Anyone else immediately picture Mel Gibson in full kit, swinging a claymore and yelling "You'll never take oor freedom!"(?)
William Wallace did come to a drawn and quartered end, and was an actual Patriot, to boot.
But sadly, today, it was just one more highly hypocritical Florida citizen demanding President Obama's death and dismemberment. Sad, sad local loon-watch coverage had preliminary details, and the good folks at Raw Story had video.
On July 17, Center for Immigration Studies Senior Policy Analyst Stephen Steinlight spoke to The Highlands Tea Party in Sebring, Florida. There, he expressed a desire not only to impeach President Obama but also to have him publicly lynched.
In discussing House Speaker John Boehner’s plans to sue the President, Steinlight lamented that “there’s no court that’s going to stop Obama from doing anything.” He then added, “We all know, if there ever was a president that deserved to be impeached, it’s this guy. Alright? And I wouldn’t stop. I would think being hung, drawn, and quartered is probably too good for him.”
So the order is, just to refresh:
Impeachment.
Lynching.
Hanging.
Drawing and quartering.
Presumably releasing the remains to Putin and Karl Rove?
Teabagger Hate for Obama - and modernity in general - grows as fast as Fvx Nation will fertilize, and they're not slowing down on the moo-doo over 'thar any day soon.
U.S. Special Operations forces captured one of the suspected ringleaders of the terrorist attacks in Benghazi in a secret raid in Libya over the weekend, the first time one of the accused perpetrators of the 2012 assault has been apprehended, according to U.S. officials.
The officials said Ahmed Abu Khattala was captured Sunday near Benghazi by American troops, working alongside the FBI, following months of planning, and was now in U.S. custody “in a secure location outside Libya.” The officials said there were no casualties in the operation, and that all U.S. personnel involved have safely left Libya.
This looks bad. Bad if you're a Republican who was counting on the Benghazi special congressional committee, the eighth committee to witch-hunt the terrible Libyan tragedy, to find something to tag onto Obama and Hillary Clinton. One of the major talking points is that Obama, who promised right away to seek out and find the culprits, has done nothing since the event nearly two years ago. Nobody had been apprehended. This was a GOP talking point on the lack of interest in the Benghazi attacks and the President's concern.
So much for that asshat argument. Obama said he'd take out Osama Bin Laden. He did. He said he'd bring to justice those responsible for Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other American deaths in this Benghazi attack, and the round-up has begun.
Now what do you have to say for yourself, Speaker Boehner on your special committee? So Obama's been doing nothing, eh?
What have you been doing? Your job is to run the Congress. Where's the jobs bill, your alternative to the ACA, the long-term unemployment extension, the immigration reform bill, minimum wage increases, etc?
Seems if anyone's asleep at the wheel, it's the House of Representatives. You're the Speaker, Boehner. Maybe you should be doing the people's work like you're being paid for and let the President do his. He's showing results. You? Not so much. You saw what the conservatives in Virginia's 7th district did to your right hand man, Eric Cantor. Don't think it can't happen to you.
When there's something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? Well if you're in the real world. it's not Ghostbusters. And it's certainly not the CIA. You'd have more luck turning on CNN or MSNBC.
Last night Rachel Maddow eviscerated the CIA for a number of hugely important blunders -- their ignorance of major events that affected our nation and our security. In case you missed the royal Rachel M. dress-down, here's a sampling:
It's hard to believe this organization whose middle letter "I" stands for intelligence could be so inept. So out of the loop. So totally ineffective. Oh, and did I leave out, so costly. For 2013, the CIA alone was budgeted for $14.787 billion.
From Rachel's report, it would have been cheaper by $14.787 billion to just turn on CNN. What's that cost, 30 bucks a month as part of basic cable?
How we spend our tax money is important. And what we do in the name of national security is paramount. So this report of incompetence is shocking.
And so is this little tidbit that was reported this morning on Talking Points Memo:
The CIA has launched an internal review after members of Congress complained that the CIA may have been monitoring Senate Intelligence Committee staffers who worked on a report about the agency's detention and interrogation program, according to reports.
This review by the CIA of a review by Congress reminds me of this classic moment:
I'd like to reassure those congressional members who think the CIA has been spying on them that even if they are, Congress has nothing to worry about. It's the same CIA who's been failing at competency reviews for years. They're more Casablanca's Inspector Renault than TV's Inspector Columbo. Now if it was CNN or MSNBC's Rachel Maddow who was running a congressional investigation, perhaps then they should be shaking in their boots.
The GOP have a new catchword, one they're using about Obama and his foreign policy. It's "feckless."
feck·less: lacking initiative or strength of character; irresponsible; "a feckless mama's boy"
synonyms: useless; worthless; incompetent; inept; good-for-nothing
Maybe the GOP neo-cons and their puppets are using the right word, but just in the wrong context.
Cell phones. Can't seem to live without them and perhaps we may not be able to live with them.
Ever pocket dial someone? You know "pocket dialing" or "Butt dialing?" It's when you accidentally make a cellphone call while your mobile device is in your pocket or handbag. You're unaware of it until the person calls you back. Then you're embarrassed because they tell you they were overhearing your conversation at a store, work or restaurant. Ouch. But it's common. Too common. Now, with the NSA collecting data on all of our calls, this could conceivably cost us our lives.
The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.
Reading that, you've got to think it's all about phone usage between and among other people. You're confident that it's not you because you're a good and innocent person.
Think again. Aside from the pocket dial have you ever mis-dialed a number? One or two digits off and instead of Uncle Fred, you got a Piggly Wiggly? C'mon, admit it, we are prone to occasional mistakes.
In 1948 there was an Oscar nominated movie, SORRY, WRONG NUMBER. The plot was simple. An invalid woman is accidentally called and she overhears a murder plot, one that turns out to be her own. Today, that could have been a pocket dial and the intended victim could be anybody -- in any country. And it could be a call monitored by the NSA and a computer puts you on the list. Not a person, but a computer.
When you don't recognize the number, you might call back to see who it was that rang you up. Suddenly you're now being tracked in a meta data collection of suspicious calls. Perhaps another call from this mysterious number by a pocket dial down the road and next thing you know, boom! You're taken out by a drone.
Sound like a contemporary movie plot? It is actually happening.
Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill, in their Intercept article discuss this further in an interview with a former NSA .
According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies.Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.
So let's say Mr. or Mrs. Evil Taliban Operative accidentally dials your number. You then ring them back? Through a few more unlikely events (just like the accidental call you received) it could put you on a tracking list. A simple hop, skip and a jump later and you're sitting on top of the drone target list. No trial. No judge or jury. Just a Kaboom and you can kiss your sweet tushy goodbye!
This is a bit far fetched but don't you want to make this scenario total science fiction and not "possible but improbable?" Congress has bills in committee that will make this all go away. There will be no drone attacks on unnamed people by targeting their SIM card. (That's the data card inside your phone). This is actually being done.
You'd think our Congressmen and Senators would be quick to get those bills to prevent unnamed and potentially innocent people from being targeted. Well, think again. According to The Hill:
Legislation to rein in the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs has stalled in the House and Senate.
More than 130 House lawmakers in both parties have signed on as co-sponsors to legislation that would prevent the NSA from collecting bulk records about people’s phone calls. In the Senate, companion legislation has won 20 co-sponsors.
Both bills, however, have been stuck in their chambers’ respective Judiciary Committees since October, and committee aides say there are no plans to move them soon.
Am I alone here in thinking this could be a pressing matter? Consider that just last week it leaked out that President Obama was considering a drone attack on a particular phone, not even knowing who the phone belonged to, only data stored on the SIM card.
Let's wake up, people. The random collection of all of our personal information is life or death. Maybe it seems like a movie to you, but ask the victims of our metadata'd targeted drone attacks -- and the innocent bystanders (collateral damage).
I'm all for national security, but that's now become a catchphrase for anything the government wants to do. We need to keep an eye on this. And Congress has to start acting like adults and stop dragging their feet. Your life may be just one phone digit or one pocket dial away from ending in an explosive death.
"When pigs fly," so the expression goes. That's when something greatly anticipated will happen. Is it that time now?
It may be right around the corner, according to U.S. National Intelligence Director, James Clapper. In case the name isn't all that familiar, he's the guy who lied to Congress on whether or not the NSA was spying on all of us. Still need a little more intel on Director Clapper?
"Director Clapper continues to hold his position despite lying to Congress under oath about the existence of bulk data collection programs in March 2013," the letter reads. "Asking Director Clapper, and other federal intelligence officials who misrepresented programs to Congress and the courts, to report to you on needed reforms ... is not a credible solution."
Sometimes you just don't know who you can trust. I have been a fan of the game, Angry Birds for a few years now.
I love that game. I find it's addictive. In case you haven't tried it, the app is simply you launch angry birds via slingshot to topple the structures that house the pigs. Kind of like the Tea Party launching their assaults on human rights housed within the confines of Capitol Hill.
Sadly though, whether we like it or not, Director Clapper is looking for a scapegoat for his incompetence on the job. After all, on his watch, Edward Snowden took off with millions of data bits on US spying. And Clapper doesn't want to bear the brunt of his failure and the breach on his watch, so he's tossing around a few Angry Bird bombs on his own, trying to take down the pigs around him.
His latest Angry Birds? He's livid that Edward Snowden revealed this cockamamie scheme by the NSA to perform unwarranted spying on us through a smartphone game.
So self-admitted liar Clapper has gone on the offense. Instead of copping to the infringement on our personal lives that most certainly has no justification (unless it's mandatory for all spies, foreign and domestic to play Angry Birds) the Dapper Mr. Clapper has proffered this, according to The Daily Beast:
Thanks to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the world now knows that America’s intelligence agencies snoop on people through smartphone apps like Angry Birds. The U.S. intelligence community is now saying that this story, along with another disclosure of the U.S. “black budget,” has placed spies in grave danger.
So, the prevaricating NSA director expects us to rise up in arms and become angry with Snowden -- kind of his attempt to make us angry birds for the intelligence community. All this because some hotshot at the spy agency sold Clapper and his cohorts on a scheme to spy on us via a playful video game.
Clapper is taking this distraction from his own truncated dance with the truth quite seriously. He's sounding the "call to arms" by all the Angry Birds.
During a Senate hearing, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asserted that the damage done by Snowden “includes putting the lives of members or assets of the intelligence community at risk as well as our armed forces, diplomats, and citizens.” He made this claim in his opening statement on behalf of the leaders of the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Counter-Terrorism Center.
I think the only one hurt by this reveal could be Rovio -- the company that made billions when producing this game. But that hasn't stopped the Director from pulling back his slingshot, loading it with an angry bird and firing it at the pigs.
Clapper provided no evidence or specifics to back up the charge in his public testimony. But a senior U.S. intelligence official told The Daily Beast that two specific Snowden disclosures led to the new assessment. This official pointed to the documents published this week by the New York Times about the NSA’s efforts to hack into popular smart phone apps like Angry Birds.
So, perhaps the alarms that Clapper's sounding off are just distractions. Or even worse, he's actually telling the truth. But sadly, once you lie before Congress, it's very hard to be taken seriously -- especially when you're dealing with Angry Birds, feisty pigs and a director who looks much more like the latter and is behaving like the former.
First we have the Snowden revelations that the NSA, with permission or not from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has been spying well beyond our imaginations on all of us. For most people, it's not really important, depending on what the 'spooks' do with all of the information they've collected. It's obvious, most of us follow the law, we're not terrorists and so we have little to be afraid of. And truthfully, we're thankful if they government nips any threats in the bud. So far though, for security reasons or just not having discovered any, we're not hearing about any success stories.
What most of us mind is that fact that we're being spied on -- and it's not what the government might find out. It's who has access to our metadata. We know our government can't keep secrets -- look at Snowden and Manning.
Is the vulnerable NSA protecting or selling or metadata? Is it making it's way to marketers or even our bosses -- do they find out what's in our emails and text messages where we might reveal that they're jerks, the result being we lose our jobs for speaking our minds? Or what about "private" pictures (selfies) that consenting adults may be sharing with their significant others? How long until the NSA's vulnerabilities allow the release of these potentially embarrassing, private shots?
A few months ago we found out that it's not just the US public that's being spied on. We found out that leaders of other countries are being tapped. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is just one example -- the breach was so onerous that President Obama had to beg her forgiveness and say he knew nothing about it. That's truly embarrassing.
Now we find Senator Bernie Sanders this past week, speaking for most in the Senate, sending a letter to the NSA trying to find out if this wanton spying was being done on members of Congress. After all, they they think they're privileged people, generally above the law. Bernie put it in a letter demanding the NSA come clean and answer yes or no -- are members of congress being spied on and victims of data collection.
The mealy-mouthed NSA, faced with a direct question, did what it always does -- deflected the answer when it doesn't suit them to be completely honest. Here's their answer from NSA spokesperson Vanee' Vines who responded to Sanders' letter on Saturday in an emailed statement:
NSA’s authorities to collect signals intelligence data include procedures that protect the privacy of U.S. persons. Such protections are built into and cut across the entire process. Members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons. [which means none] NSA is fully committed to transparency with Congress. Our interaction with Congress has been extensive both before and since the media disclosures began last June. We are reviewing Sen. Sanders’s letter now, and we will continue to work to ensure that all Members of Congress, including Sen. Sanders, have information about NSA’s mission, authorities, and programs to fully inform the discharge of their duties.
Simply stated, the answer is Yes, members of Congress ARE being spied on.
Now to make matters a bit more complicated, the FISA secretive intelligence court on Friday approved the government’s request to continue collecting bulk information about domestic phone calls. It said it would allow the government to continue collecting metadata, or details about numbers people dial and the time and duration of their calls.
Look for Congress, when they return next week, to take a much deeper investigation into these matters. When it was just their constituents that were having metadata mined, they didn't give a horses ass about it. But now that Congress members visits to porn sites, male and female escorts, boyfriends, girlfriends, mistresses, contacts with lobbyists and other potential embarrassing information might be collected and possibly discerned down the road, we the people's rights might finally be protected. This could be the fire under the asses of the asses sitting in congress to do something.
And who do we really owe a h/t for bringing this all to light -- Edward Snowden and to some extent, Chelsea Manning. From THE HILL:
Details about the court are usually kept secret, but the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a statement on Friday that it was releasing information about the renewal “in light of the significant and continuing public interest” in the program, which was revealed by former government contractor Edward Snowden last year.
So while former Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano claims there should be no clemency for Snowden, she might be forced to change that tune when Congress gets wind of just what her agency and others like it is collecting on ALL government officials.
The Political Carnival is a fast paced Progressive political site that combines humor with dead serious, dementia with politics (synonymous?), and sprinkles in idiosyncratic posts with breaking news.
Lt. Col Barry Wingard is the lawyer for Gitmo detainee Fayiz Al-Kandari. For their ongoing story + related topics, please click on the link below: Kuwaiti Citizen Detained at Guantanamo since 2002
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