Today's Pix

Today's Best Blog Line

From Charlie Pierce at Esquire, talking about the new scam going on in Big Insurance:

"Give them a suit with rubber pockets and they'd steal soup."

Here's the article Charlie's referring to, at NYT DealBook:

These complex private deals allow the companies to describe themselves as richer and stronger than they otherwise could in their communications with regulators, stockholders, the ratings agencies and customers, who often rely on ratings to buy insurance.

What gripes my ass the most is that these boneheads are busy all the time coming up with new ways to game the system, which fucks everybody over, which tends to make normal people more than a little reluctant to be willing participants in being fucked over  - these are the same guys who show up on CNBC and DumFux News to piss and moan about how there's way too much "uncertainty in the market place", and gee, if only Obama would just get outa the way blah blah blah.

So, while we're conveniently distracted - Eddie Snowden, George Zimmerman, Darrel Issa's Clown Parade et al - we're not paying attention to another potentially massive collapse.

No soul and no honor.

Patti Griffin

"Ohio" w/ Rob't Plant.

The View From Out There

(hat tip = JG via email)

Inside the United States

GlobalPost goes inside the United States to uncover the regime’s dramatic descent into authoritarian rule and how the opposition plans to fight back.

This is satire. Although the news is real, very little actual reporting was done for this story and the quotes are imagined. It is the first installment of an ongoing series that examines the language journalists use to cover foreign countries. What if we wrote that way about the United States?

BOSTON, Mass. — Human rights activists say revelations that the US regime has expanded its domestic surveillance program to private phone carriers is more evidence of the North American country’s pivot toward authoritarianism.

The Guardian, a British newspaper,reported this week that a wing of the country’s feared intelligence and security apparatus ordered major telecommunications companies to hand over data on phone calls made by private citizens.

“The US leadership in Washington continues to erode basic human rights,” said one activist, who asked to remain anonymous, fearing that speaking out publicly could endanger his organization. “If the US government is unwilling to change course, it’s time the international community considered economic sanctions.”

Over the last decade, the United States has passed a series of emergency laws that give security forces sweeping powers to combat “terrorism.” But foreign observers say the authorities abuse those laws, using them instead to monitor ordinary Americans.

While the so-called Patriot Act passed in 2001 is perhaps the most dramatic legislation to date curbing freedoms here, numerous lesser-known laws have expanded monitoring of news outlets, email, social media platforms and even opposition groups — like the Occupy and Tea Party movements — that are critical of the regime.

US leader Barack Obama, a former liberal community organizer and the country's first black president who attracted a wave of support from young voters, rose to power in 2008 promising reform. He was greeted in the United States — a country of about 300 million people — with optimism. But he has since disappointed those supporters, ruling with a sometimes iron fist and continuing, if not expanding, the policies of the country’s former ruler, George W. Bush.

On a recent visit to the United States by GlobalPost, signs of the increased security apparatus could be found everywhere.

At all national airports, passengers are now forced to undergo full-body scans before boarding any flights. Small cameras are perched on many street corners, recording the movements and actions of the public. And incessant warnings on public transportation systems encourage citizens to report any “suspicious activity” to authorities.

Several American villagers interviewed for this story said the ubiquitous government marketing campaign called, “If you see something, say something,” does little to make them feel safer and, in fact, only contributes to a growing mistrust among the general population.

“I’ve deleted my Facebook account, stopped using email, or visiting websites that might be considered anti-regime,” a resident of the northern city of Boston, a tough-as-nails town synonymous with rebellion, told GlobalPost. It was in Boston that an American militia first rose up against the British empire. “But my phone? How can I stop using my phone? This has gone too far.”

American dissidents interviewed by GlobalPost inside the United States say surveillance by domestic intelligence agencies is just one part of a seemingly larger effort by the Obama administration to centralize power.

The American leader, for example, has in recent years personally approved the jailing — and in some cases execution — of American citizens suspected of involvement in what the regime calls “terrorist activity.”

“What exactly is terrorism? The term is used so loosely these days it could include just about anyone,” said one anti-government protester, who was tear-gassed and then arrested in 2011 for participating in a peaceful demonstration in New York, America’s largest city and its economic capital.

Obama has also overseen a crackdown on whistleblowers, most famously jailing Bradley Manning, a US soldier, for leaking documents that called into question US military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The government quietly imprisoned Manning for three years before finally trying him in a military court this week. He spent the first nine months of that in solitary confinement, where prison officials forced him to sleep naked without pillows or sheets and prevented him from reading newspapers, watching television or even exercising.

Activists also criticize the US regime for imprisoning without trial foreigners it deems threatening to national security in an offshore prison camp called Guantanamo Bay. This week an investigation revealed that the US regime force-fed Guantanamo inmates participating in a hunger strike. Force-feeding is illegal under international law.

Meanwhile, whispering in the streets about what the regime might do next has reached a dull roar. But after a national uprising in 2011 by the leftist Occupy movement ended in evictions, arrests and tear gas, Americans appear hesitant to take their anger into the streets.

Most major media outlets, which in the United States are largely controlled by politically-connected corporations — many of them, in fact, financially supported Obama’s election — have been relatively quiet on such issues.

Foreign observers, however, say the recent news about domestic surveillance is spreading wildly in other ways — on Twitter and around the dinner table. They say the news has the potential to spark an uprising — at least among urban, educated elites in the country’s major cities — mirroring those happening now in Turkey and that earlier swept parts of the Arab world.

One foreign businessman who works closely with the US government on issues of security said he thought Obama was too well-established and had too strong a security force for any challenge to its authority to take hold.

“This isn’t Tunisia,” he said. “This is more like China, where a massive security presence could easily put down any organized opposition movement.”

The businessman added that Obama was democratically elected twice, which he believes gives the leader enough credibility to weather any serious opposition to his rule.

In a small, unassuming house near Boston’s bustling seaport, though, supporters of the opposition disagreed, saying the leader had lost “all credibility.” The group said the opposition continued to organize and grow, and that it was just a matter of time before the rest of the American population joined them.

Indeed, different political factions are beginning to unite over the issue of domestic surveillance, despite their strong differences.

“We meet in person these days to talk about strategy, phones and email are no longer safe for us,” one of them said. “Our goal now is to just get out the message to the world about what is going on here. That’s the first step. We need to educate not only Americans but the world about the extent the US regime is controlling the lives of its citizens.”

The Thing About That Edward Snowden Thing

I'm really glad I'm not the only one thinking this whole fish stinks.

Some passing observations:
1) When everybody's in on the secret, there are no secrets
The number of people with Top Secret Clearance was 850,000 two years ago.

2) It's not what you know or who you know that counts; it's what you know about who you know.
And also too, Little Eddie got his cool job at Booz Allen by being a National Security Legacy Puke (imho) - a kid with a GED and the absolute minimum "experience" just kinda waltzes in?  Either the recruitment standards are total crap or Mommy and Daddy's pals greased the skids; with a side order of paranoia about "anybody from the outside".

3) And all of that generally points to a system where very few people are all that interested in learning any real truth about much of anything because everybody's way more interested in having good compliant little go-bots working diligently to make sure they gather the info necessary to confirm the foregone conclusions of management.

No soul and no honor.  But I'll give Snowden this much:  I think he came to understand that what he was doing wasn't accomplishing anything he was constantly being told it was accomplishing - his recent comment about how he could bring down the entire CIA Field Ops structure makes me think the guy really bought into it, and he's just now trying to come out of it - so "blowing the whistle" is his way of saying he got to the point where he could recognize it as bullshit, and now he's calling it bullshit.  Which is really why he poses such a threat; which in turn is why we get two basic reactions from the power centers in Washington - they either sniff and wave him off as an insignificant little bug, or he's Benedict Arnold times infinity squared.

Leave it to Crooks & Liars to come up with a good one that manages to look past the veil:

It should be self-evident that recent NSA revelations bring up some grave concerns about civil liberties. But they also raise other profound and troubling questions - about the privatization of our military, our culture's inflated expectations for digital technology, and the increasingly cozy relationship between Big Corporations (including Wall Street) and Big Defense.

Are these corporations perverting our political process? The campaign war chest for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who today said NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden committed "treason," is heavily subsidized by defense and intelligence contractors that include General Dynamics, General Atomic, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and Bechtel.

One might argue that a politician with that kind of backing is in no moral position to lecture others about "treason."

But Feinstein's funders are decidedly old-school Military/Industrial Complex types. What about the new crowd? This confluence of forces hasn't been named yet, so for the time being we'll use a cumbersome label: the "Security/Digital Complex."

Today's Pix

Ya Heard It Here First

Everybody's favorite media creation and the latest in a long and ingloriously prideful tradition of Heisman Trophy Failbots, Timmy Tebow the JesusBro, signed on with the Patriots the other day.

Here's Press Poodle Dan Shanoff at USAToday to polish the godly knob for us:

Today’s Big Winner: Tim Tebow
Six weeks ago, I said that New England was the most likely destination for Tim Tebow.

After nearly eight years of obsessively covering the Tebow phenomenon, it was not hard to trace his Belichick-approved success at Florida through Josh McDaniels making him a first-round draft pick through Rex Ryan’s bungling to Belichick’s status as the only coach who is smart enough, secure enough and dismissive enough of his critics to bring him in to put Tebow in Foxboro.
Needless to say, I’m on a roll, so let’s keep it going with 10 predictions (entirely sincere!) for the Tebow Era in New England, under the general “first principle” of Tebowmania — just when you think it can’t get any crazier, it does:

(1) He will get jersey No. 5 (from back-up punter David Ruffer).
(2) His Pats jersey sales will lead the league.
(3) He will score a TD in Week 1 versus the Bills.
(4) He will score 2 TDs in Week 2 versus the Jets.
(5) The Pats-Jets game on Sept. 12 will be the most-watched Thursday night game in the history of the NFL.
(6) He will get designated as an RB in fantasy and be owned in no less than 50% of the leagues.
(7) The Pats-Broncos game on Sunday night in Week 12 will be the most-watched Sunday night game in NFL history.
(8) He will finish the season with 9 TDs — and 6 two-point conversions.
(9) The Patriots will get to the Super Bowl, and Tebow will score a touchdown.
(10) Tim Tebow will win a Super Bowl ring in New England.

Is there a chance that things might not work in New England and I could be 100% wrong on all of these? Sure.

But given the history of Tebow, the bigger mistake is to scoff at the mania.

In case you missed it up there at the top, Dan - that was me scoffing at the media you.

Yeesh

I guess we file this one under:

• First World Problems 
• White Girl, Spoiled Little
• Stoopidly Opportunistic
• Something-For-Nothing
• Racist Vindictive Cunt
• Social Media Backfire

hat tip = Addicting Info

My Man, Charlie

This reads like poetry.

Please, if it's not too damn much trouble, can you tell me what's being done in my name?

That has been the essential plea of the citizen of a democratic political commonwealth for going on 70 years now, since the war powers and their attendant influence detached themselves from -- or were abandoned entirely by -- the constitutional authority in which they were supposed to reside. That was the plea that was answered, officially, by the incredibly brave Frank Church and his committee, and by the House Committee on Assassinations (the case of the murder of a president in broad daylight is still open, by the way). That was the plea that has been answered, unofficially, by Ron Ridenhour about My Lai, and by Sy Hersh about a lot of the things the Church committee opened up, and by those guys in Lebanon with the mimeograph machine concerning Iran-Contra, and by Bob Parry and so many others during the era of Reagan triumphalism, and by people like the invaluable Charlie Savage and Jane Mayer and others when the country lost its mind after 9/11, and, yes, by Jeremy Scahill and whoever he talks to, and, yes, by Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, too.

Just tell me what is being done in my name. 

Today's Eternal Sadness

Not a day goes by.  The big story over the weekend, of course, was the shooting spree in Santa Monica.  That's what got all the coverage because of the requisite body-count; and since the shooter was dark-skinned with a Muslim-sounding name, we can get our TerrorPorn with a double shot of Anti-Immigration Adrenaline jolt for the day.

We're also required now to jump into the speculation that the shooter "suffered from emotional and psychological problems" because that's become the over-arching theme of the NRA's campaign to keep us comfortably numb.  If we're not properly distracted and/or sedated, we might start to notice a few connectable dots:

PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz. (AP) — Police aren't expected to seek charges in the death of an Arizona man who was accidentally shot by his 4-year-old son, authorities said.

Justin Stanfield Thomas, 35, was fatally shot Friday after he and his son traveled from Phoenix to a friend's home 90 miles away in the northern Arizona community of Prescott Valley for a surprise visit.

The boy found the loaded gun in the home within minutes of arrival, asked a question about it and pulled the trigger, Prescott Valley Police spokesman Brandon Bonney said.

Thomas later died at a hospital.

The child has been with his mother since the day the shooting occurred.
Bonney said the gun should have been locked away, but that Thomas' friend, whose identity hasn't been released, was caught off guard by the unannounced visit. No children lived in the house.

"They're processing everything to see where they stand with the interviews and the crime scene investigation and see if everything is matching up," Bonney told The Prescott Daily Courier.

The paper described Thomas as an Army special forces veteran who served in Iraq.

I can imagine that kid growing up with some pretty heavy issues that he'll have to deal with at some point. (btw: can we have any reasonable expectation that he won't "deal with his hangups" by shooting up a school with an AR-15, or do we have to settle for blind hope on that one?)

So I have to wonder about Wayne Lapierre's recent conversion to the gospel of Mental Health in America.  Why do I get the feeling that it's just a good way for the gun makers to abdicate any and all responsibility?  Why is it I think they're trying to get the taxpayers to pick up the tab for their shit?  Why am I thinking "Hey, I know - the Libruls love gettin' all squishy about their feelings and crap, so let's give 'em a nice rag to chew on and maybe they'll leave us alone for a while."

It's a great way for the NRA to deflect criticism by getting us talking about any-damn-thing other than the simple fact that in a very obvious and important way the guns themselves are the fucking problem.