OBAMA 2013: Yes, We Scan!
Archive for 2013
June 9, 2013
KILL IT? OR EXPOSE IT AS A FICTION? Ron Fournier: How Obama Scandals Threaten to Kill ‘Good Government.’
To have “good government,” you have to maintain a particular culture. Obama started undermining that culture from day one. I noticed that in 2009. Fournier is just starting to notice now.
CATS AND DOGS, LIVING TOGETHER! Daniel Ellsberg and Glenn Beck are on the same page.
NSA SPYING: Reader Nelson Head writes: “Where’s the privileged communication now that lawyers’ correspondence with their clients is in Govt. databases? Wonder what Patton & Boggs think about their President now?”
THAT’S RIDICULOUS: What If China Hacks the NSA’s Massive Data Trove? China hack the U.S government? Ridiculous.
KINDA LIKE HOW OBAMA “JOKED” ABOUT HAVING THE IRS AUDIT HIS ENEMIES? Reporter: Intelligence Officials “Joke” About Making NSA Leaker Edward Snowden “Disappear.” If that happens, some intelligence officials should disappear, too.
Maybe somebody should compile a database of their home addresses and contacts. Just for security purposes.
I’D BET ON HER MAKING IT IF SHE SET OUT: First woman in space ready for ‘one-way flight to Mars.’ “Russia’s Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to go to space, said on Friday she was ready to score another coup and fly to Mars, even if it would be just a one-way trip. . . . Tereshkova, who became a national heroine at the tender age of 26 when she made a solo space flight in 1963, said she had been part of the group who studied the possibility of going to the Red Planet. ‘But we know the human limits. And for us this remains a dream. Most likely the first flight will be one way. But I am ready,’ she said.”
COMING SOON FROM JAMES O’KEEFE: Breakthrough: Our Guerilla War to Expose Fraud and Save Democracy.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: For Homebound Students, A Robot Proxy In The Classroom.
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WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Katie Couric Daytime Show ‘An Unmitigated Disaster.’ “Her stint as the anchor of CBS News was a major humiliation. But her latest endeavor, a daytime talk show, is making Couric’s time at CBS look like the glory days of a fast-fading career.”
FROM THE OBAMA TRANSITION ETHICS AGENDA:
Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.
Wanna bet they feel differently today? Of course, the next item was a promise for “an exhaustive line-by-line review of the federal budget,” so, you know . . . .
AMERICA’S ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT IS FALTERING.
As an academic, I’m just an amateur capitalist. Still, over the past 15 years I’ve started small ventures in both the U.S. and the U.K. In the process I’ve learned something surprising: It’s much easier to do in the U.K. There seemed to be much more regulation in the U.S., not least the headache of sorting out health insurance for my few employees. And there were certainly more billable hours from lawyers. . . . Nearly all development economists agree that good institutions—legislatures, courts, administrative agencies—are crucial. When poor countries improve their institutions, economic growth soon accelerates. But what about rich countries? If poor countries can get rich by improving their institutions, is it not possible that rich countries can get poor by allowing their institutions to degenerate? I want to suggest that it is.
I’ve written about this myself.
EXPLAINING “THE IDIOT VOTE.”
ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden: I mistakenly believed in Obama’s promises.
RAND SIMBERG: The Asymmetric Outrage Of Big Government Scandals.
LENO SEEMS TO BE FEELING STRANGELY LIBERATED: Video: Jay Leno Eviscerates ‘Snoop Obama’ in Monologue. “When did the government suddenly become our psycho ex-Girlfriend?”
GEORGE FAKEI? Takei Says That’s Not Always Him on Facebook. “In a week dominated by news that the National Security Agency was intercepting Americans’ emails and phone records en masse, some of George Takei’s 4 million devoted Facebook followers had more important things to worry about: unexpected evidence that the former Star Trek star hires ghost-posters.”
NSA WHISTLEBLOWER GOES PUBLIC. Some are calling him a hero, others a traitor. I’d say it’s a bit early to form an opinion, though the stuff he’s released is creating a much-needed stir. It’s very interesting to see the traditional left-right split erode, as Glenn Beck praises Glenn Greenwald’s big scoop.
UPDATE: A dissent from the widespread sentiment by reader John Burke:
I think it’s reprehensible that so much of the right of all colorations have fallen over themselves to team up with Glenn Greenwald, a hard-core leftist who finds nothing to like about the US or its policies and consistently defends terrorists, and the Guardian, a foreign left-wing paper to recklessly bash NSA intelligence gathering — no doubt in most cases because it casts Obama as a hypocrite on counter-terrorism issues.
A close reading of the NSA disclosures so far makes clear these are programs designed to collect foreign intelligence information at a time when most international communication has moved onto web platforms and phone calls are mostly mobile. Exposure of details about these programs risks harm not only to counter-terrorism activities (just how do you suppose CIA pinpoints al Qaeda targets in Pakistan for drone strikes?), but to all of our intelligence gathering and counter-espionage activities. Buried in a NYT story about PRISM is a reported fact that should give everyone pause: the biggest haul of data from PRISM in one recent period came from Iran.
Now, Greenwald’s stoolie has fled to Hong Kong where he hopes to be shielded by the Communist Chinese, great lovers of freedom as they are, while he spouts about how courageous he is.
It would be very disappointing to at least some of your longest term readers if you fell for this. These guys are out to do as much damage as they can to the United States.
Well, as I say, stay tuned.
ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails:
In response to reader John Burke’s comment on your post, specifically this part:
“These guys are out to do as much damage as they can to the United States.”
Who says this isn’t the same goal of the current regime in Washington? Everything that has happened since Obama took office either seems designed to hurt the US as much as possible or is the product of complete incompetence. Unfortunately, I don’t think Obama is that dumb. Biden, maybe.
I work in higher ed in a high level administrator position, so please don’t attach my name to anything as I face Obama fanboys all day long. It would make my already challenging days more difficult.
Good point. And reader Mark Cridland writes:
I lost a lot of respect for you a few minutes ago when reading your comments about Snowdon. I can’t imagine why it would be “a bit early to form an opinion.” This is just as clean a call against overpowering and centralized government authority as can be imagined.
(Why do NSA disclosures require “a close reading”?… Except that perhaps Burke-types like to imagine themselves as specially-perceptive people who really know how to parse information, just like these monsters in our government who’ve spent our money collecting it. About us.)
Well, I’ve been counting on Twitter for a couple of years now, and it handily completes the chores that your blog handled in the early days after the attacks, when Kaus so aptly described your perspective as “catholic.” I’ll never understand how intervening events have left you so timid, but it doesn’t really matter.
There’s a good chance that even Snowden doesn’t really know who he’s working for. Bear that in mind. But reader Chris Bray writes:
Your anti-Snowden reader is full of shit. The NSA is not building that Utah facility to narrowly examine carefully chosen foreign targets as security threats. We’re transitioning to a total surveillance society, and Edward Snowden is trying to tell us about some of it. This is where we sort the limited government conservatives from the Lindsey Graham crowd.
Well, stay tuned. Just remember that you may or may not know what’s really going on.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Kathy Shaidle’s Guide For Your First Visit to Israel.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 7 Shocking Benefits Of Sex For Men.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to Live in a World Where Marriage Is in Decline.
Of course, some people might want to look at the disincentives to marriage.