I expect that Rep. Harman’s story will be inescapable today, but I still wanted to remind everyone to take the time to look at it closely.  It just might explain a whole host of things.
Category: Politics Page 17 of 73
I’d kept quiet about the proclamation that the Obama Administration didn’t intend to prosecute those who actually tortured people in the (admittedly optimistic) hope that the Administration had a made a practical decision to focus its efforts on identifying and prosecuting those responsible for ordering it. Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, said that the Administration isn’t interested in prosecuting them, either.
There really aren’t words for the depth of my disgust with Obama and those that helped him come to this decision. Good job in protecting war criminals, Barack. I hope it haunts you until the end of your days. Because it sure will haunt America.
Obama needs to get honest about this, and quickly:
Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates poured more cold water on the idea that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will be repealed anytime soon. “If we do it,” Gates said, “it’s very important that we do it right, and very carefully.”
[ . . . ]
Back in January, of course, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said, in no uncertain terms, that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would be repealed. But the administration’s been slowly walking that back ever since.
Really, this is brilliant:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkOwsIIIe5I[/youtube]
Story of the day, for sure:
While the N.S.A.’s operations in recent months have come under examination, new details are also emerging about earlier domestic-surveillance activities, including the agency’s attempt to wiretap a member of Congress, without court approval, on an overseas trip, current and former intelligence officials said.
[ . . . ]
And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The agency believed that the congressman, whose identity could not be determined, was in contact — as part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006 — with an extremist who had possible terrorist ties and was already under surveillance, the official said. The agency then sought to eavesdrop on the congressman’s conversations, the official said.
I’d like to think that we’ll be getting more of the facts of that case shortly. I’d also like to think that the every person at the NSA who thought that was a good idea will be gone, soon (of course, they won’t be). But while the case above may be the instance that motivates Congress to care a bit more, this is why we should all care more:
Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection†of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.
How many times did we hear – from the White House, from Congress – that sufficient protections were in place to prevent exactly that? Lies or stupidity. You choose. In either instance, no one should trust anything they say about these matters anymore, without corroboration and external checks.
Ron Paul is back to his old self:
Ron Paul is now suggesting what he, I guess, thinks is a libertarian solution to the growing piracy problem. Have Congress get into the idea of issuing “letters of marque and reprisal,” which as Paul notes is actually a power expressly granted in the US constitution.
What a maroon.
I’m beginning to think that there’s a mole in the “anti-gay marriage” movement, because . . . really, you just can’t make this up. How long until we get a press release pointing out that “2M4M is snowballing!”?
I have rarely seen something this funny on television:
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