Just what, I wonder, do the character assassins have on Chief Justice John Roberts. What twisted perversion did he get busted engaging in? What bribe did they catch him taking? What drug was he taped ingesting?
He once again, stepped into the well (see Obama's Top 50 What?! in this blogspot) and changed the administration's argument, rewrote the Obamacare law and then found his version of the law constitutional.
The first time, I figured he was just trying to create a co-presidency for himself. But this new argument, in concert with the submissive Kennedy, goes against the very fabric of that which is John Roberts.
Well, no secret is safe. Mark my words. It will come out. There is something extremely creepy about this guy. Unbelievably sad.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Canard of the Week: Charity
If you believe the results of polls, early voting and paperless ballots, one must conclude that at least half of the people in this country love to be lied to.
Starting with an April 24, 2015 NYT article by award winning Clinton apologist Paul Krugman where he uses "alleged"a lot with the word "scandal". Further, Krugman concludes that there was never anything to the Clinton scandals of the 90s and 08 when BJ Bill's wife was lying her way through a failed WH run.
You'd think a guy as smart as Krugman thinks he is would remember that "alleged" is more associated with crimes or things to be proven, which could include events behind a scandal. But scandals are scandals. There is no such thing as an alleged scandal. They exist because people are talking about events surrounding a person or persons. In the case of the Clintons, they had lots and lots of scandals associated with them because they are scandalous people and the underlying allegations are almost always true.
The most famous, of course was the blue dress. It only surfaced because of the many women whose lives were ruined by the Clintons for speaking the truth about BJ Bill's dalliances, only one happened to have physical proof. Others had witnesses and corroborating evidence. Several ( completely disassociated) women described Bill's inadequate and somewhat odd appendage in identical terms. A few of those with no knowledge of the others existence spoke of the Clinton method of lip-biting and inept groping, along with a completely narcissistic departure, in almost carbon-copy likeness. Check with Hitchens on this point; no wide-eyed conservative, he. The lives of most of those women were destroyed by the Clinton machine and accomplices in the press.
But evidence and witnesses, naked character assassination; those things are complex. The lapdog press didn't want to get into all that. Neither did congress. They wanted so much for this thing to just go away. But Monica had the man juice on the dress! Well, damn. Now the press had to rewrite the whole narrative about how Bill was being picked on by a right-wing conspiracy to how you could only prove he did it once and she only gave him blow jobs so that's not so bad, is it?
I've been struck by how many people fans and detractors alike look at "I did not have sex with that woman" and "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is," and come away wide-eyed saying, "You gotta hand it to him, he (Clinton) is a genius at this game." More on that in a bit.
But there were other much worse, more complex "scandals" surrounding both Clinton and the woman who is, at least on paper, his wife. The female Clinton was not alleged to have 1200 illegally obtained FBI files in the White House residence. She had them. When she says herself that they were in her possession, it is no longer an allegation. The most serious thing that Chuck Colson went to jail for was being in possession of ONE FBI record. But one day (after years of behind-the-scenes negotiations with the FBI and promises made to key Justice department slugs) Bill's old lady looked down on her coffee table and exclaimed, "Oops, here they are, those silly FBI files!" And all was forgiven. It was all a silly mix up how those files went from the possession of the FBI to her house.
Not only did the press obediently let go off the story IMMEDIATELY, half of this country appreciated that their shrill and nasty queen lied to them so they could continue to act like they believed her and her husband. Not to do so may have tugged at too many threads, thus causing them to actually question their own beliefs. So yes, by all means, lie. Politicians should lie, the press should lie. It makes for a happier populace to just swallow the lies and bend our knees to our Royals.
Hilary has fleeced charity and civic groups for up to $200,000 for speaking fees. Now that's generosity in itself as her speeches read like elementary school book reports.
These are the creatures that control the Clinton Foundation and a number of shell companies that protect it. It is fun to watch the MSM apologize for this "charity" organization. They speak of the complexities involved with sending friends and political allies on around-the-world junkets to collect evidence to advance global warming propaganda. As if they couldn't bring those people in those parts of the world here for a "Clinton Initiative" wingding and get the "evidence" straight from the horse's mouth. Or better yet, video conference! It's no surprise that a foundation worth hundreds of millions growing has actually given away a few tens of millions. The rest has gone to washing cash back and forth between shell companies and keeping the Clintons in the lush comfort they have come to enjoy so much.
Anyway, the RICO trial starts in January. Such kindness warms the heart.
As to the genius of it all - there is none. They get away with this stuff because too many of us measure Clinton callousness against our own stupidity, making the naked lies appear to be brilliant. If a handful of people with position and balls wanted to, they could tear this diabolical duo to pieces in no time. What those people fear is what the Clinton machine mighty dig up on them.
Starting with an April 24, 2015 NYT article by award winning Clinton apologist Paul Krugman where he uses "alleged"a lot with the word "scandal". Further, Krugman concludes that there was never anything to the Clinton scandals of the 90s and 08 when BJ Bill's wife was lying her way through a failed WH run.
You'd think a guy as smart as Krugman thinks he is would remember that "alleged" is more associated with crimes or things to be proven, which could include events behind a scandal. But scandals are scandals. There is no such thing as an alleged scandal. They exist because people are talking about events surrounding a person or persons. In the case of the Clintons, they had lots and lots of scandals associated with them because they are scandalous people and the underlying allegations are almost always true.
The most famous, of course was the blue dress. It only surfaced because of the many women whose lives were ruined by the Clintons for speaking the truth about BJ Bill's dalliances, only one happened to have physical proof. Others had witnesses and corroborating evidence. Several ( completely disassociated) women described Bill's inadequate and somewhat odd appendage in identical terms. A few of those with no knowledge of the others existence spoke of the Clinton method of lip-biting and inept groping, along with a completely narcissistic departure, in almost carbon-copy likeness. Check with Hitchens on this point; no wide-eyed conservative, he. The lives of most of those women were destroyed by the Clinton machine and accomplices in the press.
But evidence and witnesses, naked character assassination; those things are complex. The lapdog press didn't want to get into all that. Neither did congress. They wanted so much for this thing to just go away. But Monica had the man juice on the dress! Well, damn. Now the press had to rewrite the whole narrative about how Bill was being picked on by a right-wing conspiracy to how you could only prove he did it once and she only gave him blow jobs so that's not so bad, is it?
I've been struck by how many people fans and detractors alike look at "I did not have sex with that woman" and "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is," and come away wide-eyed saying, "You gotta hand it to him, he (Clinton) is a genius at this game." More on that in a bit.
But there were other much worse, more complex "scandals" surrounding both Clinton and the woman who is, at least on paper, his wife. The female Clinton was not alleged to have 1200 illegally obtained FBI files in the White House residence. She had them. When she says herself that they were in her possession, it is no longer an allegation. The most serious thing that Chuck Colson went to jail for was being in possession of ONE FBI record. But one day (after years of behind-the-scenes negotiations with the FBI and promises made to key Justice department slugs) Bill's old lady looked down on her coffee table and exclaimed, "Oops, here they are, those silly FBI files!" And all was forgiven. It was all a silly mix up how those files went from the possession of the FBI to her house.
Not only did the press obediently let go off the story IMMEDIATELY, half of this country appreciated that their shrill and nasty queen lied to them so they could continue to act like they believed her and her husband. Not to do so may have tugged at too many threads, thus causing them to actually question their own beliefs. So yes, by all means, lie. Politicians should lie, the press should lie. It makes for a happier populace to just swallow the lies and bend our knees to our Royals.
Hilary has fleeced charity and civic groups for up to $200,000 for speaking fees. Now that's generosity in itself as her speeches read like elementary school book reports.
These are the creatures that control the Clinton Foundation and a number of shell companies that protect it. It is fun to watch the MSM apologize for this "charity" organization. They speak of the complexities involved with sending friends and political allies on around-the-world junkets to collect evidence to advance global warming propaganda. As if they couldn't bring those people in those parts of the world here for a "Clinton Initiative" wingding and get the "evidence" straight from the horse's mouth. Or better yet, video conference! It's no surprise that a foundation worth hundreds of millions growing has actually given away a few tens of millions. The rest has gone to washing cash back and forth between shell companies and keeping the Clintons in the lush comfort they have come to enjoy so much.
Anyway, the RICO trial starts in January. Such kindness warms the heart.
As to the genius of it all - there is none. They get away with this stuff because too many of us measure Clinton callousness against our own stupidity, making the naked lies appear to be brilliant. If a handful of people with position and balls wanted to, they could tear this diabolical duo to pieces in no time. What those people fear is what the Clinton machine mighty dig up on them.
Warping History for Ego and Political Gain.
If I believed in any type of spirit world, I would have to conclude that George Orwell was the greatest prophet of all time. There is so little left of his 1984 world left unrealized.
Like all big news stories, throngs of Americans want so badly to insert themselves into the narrative, as if they were integral to the reality. Last week a racist nut bag killed nine people in a church in South Carolina. Within days, the nine were forgotten. Real follow-up about the nut bag is forgotten.
The story has undergone mitosis and spawned deformed meanings at the hands of uninvited participants. We now here that racism still exists in this country. To that one can only say, well, no shit! But Hilary, the most obnoxious of interlopers says that institutionalized racism is still a problem, and says it in context of the nut bag killing people.
This is, of course, total bullshit. In a country where the largest and most racist employer (the federal government) has strict quotas and point rigging in favor of minority hiring, where private companies no longer care who you are so long as you enhance their bottom line, where public figures are easily ruined for the least missteps on the subject of race, you can no longer honestly say that racism is institutionalized. You are free to lie about it in order to inspire hatred between races for your own political gain. That's what Bill Clinton's sex partner from the early 1970s was trying to do in order to take advantage of the nine dead people.
But there is also another malformed message. We are trying to un-write history. Historical events that offend our fragile sensibilities are now to be expunged from visibility. Flags, we are told, must be eliminated. And it is being done by people who know almost nothing of the "history" they are trying to erase.* We want to tear down monuments that represent our past, good and bad, that are a part of our national conversation, and de-memorialize historical figures. Where there is a statue of a historical figure that doesn't represent everyone (little secret: no memorial does or ever will) tear it down. Only keep memorials to people who never offended anyone. This will accomplish what?…forgetting that bad stuff? Well, what better way to see that very history repeated?
Hell, if you want to un-write the positive contributions of slave-holders, why not just un-write slavery? No one in this country can say they experienced it. So why should we ever acknowledge its existence. It's bad, so let's just get rid of it.
FDR was a four-term president. He was popular at the time. More so than even Robert E. Lee. He also exacerbated and prolonged the Great Depression much the same way our present wing nut has done. Save your breath, I won't say the two are equal. FDR was a much better president.
But FDR was also a fan of eugenics, not unusual at the time, but still a dangerous and ethically corrupt concept. He was incredibly arrogant and as much a dictator as he could get away with being. If you don't believe me, read The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes. He was the king of dividing and subdividing the population for political exploitation. He was also in the top tier of the hated 1%. We should definitely put him on the list of people to un-remember.
And JFK; total whore monger. The name of that airport has got to change.
You see where I am going with this. No one alive has experienced slavery so to say you are traumatized by its mention, you're lying. You are just trying to make a splash; maybe stroke your own ego. But we are a nation with a history. This attempt to make some of it go away sets an insane precedent that no thinking person would want to see. Read 1984 by the great prophet, himself.
What's more, we are once again becoming that which we say we reject. Who doesn't remember our reaction when the mouth-breathing sons of pigs (Taliban and ISIS) blew up ancient statues and destroyed countless artifacts because they didn't represent their stupid religion? Why, dear reader, isn't that justification to destroy images of the past? I mean, this is religion we are talking about. That's supposed to be the most important of all things in this life. Now, I grant you, the muslim religion is a concoction lifted from several earlier man-made constructs, as all religions are. But we are told that there is nothing more sacrosanct than the way one worships and the precepts they keep. Shouldn't we celebrate the way the sons of pigs proudly showed their devotion to allah with this childish vandalism writ large? This is spirit world stuff here! Waaaay more important than the worldly tribulations endured by people 150 years ago. C'mon! Get some perspective!
Or should we say that the world would do better to clean up its modern day act by taking the lessons of history rather than trying to make history go away.
Like all big news stories, throngs of Americans want so badly to insert themselves into the narrative, as if they were integral to the reality. Last week a racist nut bag killed nine people in a church in South Carolina. Within days, the nine were forgotten. Real follow-up about the nut bag is forgotten.
The story has undergone mitosis and spawned deformed meanings at the hands of uninvited participants. We now here that racism still exists in this country. To that one can only say, well, no shit! But Hilary, the most obnoxious of interlopers says that institutionalized racism is still a problem, and says it in context of the nut bag killing people.
This is, of course, total bullshit. In a country where the largest and most racist employer (the federal government) has strict quotas and point rigging in favor of minority hiring, where private companies no longer care who you are so long as you enhance their bottom line, where public figures are easily ruined for the least missteps on the subject of race, you can no longer honestly say that racism is institutionalized. You are free to lie about it in order to inspire hatred between races for your own political gain. That's what Bill Clinton's sex partner from the early 1970s was trying to do in order to take advantage of the nine dead people.
But there is also another malformed message. We are trying to un-write history. Historical events that offend our fragile sensibilities are now to be expunged from visibility. Flags, we are told, must be eliminated. And it is being done by people who know almost nothing of the "history" they are trying to erase.* We want to tear down monuments that represent our past, good and bad, that are a part of our national conversation, and de-memorialize historical figures. Where there is a statue of a historical figure that doesn't represent everyone (little secret: no memorial does or ever will) tear it down. Only keep memorials to people who never offended anyone. This will accomplish what?…forgetting that bad stuff? Well, what better way to see that very history repeated?
Hell, if you want to un-write the positive contributions of slave-holders, why not just un-write slavery? No one in this country can say they experienced it. So why should we ever acknowledge its existence. It's bad, so let's just get rid of it.
FDR was a four-term president. He was popular at the time. More so than even Robert E. Lee. He also exacerbated and prolonged the Great Depression much the same way our present wing nut has done. Save your breath, I won't say the two are equal. FDR was a much better president.
But FDR was also a fan of eugenics, not unusual at the time, but still a dangerous and ethically corrupt concept. He was incredibly arrogant and as much a dictator as he could get away with being. If you don't believe me, read The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes. He was the king of dividing and subdividing the population for political exploitation. He was also in the top tier of the hated 1%. We should definitely put him on the list of people to un-remember.
And JFK; total whore monger. The name of that airport has got to change.
You see where I am going with this. No one alive has experienced slavery so to say you are traumatized by its mention, you're lying. You are just trying to make a splash; maybe stroke your own ego. But we are a nation with a history. This attempt to make some of it go away sets an insane precedent that no thinking person would want to see. Read 1984 by the great prophet, himself.
What's more, we are once again becoming that which we say we reject. Who doesn't remember our reaction when the mouth-breathing sons of pigs (Taliban and ISIS) blew up ancient statues and destroyed countless artifacts because they didn't represent their stupid religion? Why, dear reader, isn't that justification to destroy images of the past? I mean, this is religion we are talking about. That's supposed to be the most important of all things in this life. Now, I grant you, the muslim religion is a concoction lifted from several earlier man-made constructs, as all religions are. But we are told that there is nothing more sacrosanct than the way one worships and the precepts they keep. Shouldn't we celebrate the way the sons of pigs proudly showed their devotion to allah with this childish vandalism writ large? This is spirit world stuff here! Waaaay more important than the worldly tribulations endured by people 150 years ago. C'mon! Get some perspective!
Or should we say that the world would do better to clean up its modern day act by taking the lessons of history rather than trying to make history go away.
*
For the benefit of the ignorant: This is the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. Thousands fought and died honorably under it. Less than 1% of those people were slave owners. They fought valiantly in a losing cause.
This is the flag of the Confederate States of America as of 1863. This is the emblem of a society that among other things wanted to preserve slavery. Coincidentally, it was also in 1863 that ending slavery became an official part of the Union Army's pursuits. Before that the war was being fought to prevent the destruction of the established political system. In the long view of history (there's that word again) I would contend that the war probably didn't need to be fought. But the politicians at the time were pretty darn serious about keeping the lion's share of trade in the north. Can't have those dirt scratchin' southerners setting up foreign trade and competing with the North now. …And, oh yeah, that slavery thing is bad too.
So if you want to hate a part of our history so badly that you want the symbols un-remembered by all the other proles, at least get it straight what the hell it is you hate.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Canard of the Week: A Little Privacy in Exchange for Security.
Let me give you my down and dirty regarding the government collecting anything it wants electronically. Yes, I did say anything it wants. There are no legitimate controls in place. One would hope that NSA domestic spying is dead, but let's not assume anything.
We use this information to stop terrorism. Urm, uh, Yeah.
- The government has been vacuuming up your electronic data like my wife vacuums up my breakfast crumbs, for years. I'm a very sloppy eater. According to the FBI this has never led to a major breakthrough in a case to solve or prevent terrorism.
- The Civil Liberties Oversight Committee has stated that there appear to be no instances where an attack has been thwarted by the use of mass data collection (probably true)…
- …and that there have been no instances of abuse of the system. This one is not true. There were cases of the very agents responsible for the collection and storage of the data using it to spy on their girlfriends and wives. It is also too narrowly defined. It doesn't allow for patterns of abuse that would make the existence of this data a moral hazard.
In any case the system is not designed to do any of the things listed above so it is no surprise that it hasn't been of much value to date.
Why It Can't Work as Sold:
Imagine you are an intelligence analyst responsible for gathering intel on Godammistan, an ancient sand pile in the armpit of the world whose government and other "bad actors" have it in for the United States. You have a pile of information on the country and dossiers on the government and powerful citizens. But you want to "spot patterns". So you tell your agents to get you every word ever written about the country, about every citizen, about every street corner, every pet, etc. The more successful your agents are, the less successful you will be as an analyst. The reason is that you have burdened yourself with too much information. From it you will not be able to produce a decent recipe for egg nog. Good intel is knowing what you don't need more than what you need.
Our government will have you believe that they are collecting everyone's metadata so they can spot patterns and foil attacks on the homeland. The problem is that such a mountain of data cannot be used for that purpose and they know it. Its ONLY usefulness is to be stored for LATER use. They don't need to keep such a gargantuan database to spot patterns. It is too much information. The assumptions needed to program a search in such a sea of data would be outlandish and unrealistic; worthless. So would be the product.
Another reason they don't need the metadata is that is already exists. For all that data to be useful, the analyst first needs a name or a number that is already suspicious. This can be presented to a phone company or service provider. And voila (that's French for TA-DAAAA!) you have everything you need on your subject.
If there is a pattern of requests, even under warrant, that seems spurious or capricious, the provider will start to understandably balk and fight the requests. ATT has. This is because they have competitors that customers can go to if a provider seems to fast and loose with information and because of a fear of lawsuits. In the case of ATT there is even talk about something called…let me think…the 4th amendment. It's in some kind of constitution thingie.
Government employees have only their jobs and pensions to think about. They will dig up anything they are told to dig up. A warrant from a FISA court protects no one.
One warrant sent to Verizon asked them for everything they had on all their customers. What kind of a bullshit warrant is that? Verizon, of course, asked for a tad more specificity.
But, you say, what if the information requested is time-sensitive? The existing law already allows for post facto warrants. Get the request in, get your info and cover everyone's ass with a warrant later.
This is fishy too, but you can at least leave the government out of the spy-on-every-American business and still know they can access the stuff they need when they need it. And we should require real specificity in these requests. Besides, if I wanted a minute data point or an email based solely on a name or phone number, I damn sure would't ask a govvie to get it. Cheese ages faster. I'd ask a professional at a private company.
Is it Google's job to protect my interests? No. But it is in their best interest to not look like an extension of the FISA court lap dogs. It is the governments job to protect us, you might argue. Why not exchange a little privacy in the face of grave danger?
Kaffee: Grave danger?
Jessup: Is there any other kind?
God, I love that movie!
Two reasons: It does not provide the protection and the system will not be used in that way anyway. The system has only one value.
How Mass Metadata Will Work as Designed:
Let's go back to Holder and his circus stunt warrant against Rosen. To compel a real judge to grant his warrant, he had to LIE and say the Rosen was a target of a criminal investigation. His excuse was that everyone does it and that he was going to correct the record later. He then tore into every aspect of Rosen's life that technology would allow. But he is just a slimy, corrupt cog in a larger machine that has in recent years slouched into a norm of corruption.
When you find yourself at odds with these unethical creatures, do you think for one minute that they won't use the data collected to pick you apart? Do you really believe that every GS-9 clerk in DC or Fort Meade is another Snowden, ready to trade his career, and life as he knows it, to save you from harassment or character assassination? If so, I will put you in for the Naive Dupe of the Decade Award now. Of course the data will be teased out one way or another. I trust Verizon more than Mary Punchkey in the NSA records department.
But it's only "metadata" like the kind of information you find on the outside of a piece of mail. It's not like they are listening to our phone calls*. Well, it's a bit more specific than that. As Charles Cooke says in his 29 May 15 National Review article:
"They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret.
"They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don’t know what was discussed.
"They know you received a call from the local NRA office while it was having a campaign against gun legislation, and then called your senators and congressional representatives immediately after. But the content of those calls remains safe from government intrusion.
"They know you called a gynecologist, spoke for a half hour, and then called the local Planned Parenthood’s number later that day. But nobody knows what you spoke about."
In my case they may know that I subscribed to a dating site called "Middle-aged Leather Queers" and exchanged 42 emails with a guy named DungeonPete. But they cannot, from that, determine my shoe size.
And again, FISA is not a real court set up to protect your rights. It is a sham to provide a paper trail for the government official hacking into your life. But I suspect that when we finally see someone caught with their hands in the cookie jar, we'll find they had been swimming in files without even a FISA warrant. Sort of like Bill Clinton's wife and the hundreds of FBI files she had hidden and then "found" in the White House residence. Try a stunt like that in your residence and see how quickly you find yourself trading cigarettes for "favors" in poorly decorated surroundings.
So Rand Paul is on the right track. He is pounding away at this issue. He is trying to make it as difficult as possible for the government to continue the practice of mass data collection. His detractors say that his argument is invalid because he is running for president and this is meant to bolster his numbers. That is not a valid argument. He is running for president, and a stunt this may very well be, but that doesn't validate or invalidate Paul's argument. And he's been standing up for these kinds of things for years. The fact is, political stunt or not, he is the loudest voice standing against the government prick who will one day tear your life apart because you're for gay marriage or reject global warming.
* A note about phone calls. In the course of this debate, TV talking heads have said repeatedly that, "It is only metadata. It's not like they are listening to our phone calls." (commentator smirks). That is half true. Under the Patriot Act there is no provision for warrantless wiretap of just anyone. But the NSA has been listening to phone calls for decades. Mostly these are calls between government officials, ours and theirs, members of the military, etc. But they can listen to anyone they wish. So can any phone repair guy checking a line or looking for good stories for happy hour. Both are true.
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