The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur talks about Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview with Matt Lauer on the Today Show where Cheney said that waterboarding suspected terrorists is OK, but if Iran were to waterboard a suspected American Spy he would object to it, in other words, it’s NOT OK.

Ron Paul hit it out of the park with his floor speech on May 25, 2011 saying “The last nail is being driven into the coffin of the American Republic.”

Congressman Paul goes on to say, “Yet, Congress remains in total denial as our liberties are rapidly fading before our eyes. The process is propelled by unwarranted fear and ignorance as to the true meaning of liberty. It is driven by economic myths, fallacies and irrational good intentions. The rule of law is constantly rejected and authoritarian answers are offered as panaceas for all our problems. Runaway welfarism is used to benefit the rich at the expense of the middle class. Who would have ever thought that the current generation and Congress would stand idly by and watch such a rapid disintegration of the American Republic? Characteristic of this epic event is the casual acceptance by the people and political leaders of the unitary presidency, which is equivalent to granting dictatorial powers to the President.

Our Presidents can now, on their own:
1. Order assassinations, including American citizens,
2. Operate secret military tribunals,
3. Engage in torture,
4. Enforce indefinite imprisonment without due process,
5. Order searches and seizures without proper warrants, gutting the 4th Amendment,
6. Ignore the 60 day rule for reporting to the Congress the nature of any military operations as required by the War Power Resolution,
7. Continue the Patriot Act abuses without oversight,
8. Wage war at will,
9. Treat all Americans as suspected terrorists at airports with TSA groping and nude x-raying.

And the Federal Reserve accommodates by counterfeiting the funds needed and not paid for by taxation and borrowing, permitting runaway spending, endless debt, and special interest bail-outs.

And all of this is not enough. The abuses and usurpation of the war power are soon to be codified in the National Defense Authorization Act now rapidly moving its way through the Congress. Instead of repealing the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), as we should, now that bin Laden is dead and gone, Congress is planning to massively increase the war power of the President.

Though an opportunity presents itself to end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Congress, with bipartisan support, obsesses on how to expand the unconstitutional war power the President already holds. The current proposal would allow a President to pursue war any time, any place, for any reason, without Congressional approval. Many believe this would even permit military activity against American suspects here at home.

The proposed authority does not reference the 9/11 attacks. It would be expanded to include the Taliban and “associated” forces—a dangerously vague and expansive definition of our potential enemies.

There is no denial that the changes in s.1034 totally eliminate the hard-fought-for restraint on Presidential authority to go to war without Congressional approval achieved at the Constitutional Convention. Congress’ war authority has been severely undermined since World War II beginning with the advent of the Korean War which was fought solely under a UN Resolution. Even today, we’re waging war in Libya without even consulting with the Congress, similar to how we went to war in Bosnia in the 1990s under President Clinton.

The three major reasons for our Constitutional Convention were to:
1. Guarantee free trade and travel among the states.
2. Make gold and silver legal tender and abolish paper money.
3. Strictly limit the Executive Branch’s authority to pursue war without Congressional approval.

But today:
1. Federal Reserve notes are legal tender, gold and silver are illegal.
2. The Interstate Commerce Clause is used to regulate all commerce at the expense of free trade among the states.
3. And now the final nail is placed in the coffin of Congressional responsibility for the war power, delivering this power completely to the President—a sharp and huge blow to the concept of our Republic.

In my view, it appears that the fate of the American Republic is now sealed—unless these recent trends are quickly reversed.

The saddest part of this tragedy is that all these horrible changes are being done in the name of patriotism and protecting freedom. They are justified by good intentions while believing the sacrifice of liberty is required for our safety. Nothing could be further from the truth.

More sadly is the conviction that our enemies are driven to attack us for our freedoms and prosperity, and not because of our deeply flawed foreign policy that has generated justifiable grievances and has inspired the radical violence against us. Without this understanding our endless, unnamed, and undeclared wars will continue and our wonderful experience with liberty will end.

Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot and Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, was interviewed on RT and she shows us how things are really no different with Barack Obama than when George W. Bush was President of the United States.

Watch the RT Video:

Barack Obama inherited the same powers that allow him to detained anyone indefinitely without trial, he has failed in his promise of more transparency, Gitmo isn’t going anywhere, Iraq and Afghanistan Wars aren’t going to end anytime soon, he supported FISA, and on and on it goes.

It is refreshing to see someone like Naomi Wolf, who is usually regarded as being on the left, stand up for what is right and call out Barack Obama.

Be sure to check out these other videos of Naomi Wolf:

Interview with Naomi Wolf – “Americans are facing a coup”
Talk by Naomi Wolf – The End of America
Naomi Wolf – “There hasn’t been a real investigation of 9/11″

The head of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, who was previously President Bush’s top general in Iraq, said Friday that the US had violated the Geneva Conventions and that the US may have violated international law.

“When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Convention we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it’s important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those,” Gen. Petraeus said on Fox News.

Watch the Fox News Video (May 29, 2009):

Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon has asked prosecutors to review a complaint by human rights lawyers that 6 former Bush Administration officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington, Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes, provided legal cover for torture at Guantanamo Bay.

Watch the CNN Video (March 30, 2009):