I guess you didn't read my post. What was decided in the civil war subsequent Supreme Court cases, was that secession required bilateral agreement between the Feds and the seceding state. A constitutional amendment clearly outlining a path for unilateral secession would make that history moot.

Perhaps these or something like them would do the trick?
http://www.usfireworks.biz/category/mortars.htm

Your post is a little confusing to me, but I hope you haven't fallen for the lie that Obama wanted to end the practices of Gitmo. Obama did try to close Gitmo and Congress stood in the way, but it was a type of "closing" where those practices were merely imported to a Federal Supermax in Illinois, not a "closing" in the sense of ending the practice of indefinite due process free detention. It was a very clever bit of politics on Obama's part -- something an uncritical Democrat could latch on to in the tribal GOP v. DNC clownfight.

see: "Welcom to Gitmo North"
http://www.salon.com/2009/12/15/gitmo_3/

I'm a liberal (not a Democrat mind you, Democrats are just the New GOP and the old GOP is merely a parody of itself) -- but I'm totally for States' Rights. The more I see what the Federales do, the more I would love to see a secessionist movement not rooted in white supremecy groups or religious freakery. The greatest threat to liberal values in the world today is the US Federal government and a constitutional amendment allowing unilateral peaceful secession of states would be a very interesting thing to have. Even if states didn't suddenly jump ship, the very existence of that right would make the Feds a bit more circumspect (at least probably, but who knows, they're pretty stuck up).

I agree it is an extension of GWB's due process free indefinite detention policies likely rooted in the same theories. I agree that just having the CIA "handle" things is a rotten system too. I also agree that merely writing the memo, like expressing any opinion, should not be the basis for any kind of legal proceeding (certainly not execution as Al Alwaki was subjected to for youtube vids). However, we are not talking about an abstract discussion -- this has been and continues to be used to kill people in violation of fundamental principles in our Constitution that go all the way back to the Magna Carta.

One point of disagreement I do have, is that it is not a legal framework of any sort. This memo is merely the opinion of Obama's lawyers and although it is treated as a secret law (a huge can of worms on the side as ignorance is no excuse etc. etc.), it ought not be. As Glen Greenwald put it:

This memo is not a judicial opinion. It was not written by anyone independent of the president. To the contrary, it was written by life-long partisan lackeys: lawyers whose careerist interests depend upon staying in the good graces of Obama and the Democrats, almost certainly Marty Lederman and David Barron. Treating this document as though it confers any authority on Obama is like treating the statements of one's lawyer as a judicial finding or jury verdict.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-kill-list-doj-memo

I see what you are saying and being an antiwar peacenik myself, I agree with the proposition that we should not summarily execute people, citizens or not, for crimes of which they are accused. If we think they committed a crime (of which terrorism is a flavor) then they should be allowed due process.

At the same time, I have to care about the country I live in, and I see this as a real departure from what the US was envisioned to be. It's deeply disturbing to me because it feels like a slide into authoritarianism with a single branch of government wielding all the powers through one person. I don't want to live under that type of government.

I am not bothered by this nearly as much as I thought I would have been.

Then you need to read a little bit more. This is the most serious issue of our time -- it is the a historical dividing line between an America with three competing branches, and an America with an imperial presidency with unlimited power to do anything at all.

Here is Glen Greenwald's take on it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-kill-list-doj-memo

Greenwald is not particularly easy to summarize, and you'd be better off to read his analysis and check his sources. It would really take all day. But as a weak attempt to summarize it, the article cited above is broken down into six parts, and maybe the headings with some excerpts will serve that purpose.

1. Equating government accusations with guilt

Those who justify all of this by arguing that Obama can and should kill al-Qaida leaders who are trying to kill Americans are engaged in supreme question-begging. Without any due process, transparency or oversight, there is no way to know who is a "senior al-Qaida leader" and who is posing an "imminent threat" to Americans. All that can be known is who Obama, in total secrecy, accuses of this.

2. Creating a ceiling, not a floor

The memo explicitly leaves open the possibility that presidential assassinations of US citizens may be permissible even when the target is not a senior al-Qaida leader posing an imminent threat and/or when capture is feasible.

3. Relies on the core Bush/Cheney theory of a global battlefield

The president, it claims, "retains authority to use force against al-Qaida and associated forces outside the area of active hostilities". In other words: there are, subject to the entirely optional "feasibility of capture" element, no geographic limits to the president's authority to kill anyone he wants. This power applies not only to war zones, but everywhere in the world that he claims a member of al-Qaida is found.

4. Expanding the concept of "imminence" beyond recognition

The only reason to add these limitations of "imminence" and "feasibility of capture" is, as Heller said, purely political: to make the theories more politically palatable. But the definitions for these terms are so vague and broad that they provide no real limits on the president's assassination power. As the ACLU's Jaffer says: "This is a chilling document" because "it argues that the government has the right to carry out the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen" and the purported limits "are elastic and vaguely defined, and it's easy to see how they could be manipulated."

5. Converting Obama underlings into objective courts

A president can always find underlings and political appointees to endorse whatever he wants to do. That's all this memo is: the by-product of obsequious lawyers telling their Party's leader that he is (of course) free to do exactly that which he wants to do, in exactly the same way that Bush got John Yoo to tell him that torture was not torture, and that even it if were, it was legal.

That's why courts, not the president's partisan lawyers, should be making these determinations

6. Making a mockery of "due process"

...Holder actually said: "due process and judicial process are not one and the same." Colbert interpreted that claim as follows:

"Trial by jury, trial by fire, rock, paper scissors, who cares? Due process just means that there is a process that you do. The current process is apparently, first the president meets with his advisers and decides who he can kill. Then he kills them."

He was there because his family moved there. He was participating in a barbecue when he was murdered. He had been trying to find his dad for some time because he missed him.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2097899,00.html
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/20/the_killing_of_awlakis_16_year_old_son/

News reports, based on government sources, originally claimed that Awlaki's son was 21 years old and an Al Qaeda fighter (needless to say, as Terrorist often means: "anyone killed by the U.S."), but a birth certificate published by The Washington Post proved that he was born only 16 years ago in Denver. As The New Yorker's Amy Davidson wrote: "Looking at his birth certificate, one wonders what those assertions say either about the the quality of the government's evidence -- or the honesty of its claims -- and about our own capacity for self-deception."

And of Al Awlaki himself? He was killed because of his youtube postings. Freedom of speech, so long as you don't say stuff the Feds hate. That list of things the Feds hate? Sure to grow.

Hey -- I like the ACLU. Lots. But the ACLU is not a "progressive" (tm) organization. For example:

ACLU chief 'disgusted' with Obama
http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0610/ACLU_chief_disgusted_with_Obama.html

ACLU ad showing Obama morphing into Bush:
http://www.aclu.org/aclu-ad-what-will-it-be-mr-president

ACLU: Obama Has Quadrupled Warrantless Wiretaps
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/28/ACLU-Obama-Has-Quadrupled-Warrantless-Wiretaps

ACLU condemns court for keeping details of Obama's assassination program secret
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/02/aclu-condemns-court-for-keeping-details-of-obamas-assassination-program-secret/ ... this could go on for pages and pages.

The ACLU is an enemy of Obama, not a friend, and suggesting that its laudable attempts to shed light on the Can-Do-No-Wrong-Obama is some push back from Democrats, is to miss the point entirely. The Democrats are part of the disease that needs to be pushed back against, and the ACLU is doing that as much as it can. That is not however evidence that Democrats are pushing back against their own policies, which were the same policies (or even worse than) of GWB.

Shoot -- should have made it clear. That's a quote from the memo, not a pundit.

The whole falacy with your argument is that you probably think the word "imminent" means "about to take place" or something like that. Imminent is an excellent word for lawyers because it's so slippery and can mean just about anything. And that's exactly the case here.

The condition that an operational leader present an 'imminent' threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/leaked-memo-drone-strikes-us-citizens.html

Maybe. This is what disturbs me:

-- Largest prison system in the world (and "for profit" to boot).
-- Legal authority to kill you without trial.
-- Legal authority to detain you indefinitely without trial.
-- Rampant domestic eavesdropping.
-- Rampant military worship.
-- Militarization of the police forces.
-- Differential application of the law based on whether you are an elite.
-- A government essentially owned by the mega-corps and which consistently and unfailingly kowtows to those interests.

Things look seriously bad.

This memo is saying that you do NOT have to be in a foreign country nor on a battlefield and that imminent does not mean that you are engaging in attack preparations. So just about every part of your basis is lacking.

Serriously, give a word like "imminent" to lawyers and they'll argue we're on the doorstep of cold fusion.

People do care. Remember the Torture Memos of Yoo? That really got people upset about lawyers. Other than Yoo. And no one in the administration. Really, anyone who would challenge our ability to torture. Well, anyway, people got upset about something.

The ENTIRETY of the Obama presidency has been a demonstration by Democrats that they didn't disagree with GWB's policies, they merely hated the man and used his policies as a foil. Obama's entire first term was marked by the egregious continuation of every civil rights violation GWB envisioned, but amplified, and Democrats said nothing, unless it was to label a person asking serious questions as "racist."

If the past four years is any indication, Obama has nothing to fear from "progressives" -- and I say that term with absolute disgust, because "progressive" is just code for Democrat right wing neocon bastard pretending to be a peacenik. Which in my world is worse than Republican right wing neocon bastard not pretending.

I can drink a red bull, a monster, a coke, tea, or anything but coffee and easily take a long nap afterwards. Something about the caffeine I get through coffee is different. It actually makes me feel alert and awake.

I used to drink tons of coffee and lattes -- it's a nice to thing to drink here in the Pacific NW because our weather and hot drinks go perfectly together. I drank it because I like the way it tastes, but it never woke me up in the morning or kept me awake at night. I'd make myself a latte just before bed sometimes. Hot milk is really soothing (don't go there, you know what I mean).

Then about four or five years ago I started to shake. It was embarrassing -- like I was jonesing for cocaine or meth or something. So now I drink decaff. It too neither wakes me up nor keeps me up.