Snowden: more like Ellsberg or Benedict Arnold?

The NSA can be heroes in the Martin/Zimmerman case

I must admit that I'm not following the case closely, but it seems that a key piece of evidence is what Martin's girlfriend heard when they were talking by cellphone as Zimmerman began his foolishness. She says she heard one thing, the defense disputes it.

Since the NSA seems to have recorded all telephone calls for some time, they should release the recording of the call in question. They can be heroes! (But just for one day.)

So to sum up our new Realpolitik:

Under a Democratic president:

1. It's OK to spy on all Americans because Edward Snowden may have broken laws and/or not smiled at neighbors, and/or because FREEDOM.
2. It's OK to spy on other countries because we just kinda know they do it too and/or we heard something about this before and/or FREEDOM.

Europeans are hiding a terrible secret

If Europeans have nothing to hide, why should they even give a thought to being on the receiving end of our Spy on Everyone™ program? Yet they seem genuinely rattled.

One of the things I really like about the Spy on Everyone™ law is that all encrypted communication can be stored by the White House forever; we know that only evil-doers encrypt communications. And thus we know that all phone calls, almost all email transported over the Internet, and all online financial transactions are evil. So we need to spy on them.

Like resisting arrest, evading spying is proof positive of guilt.

The Europeans should be deeply ashamed of what they've done, whatever it is. But, Make No Mistake™, we will find out what it is, and we will bring Europe to justice.

Regards,

Third-Way Manny

Are you glad that John Brown was hanged?

In 1859, Brown attempted to start an anti-slavery rebellion in the South. The attempt was unsuccessful. Some pro-slavers were killed.

Brown was executed. But his actions played an important role in starting the Civil War, which brought about the end of slavery.

Brown commited a crime to help end a horrible institution. Would you have cheered his punishment?

This white man is plenty ready for women to take over

Thanks to unhappycamper, I just watched Rep. Duckworth rip a new portal into one of the folks that make America the flaming suckfest that it's become. Such wonderful, controlled, righteous indignation. Ms. Duckworth wants to do the right thing, and she's calling it like it is.

In Texas, another difficult woman, Democratic Senator Wendy Davis, fought to stop lunatics from... being lunatics.

For several years, I've watched Elizabeth Warren do the same - dismantling Republicans, bankers, Obama's new US Trade Representative, and the other parasites that are sucking the last bits of juice from the 99%.

In my adopted state of Massachusetts, it was yet another difficult woman, Margaret Marshall, who led the court decision 10 years ago that first allowed gay Americans to marry. "That exclusion is incompatible with the constitutional principles of respect for individual autonomy and equality under the law.", she wrote, and that was that.

It seems to me that, by and large, it's women who are wearing the pants in America today. Women who are big hearted enough to care about real people, not just those with power and money. Women who have strong principles and sharp minds. Women who have the will to do what is right, and that's that.

Y chromosomes don't seem to have the oomph that they used to.

Perhaps in some way this observation shows me to be sexist. If so, I apologize.

But the patriarchy just isn't working for most of us. I'm ready for a change.

So I had The Talk with my teenaged son tonight

He was on his computer, web chatting with someone - when I walked in, he was typing something sarcastic and silly to be funny.

I told him that we can't do that anymore. Henceforth, anything silly and funny must be tame and lame. In all likelihood everything that we enter into any major web site, or say on the phone, is being recorded by our government. Probably nobody's reviewing it now - but in a few years, when you get busted for something stupid, or an acquaintance gets busted for something stupid, or you want to get a good job... someone will take a look, and that someone will probably have zero sense of humor. Or the next White House administration will just start scanning all of the stored data left by their predecessor, looking for anything interesting.

He's my son: I want him to have a good life, but I have to wonder where this is all going.

The Predator Class and their well-paid politicians are carefully regulating the economy to keep the 99% on the edge of disaster, and thus afraid to fight back lest they be gently pushed into the abyss. And now they have a security infrastructure and apparatus to further clamp down on dissent, the means to find thoughtcrime so it can be nipped in the bud.

Wow. Things have changed since I was a kid.

What is a whistleblower?

At this moment, I'm thinking that a whistleblower is someone who sees a hidden conspiracy to do something bad, then exposes the conspiracy to the light of day.

What are your thoughts?

I wonder if Bradley Manning's torture encouraged Snowden to leave the US

before revealing his info?

I'd imagine the White House thought that torturing Manning and denying him due process, in a very public way, would terrify whistleblowers into silence. Perhaps it's just made them more evasive.