Saturday, August 10, 2013

Summer bomb Elysium



























Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has approved the telephone surveillance effort.








And will these be public hearings, Dianne?



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Friday, August 09, 2013

Who's he to judge?





Season one, episode 15 ("Hard Ball" written by Matt Hubbard) of the sitcom 30 Rock, starlet Jenna Maroney (played by Emmy award winning Jane Krakowski) is in damage control over her comments so she goes on Hardball and speaks with Chris Matthews (host) and Tucker Carlson.

Jenna: I have just as much right to my opinion as you or Chris.

Chris Matthews:  I'm not sure you do.  You've been on this show for 20 minutes now.  You sang six bars of something called "Muffin Top" --

Jenna:  Thank you.

Chris Matthews:  -- and then told a disgusting story about fleet week.

Tucker Carlson:  I guess this is the state of political discourse in this country and that's fine, let's just embrace it.  Let's have our policies determined by former Cable Ace Award nominees. 

Jenna:  First, I was great in that Arliss.  Second of all, if the president is so serious about the war on terror, why doesn't he hunt down and capture Barack Obama before he strikes again?  It's time for a change, America.  That's why I'm voting for Osama in 2008.  [Pause.]  Oh, no comeback? You burnt!

It was a hilarious moment and no one could top it . . . until Tuesday night when Barack Obama chose to channel his inner starlet on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Pure Jenna is the only way to describe Barack declaring, "And the odds of people dying in a terrorist attack obviously are still a lot lower than in a car accident, unfortunately."

Unfortunately?  Was that a Freudian slip or is Barack just the airhead we always secretly knew he was?

In the gab-fest, Jay Leno notes the Sunday embassy and consulate closures and wonders is it "safe to say that we learned about these threats through the NSA intelligence program? Is that a fair assessment?"  Barack has an interesting reply.

Barack Obama:  Well, you know, this intelligence-gathering,uh, that we do is a critical component of counterterrorism. Uh, And obviously, with, uh,  Mr. Snowden and the disclosures of classified information, it's raised a lot of questions for people. But what I said as soon as it happened I continue to believe in, which is a lot of these programs were put in place before I came in. I had some skepticism, and I think ther's a --  we should have a healthy skepticism about what government is doing. I had the programs reviewed. We put in some additional safeguards to make sure that there's federal court oversight as well as congressional oversight, that there is no spying on Americans. 

There is spying on Americans, the meta data recording alone is spying. Christopher H. Pyle (CounterPunch) observes, "With the blessing of this secret court [FISA], the National Security Agency (and well-paid companies like Booz Allen) have recorded billions of phone calls and e-mails belonging to nearly all Americans, with the intent of searching them later."  Informing Congress? Most claim they knew nothing about it.  Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) reported last week:




Additionally, there are no safeguards with a secret court and there never will be which is why secret courts go against democracy.


A lie.  Where are the fact checkers?  The phone calls are all collected -- not just ones related to a so-called terrorist threat.  (Fact check?  Have you read Politico's 'transcript'?  They not only do away with Barack's uh-uhs, they 'help' him with verb choice.  Someone explain to Politico that a transcript is a transcription of what was said, not what fans wish was said.)

Barack Obama:  And that information is useful. But what I've said beforeuh, you know, I want to make sure I repeat, and that is we should be skeptical  uh about the potential encroachments on privacy. None of the revelations show that government has actually abused ih these powers, but they're pretty significant powers.

There's the ignorance of a man who didn't learn American history in Indonesia (naturally) and who struggled with basic classes after he finally came back to America (as his own grandmother admitted). The government has clearly abused powers and Barack and others know that which is why the programs were kept secret from the American people.

Dennis is a terrorist in Scotland working with Cecile in Madison, Wisconsin.  Finding out that all phone calls are tracked or all e-mails are read does not mean Dennis and Cecile stop communicating. They have to communicate.  They may try to communicate in code -- but if they're terrorists, they should already be doing that.  The only people these programs had to be kept secret from were the American people who would instantly grasp that these are unconstitutional and an abuse of government power.

Barack Obama: And I've been talking to Congress and civil libertarians and others about are there additional ways that we can make sure that people know nobody is listening to your phone call, but we do want to make sure that after a Boston bombing, for example, we've got, uh, we've got the phone numbers of those two brothers -- we want to be able to make sure did they call anybodUh, and if we can make sure that there's confidence on the part of the American people that there's oversight, then I think we can make sure that we're properly balancing our liberty and our security. 

He thinks?  Who really gives a damn what Barack, a whore for Big Business, thinks?  In three more years he's just another idiot we have to spend millions on each year while his own income (from corporate whoring) goes untouched when it comes to health or security issues.  Who gives a damn what he thinks?  He's not a king, he's a public servant who works for the people -- you know the one group he didn't mention consulting with.  Because he's such a chicken he hasn't had the guts to face a real conference on these issues.


Well, golly, what leader of another country wouldn't love a lecture from Barack?  Does his preening ego ever fall into check?  And let's point out one more time, with temporary asylum, Putin (or whomever is president) is not supposed to have any input.  As far as anyone knows, the Russian government's system was followed.  That means the body in charge made the decision.  Yet Barack and his administration have repeatedly lied and implied or stated that Putin was responsible for the decision.  These lies debase the White House.

Jay Leno:  And Putin seems to me like one of those old-school KGB guys. 

Barack Obama:   Well, he headed up the KGB. 

No, he didn't.  And considering Ann Dunham's actions in Indonesia,  I don't know where you get off knocking the KGB.  Wikipedia on Putin and the KGB:

Putin joined the KGB in 1975 upon graduation, and underwent a year's training at the 401st KGB school in Okhta[disambiguation needed], Leningrad. He then went on to work briefly in the Second Chief Directorate (counter-intelligence) before he was transferred to the First Chief Directorate, where among his duties was the monitoring of foreigners and consular officials in Leningrad.[36][37]
From 1985 to 1990, the KGB stationed Putin in Dresden, East Germany.[38] Following the collapse of the East German government, Putin was recalled to the Soviet Union and returned to Leningrad, where in June 1991 he assumed a position with the International Affairs section of Leningrad State University, reporting to Vice-Rector Yuriy Molchanov.[37] In his new position, Putin maintained surveillance on the student body and kept an eye out for recruits. It was during his stint at the university that Putin grew reacquainted with his former professor Anatoly Sobchak, then mayor of Leningrad.[39]
Putin finally resigned from the active state security services with the rank of Lieutenant colonel on 20 August 1991 (with some attempts to resign made earlier),[39] on the second day of the KGB-supported abortive putsch against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.[40] Putin later explained his decision: "As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on", though he also noted that the choice was hard because he had spent the best part of his life with "the organs".[41]

And Barack's spy connections?  As John Pilger has explained:

In his book Dreams From My Father, Obama refers to the job he took after he graduated from Columbia in 1983.  He describes his employer as, and I quote, "a consulting house to multi-national corporations."  For some reason, he doesn't say who his employer was or what he did there.  The employer was Business International Corporation which has a long history of providing cover for the CIA with covert action and infiltrating unions on the left.  I know this because it was especially in my own country, Australia.  Obama doesn't say what he did at Business International and there may be absolutely nothing sinister but it seems worthy of inquiry and debate as a clue perhaps who the man is. During his brief period in the Senate, Obama voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He voted for the PATRIOT Act.  He refused to support a bill for single-payer health care.  He supported the death penalty.  As a presidential candidate, he received more corporate backing than John McCain. He promised to close Guantanamo as a priority but instead he's excused torture, reinstated military commissions, kept the Bush gulag intact and opposed habeaus corpus. 

Back to the gab-fest.

Jay Leno:  [. . .] the NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Some call him a whistleblower. What do you call him?

Barack Obama: Well, we don’t know yet exactly what he did, other than what he's, uh,  said on the Internet, and. uh,  it's important for me not to prejudge something.

Jay Leno: Got you.

Barack Obama:  Hopefully, at some point he'll go to trial and uh he will have a lawyer and due process, and we can make those decisions. I can tell you, uh,  that there are ways, if you think that the government is abusing, uh, a program, of coming forward. In fact, I, through executive order, signed whistle-blower protection for intelligence officers or people who are involved in the intelligence industry. So you don't have to break the law. You don't have to, uh, divulge, uh, information that could compromise American security. You could, uh,  come forward, come to the, uh, appropriate individuals and say, look, I've got a problem with what's going on here, uh, I'm not sure whether it's being done properly. If, in fact, uh, the allegations are true, then he didn't do that. And, uh,  that is a huge problem because a lot of what we do depends on, uh,  terrorists networks not knowing, uh, that, in fact, we may be able to access their information. 

What a liar.  But a press that can't do an honest transcription of a TV segment can't handle a fact check.

Barack can make all the lofty claims he wants, that doesn't make them true.  This is the editorial board of Bloomberg News from June 10th:


Barack's remarks were troublesome and filled with errors.  At one point he insisted, "If we don't deepen our ports all along the Gulf -- places like Charleston, South Carolina, or Savannah, Georgia or Jacksonville, Florida -- if we don't do that, those ships are going to go someplace else.  And we'll lose jobs [. . .]"  Dan Quayle was crucified for his spelling of potato but Barack can list cities that are not "all along the Gulf" but claim that they are and no one corrects him?

 We all have to play stupid so the princess isn't outshined?

Larry Johnson (No Quarter) addresses Barack's claims of specific threats:

If you are waiting for the Al Qaeda terrorist offensive, stop waiting. It is here. But it is not in focused in the 22 countries where Barack Obama, choosing the route of a coward, shuttered US Embassies. Nope. It is in Iraq:

This is the deadly harvest the is the work of George W. Bush and now, Barack Obama.
The current warning issued by the Obama Administration is bulls**t. As I wrote earlier this week, Obama and members of Congress claim it is “specific” but, rather than focus on stopping a specific threat, they insist in the same breath that they don’t know what, when or how. That ain’t specific!

Meanwhile the Cambridge Chronicle notes:

The government is beginning to sound like the boy who cried wolf. First it was Bradley Manning and his leaks which damaged national security. Those leaks occurred in 2010 and we’ve yet to see how in any way they’ve damaged our national security.

Over 500 hundred people have died in Iraq just this month alone. Seems that’s more damaging to national security than Bradley Manning, who, by the way leaked documents showing the number of people killed in Iraq is greater than what the government is reporting. We’ve been here before, the Pentagon Papers proved that what the government knew and what they were telling the country about what was going on in Vietnam, were two different things.

Now they’re saying the same thing about Edward Snowden and his leaks telling of government collection and storage of data, they say the leaks are a great threat to our national security.

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Thursday, August 08, 2013

He has a twin!














All this over Ed Snowden?



Meanwhile Paul Lewis (Guardian) reports today:







Reality, Putin's thrilled.
Why wouldn't he be?
Putin hates this?  Oh, poor, foolish Daniel.
That's really cute, isn't it?
Where has Coscarelli been since 2009?





One expert says these kinds of situations involve some gray area.








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"Explain it to me again"

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Explain it to me again






Michael Hayden, the former CIA director, has been harshly criticizing Edward Snowden and calling for his immediate prosecution. But in the wake of the leaks about America spying on specific terrorists in specific times and specific areas, Hayden says it was important “to put them on the back foot, to let them know that we’re alert…”

Iraq is slammed with bombs yet again.  Mohammed Tawfeeq and Jason Hanna (CNN) report, "At least 30 people were killed and more than 100 others were injured in car bombings and roadside bomb explosions in Baghdad neighborhoods Tuesday evening, police officials in the Iraqi capital said.  Most of the explosions happened in Shiite areas, police said. Nearly all of the blasts happened just before people were to celebrate iftar, the fast-breaking dinner eaten at sunset during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan."  The UK Daily Express adds, "The explosions mainly targeted markets in and near Baghdad."  AFP observes, "Iraq is struggling to contain the worst violence to hit the country since 2008 when it was emerging from a bloody sectarian conflict."

Through Monday, Iraq Body Count counts 106 violent deaths in Iraq so far this month -- a month that isn't even 10 days old.  National Iraqi News Agency reports that a Hamrin bombing claimed 2 lives and left three people injured, and Nouri's Tigris Operation command has killed at least 11 Iraqis in their latest efforts today at mass arrests. Alsumaria reports 1 police officer was shot dead outside of Falluja, a Mosul armed attack has left 4 people dead (three were brothers)Ahmed Rasheed (Reuters) explains, "The past four months have all had higher death tolls than any in the five years before April, leading the Interior Ministry to declare last week that Iraq was now once again in 'open war'."

 Since December 21st, Iraq has seen an ongoing wave of protests.  The protests continued on Friday and from that day's snapshot:


Saturday, Al Mada reported that at least two activists are still being held.  Buthaina al-Suhail wants to know where her son Ahmed al-Suhail is?

Mushreq Abbas (Al-Monitor) divides the two protests in Baghdad on Friday, stating that the Quds protest was permitted while the Iraqis protesting each Friday was denied a permit:

The issue of these young people trying to get approval for their demonstration seems like a paradox. In a statement posted on the group’s Facebook page on the evening of Aug. 4, the group said that they went to the local government in Baghdad to get a permit for the demonstration and were told to “go to the Council of Ministers.” So, they went to the Council of Ministers, which told them that demonstration permits were under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry. They then went to the Interior Ministry, which told them that they would get the permit from the Baghdad Operations Command on the day of the demonstration.”
According to the statement they issued, on the morning of the demonstration, the “Iraq Rises Up” demonstrators distributed flowers to the military forces who deployed around them. But soon after, the military forces attacked them.
That long scenario about granting a demonstration permit illustrates one of the most important aspects of the imbalance in the Iraqi legal system. Article 38 of the constitution provides that the state shall guarantee “freedom of assembly and peaceful demonstration, and this shall be regulated by law.”
The phrase “regulated by law,” which is everywhere in the Iraqi constitution, may be one of the most prominent aspects of the Iraqi political crisis. The Iraqi parliament never sought to pass a law that translates the essence of the phrase “the state shall guarantee ... freedom of assembly and peaceful demonstration.” But rather, the Iraqi administrative and security bodies are relying on laws that go back to the era of the former Iraqi regime.

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Just add batteries









































* high level U.S.-Iraq military exchanges
* professional military education cooperation
* counter-terrorism cooperation
* the development of defense intelligence capabilities
* joint exercises



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