NC Renegades

Friend —

On Tuesday, members of Congress return to Washington from summer recess — and there’s a lot of work waiting for them.

It’s easy to get discouraged about our chances of making progress. After all, this has been the least productive Congress in modern history, thanks to some extreme voices in the House who seek gridlock.

Today, in spite of that, I’m asking you not to be cynical — because that only makes those voices stronger. They’re counting on passionate Americans tuning out and giving up at times like this.

We refuse to let that cynicism win out — stand up with me today and send a message to those leaders in Congress that we expect them to get to work for the American people, and we’re not going away.

The truth is there’s only one way that these folks get away with nonsense like wasteful lawsuits against the President, failing to lift a finger to fix our broken immigration system, or threatening to shut down the government AGAIN.

They get away with it because too many people have come to expect nothing better from Washington.

That cynicism gives the other side a pass they don’t deserve.

I refuse to let it be a foregone conclusion that leaders in Congress can’t come together to get something done for the American people.

These people work for us. We should be frustrated. We should be outraged. And we should speak up. President Obama put it this way: “Cynicism is a choice — and hope is a better choice.”

Add your name today and say you refuse to be cynical:

http://my.barackobama.com/Stand-Up-to-Cynicism

Thanks,

Jon

Jon Carson
Executive Director 
Organizing for Action

Source

The U.S. Army is preparing to fight political dissidents who challenge the power of the state as “megacities” become the battleground of the future, according to a new report in the Army Times.

The article details how the Army’s Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) worked with US Army Special Operations Command, the chief of staff’s Strategic Studies Group and the UK’s Ministry of Defence earlier this year to wargame the future of armed combat, which will revolve around the neutralization of groups “who can influence the lives of the population while undermining the authority of the state,” a chillingly vague description which could easily be applied to political dissidents.

The plan foresees an unprecedented realignment of U.S. military strategy focused around putting “boots on the ground” in megacities to deal with “politically dispossessed” populations while relying on “more lethal and more autonomous” methods.

“It is inevitable that at some point the United States Army will be asked to operate in a megacity and currently the Army is ill-prepared to do so,” asserted a report by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno’s Strategic Studies Group, while Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster warned that the Army will increasingly have to expand its presence to battle an enemy which operates in “other contested spaces like organized crime and politics.”

The report also notes how the Army will utilize directed energy weapons which “would allow U.S. to have direct-fire capabilities with significant logistics reduction, and to counter enemy long-range missile capability.”

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