someone did. They wouldn’t have been able to come if someone hadn’t,” he added.

Under Whose Authority?

The troops were apparently not deployed by the request of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley -- or by the request of President Obama, as required by law.

When contacted by CNSNews.com, the governor’s office could not confirm that the governor had requested help from the Army, and Gov. Riley's spokesman, Todd Stacy, expressed surprise when he was told that troops had been sent to the town.

No request from President Obama, meanwhile, was issued by the White House--or the Defense Department.

Seems like either somebody's lying, or there are big time chain of command issues.

NOTE ** But what is Cybercast News Service?

UPDATE WikiPedia on CNS. Seems like they're from the Buchanan faction of the Conservative Movement. There are worse ones.

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"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi

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Uhhh Lambert

By Xenophon on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 7:53am

CNS isn't an issue in this case. Did army troops police on US soil? AP says so ... it's not like you can claim reputation or sourcing. We really don't have news any more. That is, of course, we can get somebody from Samson AL to report ...

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Hey, geneo! Know anybody in Samson?

By lambert on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 8:14am

I'd just never heard of CNS -- In fact, I thought they were Christianists. So I wanted more coverage some sort of check, which you gave with AP.

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"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi

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Nope

By geneo on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 12:11pm

Just caught up on this discussion here.

Spent all day yesterday sweating and enjoying all the blooming and buzzing, so a little behind here. Plus I'm fixated on that other thing to the point of obsession at this point.

Will ask around about this and see what I can do on it as soon as I am able.

Alabama is very important. Has been for a long, long time.

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You don't have to post...

By lambert on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 12:25pm

... but if you can reach out to anybody, maybe they could. As Xenophon points out, the coverage is very, very thin. Mail me if they need an expedited account.

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"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi

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Tryin'

By geneo on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 10:32pm

Asked about this in a diary. That's my best bet, since I'm not actually on the ground in AL, and all my kin over there are in a different part of the state.

Thinking that eventually, I'll hear something, but it takes times for this sort of thing to travel, and the network of people between me and those close to the incident is a pretty large one.

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Six degrees...

By lambert on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 10:46pm

I can't believe there isn't a local blogger who doesn't want to get this story out....

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"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi

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Dude Nobody's in Charge

By Xenophon on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 8:47am

The echo chamber is ridiculous. The CNS version and the AP version are the only two I could find on the web. Of course they are picked up by various "headers" but it's all the same damn copy. There are two versions on the whole web.

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Couple of More Things

By geneo on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 12:27pm

1. THANK YOU for alerting me to this. Normally, this is something I would be all over, but I'm a little distracted right now. It was that "Alabama" link in that post uppage that got my attention.

2. Locally, this is a very sensitive situation. I'll see what I can do to get some people looking a little more closely at this, but need to think about it carefully for a bit.

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