Keepin' it real.

(Sorry. My only gloating post.)

What's the difference between these two statements:

1. General Alexander "did not discuss with President Obama in 2010 an alleged foreign intelligence operation involving German Chancellor Merkel, nor has he ever discussed alleged operations involving Chancellor Merkel. News reports claiming otherwise are not true".

2. "The NSA did not share with President Obama the existence of any foreign intelligence operations directly involving German Chancellor Merkel."

Which was the actual statement? Which was not? Why do you think that is?

Think!

When the Outrageous! Outrageous! IRS scandal broke because someone at the IRS stupidly thought the phrase "Tea Party" in an organization name might possibly mean it was a political organization, Obama immediately fired the IRS head who had zero to do with the awful, terrible, horrible mistake. Zero. Wasn't in charge when it happened, wasn't under his control, yet he was on the street.

By contrast, Starship Commander Keith Alexander is still in place after letting a 29-year-old new-hire contractor walk off with the jewels of US intelligence, and now after allegedly failing to tell the President that we're tapping the phone lines of allies.

Why?

Think.

I swung by Whole Foods tonight to pick up coffee beans. Dr. Bronner's wacky-but-wonderful soap was on sale, so I picked up a giant bottle. The last time I bought a bottle of that stuff was decades ago in college, upstate New York. A crunchier place and a crunchier time.

Came home and called my aunt in New York City. She's a trip. 89, still driving. Driving in NYC. Yikes.

She spent her career working in a gynecology office at one of the local teaching hospitals, she was involved in administering studies around new diagnoses and procedures. When I was a kid, nobody would give me a straight answer about what she did. I guess that saying "vagina" and whatnot to anyone not yet of college age was verboten*. Tonight we bantered on about a cornucopia of women's naughty bits as we discussed the research her old lab is doing.

When I was a kid, even in NYC (although it was the Archie Bunker part not any of the fabulous parts), nobody spoke about homosexuality. Yesterday, my 13-year-old was excited to tell me that gay marriage is finally a settled issue in NJ. He's into social justice big time, and watches the Young Turks.

Somehow, I had this expansive feeling tonight that even with all of our woes from 30 years of a withering siege by the 1%, we have moved very far forward in our ability to handle sex stuff in a much more open and healthy way. Hiding things, being scared of certain subjects is not good.

Now, let's go take our country back so we can talk about sex stuff while not living in our cars.

Regards,

Circumspect Manny

*if I use a German word, will this automatically be vacuumed up by the NSA? If so, say "hi" to General Alexander, tell him I love his Starship bridge.

tell 'em that Snowden is lying and/or not telling us anything we didn't know already?

They seriously need to chill already, they look silly falling for this Merkel's-phone-was-tapped nonsense.

I just read a story about Erlang Davis, a woman who got fired from her job as an ObamaCare phone service rep because she fielded a call from Sean "Scammer" Hannity, and the call was on the air.

HR told her she was being fired for having contact with the media. Scammer generously offered to pay Davis her former salary, $26,000 a year.

So, I thought "hmm.... HR? Fired for talking to the media? $26,000 a year? Absurd rules and poverty wages? Must be... a private contractor, not a government job!" I couldn't find the identity of Davis' employer, but sure enough, our President is farming out ObamaCare call center jobs to private contractors that treat people like... well, just like Ms. Davis was treated.

Why do does the White House do this? Why do I bother asking? We all know they do it so the Predator Class members that own the contractor can make another zillion, who cares about the 99% lumpenproles that are smashed against the rocks before being discarded into a future of a [strike]slashed[/strike] strengthened social safety net.

F#$k that s%*t.

"Oh Manny! You suck! Do you want ObamaCare to run like the POST OFFICE?"

Actually, YES I FUCKING DO. Our Post Office does a great job, they're inexpensive, and they pay a living wage. What's not to like? (Other than the Predator Class making more zillions off of it, of course.) And they couldn't possibly have fucked up the computer systems anywhere near as bad as the blessed private-sector nitwits did.

Enough!

Has led to Larry "Toonces" Summers being kept from more mischief, JP Morgan actually paying a fine of some non-trivial sum, the Monsanto Protection Act getting 86ed, a Congressional Democratic revolt against war in Syria, and other substantial wins for the American People.

Keep up the good work!

We're just getting started!

Regards,

First-Way Manny

Since there's another post claiming that Obama and FDR are pretty different people, I thought I'd provide this fun little exercise.

Don't feel bad if these are almost impossible! Very tough to tell them apart (without a photograph or sound recording, of course).

Which one said which of the following:

1. "the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men...They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers."

2. Referring to the extraordinary compensation of two contemporary bank presidents after they were bailed out by taxpayer money: “I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen... I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.”

3. “I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”

4. “There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America.”

5. “A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.”

6. “What Washington Needs is Adult Supervision.”

7. “At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do, it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

8. "There is nothing I love as much as a good fight."

Bonus question: both presidents wanted to be known for their efforts on Social Security. What was the subtle difference in what they said hoped to accomplish in this regard?

When it turned out that someone at the IRS thought groups with "Tea Party" in their names might possibly be politically oriented, the new head of the IRS who had nothing to do with it had be fired immediately. We needed action immediately, dammit!

But when Gen. Alexander allows our most sensitive national secrets to be stolen en masse, ... no heads roll. When the computer systems effort to support ACA are a cluster#%^* of a staggering scale... people get overtime.

If I didn't know better, I'd say we were pandering to the Tea Party. And if we were, i'd be pretty irritated.