It's the 13th anniversary of 9/11, and you would think that we would have learned something since then about… well…. being terrorized. "Being terrorized" means being so freaked out by the bad guys what our judgment is clouded and we rush into military operations for which (1) we have no exit strategy and (2) there is no way to tell … Read More
The Lesson From 2002
We all have felt it from time to time. The urge to simply go nuclear. It's understandable. Some backwoods jihadi moron slices off an American head, or a bunch of them band together and fly hijacked airplanes into sckyscrapers, and our natural reaction is: "Fuck you. NOW you're going to see the hand of God." The problem with that is … Read More
Morons With Missiles
Yes, indeed. Putin should be embarrassed. When you listen to the audiotapes, you become keenly aware that the pro-Russian separatists in the Ukraine are total boobs… or, as Josh Marshall writes: The audio tapes posted by The New York Times might as well be from some future Russia-based version of Waiting for Guffman or Best in Show, a comical rendering of … Read More
Senile Old Man Talks Crazy Shit On CNN
Dick Cheney: TAPPER: But do you think the decisions that you made, your administration really has nothing to do with what's going on in Iraq right now? CHENEY: I think, when we left office, we had, in Iraq, a very stable situation. January 18, 2009 — two days before Obama took office: Baghdad – A roadside bomb detonated in front … Read More
Malala
I don't care if she is 16. She deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Skip to 3:50 or so if you want to see her blow Jon Stewart's mind. The Daily Show Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook
Legal Rationale for Surveillance
I haven't been writing much about the telephony surveillance "scandal" because unlike many liberals I know, I'm not that upset by it. I do not consider the mass collection of metadata to be an invasion of my privacy. Collection is not the same thing as searching or prying, to my mind. Anyway, the Obama Administration released a white paper which … Read More
12 Years Ago Today
12 years ago today was the infamous August 6 PDB (or Presidential Daily Briefing) which said, in really big letters: BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE IN U.S. After listening to the briefer who told him this on Bush's ranch, Bush reportedly replied, "All right. You've covered your ass, now." We know what happened a month later. Which led to a war … Read More
XKeyscore: Greenwald Hypes The Scare
Yesterday, in The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald (the journalistic associate of NSA-leaker Edward Snowden) revealed another big reveal. This time it was something called XKeyscore, a top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to document leaked by Snowden. Boom! … Read More
Here’s Why The NSA Surveillance Now Is Better Than The Way It Was Under Bush
Chart On Surveillance Oversight Prepared By Nancy Pelosi For Democratic house Members by tpmdocs
US Majority Backs NSA Surveillance
A new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll found that 56% of Americans consider the NSA's accessing of telephone call records of millions of Americans through secret court orders "acceptable." A 62% majority believe it's more important for the government to investigate terrorist threats, even if those investigations intrude on personal privacy. Support drops when it comes to government monitoring of emails, but even here, the … Read More
NRA’s New President
NRA proudly announced a new president: James Porter, a man who, among other things, refers to Barack Obama as a "fake President"; apparently thinks the Civil War was a great example of an armed citizenry resisting Northern tyranny; and advocates training all civilians in the use of standard military firearms so "they're ready to fight tyranny" yet again. Fellow Southerner Ed … Read More
What The Hell Is He Talking About?
From Politico: Former Rep. Ron Paul said the police response to the Boston Marathon bombings was scarier than the bombing itself, which killed three and wounded more than 250. “The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city,” Paul, a Texas Republican, wrote … Read More
Confronting The Bombing Conspiracy Theorists
The guy behind the camera hurls some pretty harsh language, but he's right. A "reporter" from Infowars, the Alex Jones site that insists that the Boston Marathon bombing was done by the FBI as part of a "false flag" operation, has nothing to say, because he's an idiot.
9/11 Landing Gear Found
Wow. More than eleven years after the fact, surveyors found part of the landing gear of the one of the planes which crashed into the World Trade Center. It was wedged between two buildings.
FCC Gives David Ortiz A Pass
During the nationally broadcast pre-game ceremonies last week — the one where the Boston Red Sox had their first home game following the Boston Marathon bombing — Red Sox player David Ortiz took to the microphone and spoke from the heart, uttering these words: “This is our fucking city, and nobody’s going to dictate our freedom.” Now remember, the Second … Read More