COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, June 06, 2013

Reversing civil liberty abuses with the stroke of a pen, Obama style: It is past time to abolish The Patriot Act. The very name of it is abhorrent.



President Obama’s Dragnet


Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.
Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability. The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.
Based on an article in The Guardian published Wednesday night, we now know the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency used the Patriot Act to obtain a secret warrant to compel Verizon’s business services division to turn over data on every single call that went through its system. We know that this particular order was a routine extension of surveillance that has been going on for years, and it seems very likely that it extends beyond Verizon’s business division. There is every reason to believe the federal government has been collecting every bit of information about every American’s phone calls except the words actually exchanged in those calls.
A senior administration official quoted in The Times offered the lame observation that the information does not include the name of any caller, as though there would be the slightest difficulty in matching numbers to names. He said the information “has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats,” because it allows the government “to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”
That is a vital goal, but how is it served by collecting everyone’s call data? The government can easily collect phone records (including the actual content of those calls) on “known or suspected terrorists” without logging every call made. In fact, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was expanded in 2008 for that very purpose. Essentially, the administration is saying that without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know who Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where.
This sort of tracking can reveal a lot of personal and intimate information about an individual. To casually permit this surveillance — with the American public having no idea that the executive branch is now exercising this power — fundamentally shifts power between the individual and the state, and repudiates constitutional principles governing search, seizure and privacy.
The defense of this practice offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching, was absurd. She said today that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the vice chairman of the committee, said the surveillance has “proved meritorious, because we have gathered significant information on bad guys and only on bad guys over the years.”
But what assurance do we have of that, especially since Ms. Feinstein went on to say that she actually did not know how the data being collected was used?
The senior administration official quoted in The Times said the executive branch internally reviews surveillance programs to ensure that they “comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties.”
That’s no longer good enough. Mr. Obama clearly had no intention of revealing this eavesdropping, just as he would not have acknowledged the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, had it not been reported in the press. Even then, it took him more than a year and a half to acknowledge the killing, and he is still keeping secret the protocol by which he makes such decisions.
We are not questioning the legality under the Patriot Act of the court order disclosed by The Guardian. But we strongly object to using that power in this manner. It is the very sort of thing against which Mr. Obama once railed, when he said in 2007 that the Bush administration’s surveillance policy “puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.”
Two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, have raised warnings about the government’s overbroad interpretation of its surveillance powers. “We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” they wrote last year in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. “As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”
On Thursday, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, who introduced the Patriot Act in 2001, said that the National Security Agency overstepped its bounds by issuing a secret order to collect phone log records from millions of Americans. “As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the F.B.I.’s interpretation of this legislation,” he said in a statement. “While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses.” He added: “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”
This stunning use of the act shows, once again, why it needs to be sharply curtailed if not repealed.

147 comments:

  1. We haven't heard any more skyscrapers falling.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The NY Times is just upset that one of their treasonous reporters might get caught selling national secrets.

      Delete
    2. That's really lame, Rufus.

      Try again.

      Rather, it is an indication of how bad things really have become.

      At this point in the saga, you are trying to defend the indefensible.

      It is a big task, bound to fail, and takes it's toll on one's physical and mental health.

      Cut your emotional bond to Obama and your vote and suddenly the whole world will look differently.

      bob

      Delete
    3. Dumbfuck, this whole program originated when Bush was tapping phones without a warrant. Congress got mad, and passed this law. I'll guarantee you, you don't even know how it works.

      You might as well relax, dumbo, you've got a black president for 3 1/2 more years.

      Delete
    4. it's all Bush's fault?

      This program started in 1978.

      The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" Pub.L. 95–511, 92 Stat. 1783, 50 U.S.C. ch. 36) is a United States law which prescribes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers" (which may include American citizens and permanent residents suspected of espionage or terrorism).[1] The law does not apply outside the United States. The law has been repeatedly amended since the September 11 attacks.

      Delete
  2. Jen asks below:

    >>JennyThu Jun 06, 04:23:00 PM EDT

    Is “the government” no longer “our government”?<<

    I am beginning to feel that way. For the first time in my life.

    It is what comes from electing a man who really has no roots in the United States. His wife said his 'native land' was Kenya. Spent lots of time in Indonesia. A Marxist sunni muslim, a third worlder, a constitutional scholar whose instinct is to kill American citizens that have survived abortions.

    Deuce may disagree with me, but I think he is by far the worst we have ever had.

    Not one person at the 30 year reunion party of his Columbia class could remember even having seen the man.

    bob


    ReplyDelete
  3. Surprise, I don’t disagree with you:

    The New York State Senate passed a bill Wednesday that makes it a felony to “harass, annoy, threaten or alarm” an on-duty police officer.
    The bill, sponsored by Sens. Pat Gallivan, George Maziarz, Michael Ranzenhofe and Joe Griffo, seeks “to establish the crime of aggravated harassment of a police officer or peace officer.”

    “Police officers who risk their lives every day in our cities and on our highways deserve every possible protection,” Mr. Griffo told WIVB 4. “And those who treat them with disrespect, harass them and create situations that can lead to injuries deserve to pay a price for their actions.”
    A press release from the New York State Senate originally stated, “The bill (S.2402), sponsored by Senator Joe Griffo (R-C-I, Rome) would make it a felony to harass, annoy, or threaten a police officer while on duty.” However, WIVB 4 notes that as the bill is written, a person would be guilty of aggravated harassment if he or she contacted the officer physically with the intent to “harass, annoy, threaten or alarm.”

    The legislation is now on its way to the State Assembly. If it becomes law, anyone found guilty could face up to four years in prison, WIVB 4 reports.


    Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/6/untouchables-ny-bill-would-make-annoying-police-fe/#ixzz2VU48vMTD
    Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

    ReplyDelete
  4. Big fucking whoop. No one twists someone’s arm to become a cop,

    ReplyDelete
  5. Quirk is being proved a legitimate prophet on all this -


    >>>Breaking: FBI, NSA massively surveilling data from 9 Internet companies; Update: NBC News: Gov’t collecting data on “every call made in America”


    posted at 6:25 pm on June 6, 2013 by Ed Morrissey


    Yesterday, the Guardian reminded us that the NSA is still trolling our phone records for data mining. Today, the Washington Post blows the cover on a massive surveillance program that until now only a few people had known about — until now. And unlike the NSA phone-records surveillance, this one went after content at nine major Internet service providers:


    The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.<<<


    http://hotair.com/archives/2013/06/06/breaking-fbi-nsa-massively-collecting-data-from-9-internet-companies/


    Posting this to get Rufus up to speed.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Everyone that can read has known all this forever.

      Delete
    2. Good news: Government’s recording your conversations on the bus too


      posted at 7:21 pm on June 6, 2013 by Allahpundit

      >>A timely video from Reason TV on the surveillance state’s newest venture: Cameras and microphones on city buses, just in case Al Qaeda decides to plan its next attack on municipal transportation within earshot of other passengers. Not every city does this, but the practice is spreading — early adapters include San Francisco, Baltimore, and Hartford with funding from, you guessed it, DHS.<<

      http://hotair.com/archives/2013/06/06/good-news-governments-recording-your-conversations-on-the-bus-too/

      bob

      Delete
    3. >>>Everyone that can read has known all this forever.<<<

      That raises the question as to why you haven't been bitching about it.

      bob

      Delete
    4. Then you are crazy.

      The rabbit hole keeps getting deeper, the outhouse is leaking -


      >>The rabbit hole just keeps getting deeper and deeper. The Cincinnati IRS employee says that this overseeing by the Washington IRS office occurred in 2010. That's a full year that the IRS office in Washington knew about the targeting program before it supposedly came to the attention of Lois Lerner, chief of the tax exempt office. Not credible.<<

      June 6, 2013
      IRS officials in Washington may have directed targeting program
      Rick Moran

      http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/06/irs_officials_in_washington_may_have_directed_targeting_program.html


      It is time to appoint a Scandal Czar. So says Gutfeld on Fox.


      bob

      Delete

    5. NSA, FBI secretly mining data from Internet firms...
      'THEY QUITE LITERALLY CAN WATCH YOUR IDEAS AS YOU TYPE'...
      Top secret PRISM program...
      MICROSOFTYAHOOGOOGLEYOUTUBEFACEBOOKSKYPEAPPLE...
      Obama administration collecting phone records of millions daily...
      Secret court order requires VERIZON to hand over ALL CALL DATA...
      White House: Critical tool against 'terrorist threats'...
      Specifically targeted Americans, not foreigners...
      'Homeland Security': Laptops, phones can be searched based on hunches...
      NSA SEES ALL: Phone Sex, Banks, Emails...
      CIA: We'll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher...
      '1984' Published 64 Years Ago Today... drudge

      Certified and signed "Approved" by Rufus.

      bob

      Delete
    6. You afraid they'll see you washing the dishes?

      Delete
    7. BTW, that Internet program only applies to Foreign communications by foreign nationals.

      In the old days we called that "spying."

      Delete
    8. On What, exactly, did you folks think the intelligence agencies were spending that "dark" $40 Billion?

      Delete
    9. Sure, Rufus.

      Go get a job here -

      https://publicintelligence.net/utah-data-center/

      and report back to us.

      bob

      Delete
    10. NSA, FBI secretly mining data from Internet firms...
      'THEY QUITE LITERALLY CAN WATCH YOUR IDEAS AS YOU TYPE'...
      Top secret PRISM program...
      MICROSOFTYAHOOGOOGLEYOUTUBEFACEBOOKSKYPEAPPLE...
      Obama administration collecting phone records of millions daily...
      Secret court order requires VERIZON to hand over ALL CALL DATA...
      White House: Critical tool against 'terrorist threats'...
      Specifically targeted Americans, not foreigners...
      'Homeland Security': Laptops, phones can be searched based on hunches...
      NSA SEES ALL: Phone Sex, Banks, Emails...
      CIA: We'll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher...
      '1984' Published 64 Years Ago Today... drudge

      Certified and signed "Approved" by Rufus.

      bob

      Delete
    11. Glad someone is carrying on against the Commie Traitor Race-Baiting Troll, Rufus, Bob.

      I gave my name to the cause so many years ago that I just figured I needed a break.
      (See Sam's D-Day question above)

      In service,

      Doug

      Delete
    12. (See Sam's D-Day question BELOW)

      Delete
    13. "Quirk is being proved a legitimate prophet on all this -"

      Quirk is THE Legitmate Prophet on ALL Things.

      PBUH

      Delete
  6. Among the frequently heard memes on the IRS scandal is the absence of hard proof linking the illegal harassment of conservative, evangelical and pro-Israel groups to the Obama White House. A typical example came Tuesday during the House Ways and Means Committee hearing, when Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., mocked Republicans on the panel by saying that "there is no smoking gun."

    The fact that the proverbial smoking gun has yet to be found, however, isn't proof that it doesn't exist. As Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has said on many occasions, nobody paid any attention to his newspaper's Watergate stories for months, and President Nixon's resignation came more than two years after the infamous burglary. Given the large number of groups -- 500 or more by some estimates -- subjected to the harassment and the insistence of IRS agents who carried it out that their orders came from above, members of Congress and the media would be irresponsible not to consider the possibility of White House involvement of some kind.

    A likely place to look is Stephanie Cutter's presence in multiple White House meetings with senior IRS officials. Cutter was the sharp-edged deputy campaign manager for the Obama re-election effort, beginning in September 2011 and continuing through Election Day. Hers was an unfailingly shrill voice supporting the president wherever the campaign went across the country. Cutter told CNN's Jake Tapper this week that there was "nothing nefarious going on" when she met with then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman before the 2012 election. Shulman made 155 White House visits while running the IRS, far more than any of Obama's Cabinet secretaries. The IRS has a major role in Obamacare, so there is some plausibility to Shulman's claim that the health care program was his sole reason for ringing the White House door bell so often.

    It is far less plausible to claim, however, that planning the IRS role in Obamacare required the presence of the deputy manager for the Obama re-election campaign. The IRS chief wouldn't have been interested in the campaign's Obamacare communications strategy, and any talk about campaign fundraising likely would have been illegal. So what was Cutter doing in White House meetings with the IRS commissioner? Odds are somebody in the White House took meeting notes.

    Cutter also should be asked under oath whether she was there for any of the 165 White House meetings, tallied by WatchdogLabs.org, that were attended by Sarah Hall Ingram. Ingram headed the IRS department most directly responsible for the illegal harassment before being promoted to manage the tax agency's role in Obamacare. Curiously, WatchdogLabs.org also determined that between them, Shulman and Ingram attended more than 300 White House meetings but never once attended the same meeting. A reasonable person could conclude from these facts that Obamacare wasn't the sole subject on the White House agendas of these two senior IRS executives.

    Politics: White House
    Examiner Editorial: What were IRS biggies really doing at the White House?

    June 5, 2013 | 7:00 pm

    http://washingtonexaminer.com/national-editorial-what-were-irs-biggies-really-doing-at-the-white-house/article/2531245?


    bob

    ReplyDelete
  7. Replies
    1. Why thank you. That was nice.

      And Good Luck to you as well, Rufus.

      One wonders why, with all this info, the intelligence agencies couldn't stop the pressure cooker bombers, even after being tipped off by the Russians.

      Are these people incompetent, or what?

      But now, after that event, since they are looking at your credit card purchases, my friends, the next time you buy a pressure cooker you will investigated.

      bob

      Delete
    2. Frac Daddy goes out at 30-1 at the Belmont.

      bob

      Delete
  8. On this day in 1944, Allied forces invaded the beaches of Normandy, France during World War II, an event known as D-Day.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Shakespeare is pretty weak on uncles and nieces, to be honest about it.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
  10. Disclosure of the massive surveillance of phone records and internet communications risks “long-lasting and irreversible harm” to US national security, the director of national intelligence says.

    Late on Thursday night US time James Clapper issued a bullet-point defence of the surveillance programs disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post, saying they contained “numerous safeguards that protect privacy and civil liberties”. To correct the “misleading impression left in the article” – apparently a reference to the Guardian’s original story – Clapper said he approved the declassification of his defence of the National Security Agency’s collection of every phone record from millions of Verizon customers.

    “There is a robust legal regime in place governing all activities conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act” Clapper wrote, “which ensures that those activities comply with the Constitution and laws and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties. The program at issue here is conducted under authority granted by Congress and is authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). By statute, the Court is empowered to determine the legality of the program."

    A judge for Fisa Court, as the surveillance body is known, reviewed and approved the surveillance. But critics have pointed out that the Fisa Court has almost never, in its 35-year history, rejected a US surveillance request – a perception of docility that prompted its presiding judge, Reggie Walton, to defend the court’s integrity in a statement to the Guardian on Thursday.

    Clapper said the Fisa Court had established procedures preventing the government “indiscriminately sifting” through the collected phone records. “The court only allows the data to be queried when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organisation,” Clapper said. “Only a small fraction of the records are ever reviewed” by “specifically cleared counterterrorism personnel”.

    At the same time, Clapper said national security required the NSA to collect all the Verizon subscriber data, even if not all the data would be analysed, and regardless of any evidence to link the phone records to crime, foreign espionage or terrorism. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that other telecoms received similar orders from the government for the subscriber data.



    {…}

    ReplyDelete


  11. {…}

    “The collection is broad in scope,” Clapper wrote, “because more narrow collection would limit our ability to protect the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, as it may assist counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities.”

    Yet the collection does not need to be tied to terrorism to occur – something that alarmed one Democrat senator, Jeff Merkley. He told the Guardian on Thursday that the sweeping “barn-door” collection appeared to violate the provision of the Patriot Act purportedly authorising it.

    “We can't really propose changes to the law unless we know what the words mean as interpreted by the court,” Merkley said.

    Clapper reiterated a point the Obama administration made on Thursday in its response to the Guardian’s story: the NSA’s dragnet of Verizon phone records, which the Fisa Court authorised until 19 July, does not include the “content of any communications or the identity of any subscriber”. Yet the so-called “metadata” – phone numbers, duration of calls – can be combined with publicly available information to easily determine subscriber identity. And a second NSA surveillance effort, disclosed by the Guardian on Thursday and codenamed PRISM, collects the content of communications provided through Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and five other large internet companies.

    Clapper came under criticism on Thursday for statements to Democrat senator Ron Wyden that appeared to be contradicted by the revelations of the surveillance programs. Asked in March whether “millions” of Americans had “any kind of [their] data” collected by the US government, Clapper replied: “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly.”

    He has denied misleading Congress, but Clapper’s statement on Thursday suggested the collection of Americans’ phone records was deliberate, methodical and institutionalised.

    “Discussing programs like this publicly,” Clapper concluded, “will have an impact on the behavior of our adversaries and make it more difficult for us to understand their intentions.”

    ReplyDelete
  12. Mission accomplished for al Qaeda. All of our meddling has wrecked the civil liberties in the USA in a way that was unthinkable a generation ago.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We got sick of hearing

      "The Terrorists will have won."

      Now they have.

      ...just consult Rufus.

      Delete
    2. Them boys on the beach sacrificed their lives for Obamacare.

      ...and the IRS.

      Delete
  13. The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.

    The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley.

    Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”

    PRISM was launched from the ashes of President George W. Bush’s secret program of warrantless domestic surveillance in 2007, after news media disclosures, lawsuits and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court forced the president to look for new authority.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Prior to Clinton, Microsoft had nothing to do with Politics.

      ...no lobbyists, no contributions to career criminals.

      ...an exceptional position to take given the size they had achieved.

      Clinton/Reno "justice" took care of that, and they have fallen in line.

      ...obediently waiting for the Feds to anoint Google Trolls the Supreme Commanders of the Internets.

      Delete
  14. You cannot maintain the 2nd amendment if you lose the 4th amendment. The bad news is that it is already lost. The question is, do enough people care to get it back?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "The question is, do enough people care to get it back?"

      The NEA has "taken care" of that problem.

      Indoctrinate.

      Eliminate the desire to care.

      ...and the knowledge and skills to do anything about it.

      Delete
  15. All we need is a Republican president, then the left/liberals will yell like crazy about all this stuff.

    Even Rufus, who has certified it and approved it, will be yelling like hell against it.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That goddamn illiterate bitch Sarah Palin isn't going to read my emails!!!

      bob

      Delete
  16. What is hard to understand about this?

    Amendment IV

    "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

    ReplyDelete
  17. Clear as a ringing liberty bell to me.

    The weak points are 'effects' and 'unreasonable'.

    'Probable cause' seems clear enough.

    'Describing the place to be searched' is a little iffy in this day and age.

    But hell, everybody knows what it means. Except Rufus, of course. It means you got to have a damn good reason to spook around in a citizen's life and home and business and relationships.

    bob

    ReplyDelete

  18. >>>>Jordanian jihadist leader calls for jihad showdown against Hizballah



    Sunni-Shi'ite jihad heating up over Syria.

    "Jordanian jihadist leader calls for showdown against Hezbollah," by Jessica Chasmar for The Washington Times, June 6:

    A jihadist leader in Jordan has called for an attack on Shi’ite Hezbollah, predicting a final showdown between Sunni Islamists and the Lebanese group in the near future, according to a report in the Arab daily Al-Hayat.

    Muhammad Shalabi said that the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front is heading to all of the areas where Hezbollah fighters are stationed, the Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday.

    “It is a duty to carry out jihad against all of the aggressors,” he said. “We call openly to fight this party,” he said, urging the Sunnis in Lebanon and Syria to target Hezbollah’s positions, the Jerusalem Post reported.

    This is the first time that Shalabi has explicitly called for attacking Hezbollah, according to the report.<<<<

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/06/jordanian-jihadist-leader-calls-for-jihad-showdown-against-hizballah.html


    Maybe Hamas will be involved one of these days. At that point the dance card would look to be pretty well filled up.

    'Dance on, dance on, dance on...'

    Roethke, but in another context.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hezbollah is a division of the Iranian Army.

      America is currently FUNDING them via the Lebanese Army to the tune of 150 million dollars a year in ammo and APC's

      Weird news.

      Delete
    2. It has since 2006 provided over $720 million in military aid, including assault rifles, Humvee vehicles, missile and grenade launchers and night vision goggles, in addition to training.

      http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/34218

      Delete
    3. Hezbollah is a division of the Iranian Army.

      …and on a strictly military level, an impressive urban warfare fighting force at that. Worth noting.

      Delete
    4. If you fight by imposed ROE.

      The rules have changed. There will not be days and days of warning next time.

      Hezbollah can be destroyed if you wish it.

      There is no reason to fight an urban war with it. Level the urban area.

      It's works.

      As for the "impressiveness"?

      http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/22/hezbollahs_fallen_soldiers

      Hezbollah's Fallen Soldiers
      The self-proclaimed "Party of God" is throwing its fighters into Syria's bloody war. And according to its own media sources, it has already suffered significant losses.

      Delete
    5. Time to take the gloves off.

      If Hezbollah attacks Israel again?

      2006 will be a dream compared to the response this time.

      Delete
  19. >>>We know that the NSA has many domestic-surveillance and data-mining programs with codenames like Trailblazer, Stellar Wind, and Ragtime -- deliberately using different codenames for similar programs to stymie oversight and conceal what's really going on. We know that the NSA is building an enormous computer facility in Utah to store all this data, as well as faster computer networks to process it all. We know the U.S. Cyber Command employs 4,000 people.

    We know that the DHS is also collecting a massive amount of data on people, and that local police departments are running "fusion centers" to collect and analyze this data, and covering up its failures. This is all part of the militarization of the police.<<<

    What We Don't Know About Spying on Citizens: Scarier Than What We Know

    The NSA's surveillance of cell-phone calls show how badly we need to protect the whistle-blowers who provide transparency and accountability.

    Bruce SchneierJun 6 2013, 12:24 PM ET

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/what-we-dont-know-about-spying-on-citizens-scarier-than-what-we-know/276607/

    Anyone that isn't disturbed by all this, much less approves of it, is out of their mind.

    Add in the IRS running your health care and anyone should be terrified.

    Ignorance is not bliss. Not for long.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Add in the IRS running your health care and anyone should be terrified."

      Just get drunk and forget about it.

      ...or take speed and join in Rufus's Righteous Cause to Communize Amerika!!!

      Delete
    2. Please be informed. That spelling "America" with a "K" or not capitalizing the "a" will make you suspect in being NOT a citizen. I should know. I was accused of not being a citizen when I spelled America.. "america". And When I said America was going to become amerika the way we were headed I was again accused of being not a citizen.

      Delete
    3. Good news? ALL the posts on this blog, and I do mean ALL have been recorded by our NSA.

      Delete
    4. Fuck the NSA and their domestic snooping.

      Delete
    5. I hear the FBI snoops on us too and has said all are ok but me....

      lol...

      Delete
  20. What did the girl sitting on Pinochio's face say?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't know but am glad you're back. Was getting a little worried.

      Maybe, "Nose or not, it grows like it knows a thing or two"?

      Rufs has totally lost his mind since you've been gone. He 'approves' of all this spooking.

      He is at the stage now of doubling down on an illusion.

      Maybe you can straighten him out.

      bob

      Delete
    2. "Maybe you can straighten him out"

      Yeah, If I was 27, had Pinochio's nose, and lied like a racehorse.

      Delete
    3. ...figured I'd mix things up a bit.

      Delete
  21. "Lie to me."

    - Deaf Frat Guy, 2006

    ReplyDelete
  22. Iraq is on the tipping point towards a civil war between the Shiites and Sunnis. The US adventure into Iraq in total ruin.

    The Sunni states, with hoped for US assistance, wanted to confine the same battle to a win in Syria. Assad, the Iranians, Russia and Hezbollah seem to have prevented that.

    The French and English establishment seem to have been thwarted in getting the dopey John Kerry to bring the US into the fray. The national boundary lines established by the British and French stand.

    The ancient religious and tribal boudaries remain unchanged.

    The Turkish regime has been weakened.

    Egypt is sliding backwards.

    The US/Nato crusade into Libya, another disaster.

    Afghanistan remains as bad as ever, perhaps worse.

    The Russians are reestablishing themselves as a regional super power. They will continue to arm the Syrians.

    Israel must be impressed with the fighting spirit and now battle tested Hezbollah. That should give them pause for thought on taking on Iran.

    The Israeli assault on Syria should convince the Iranians on the need for a nuclear deterrent.

    Obama, detached and up to his eyes in the Bush/Obama era of increased public distrust of big government facing a growing majority hostile to another US war.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Operation Iraqi Freedom"

      ...in Iraq as it is in Amerika.

      Delete
    2. 'The Israeli assault on Syria' continued today for the fiftieth straight day with Israeli jets and missiles raining down on Damascus without respite killing and maiming tens of thousands and leaving nearly the same number of Syrian orphans in its wake.

      from The Deuce Daily War Report



      bob

      Delete
    3. Deuce believes the propaganda that he reads about Hezbollah.

      "Israel must be impressed with the fighting spirit and now battle tested Hezbollah. That should give them pause for thought on taking on Iran."

      Let's examine this interesting but fictional statement.

      Hezbollah was fighting the Rebels with the help of Assad's Syrian Air force, Army, missiles and artillery & Iran's logistical support if not more.

      How would that look against the IDF?

      Well if we go back to 2006 and apply the same standards of win and lose to the Hezbollah / Israeli war? Southern Lebanon and Hezbollah got its ass kicked.

      If we look at how Israel has bombed, in Syria, a nuclear site, ammo dumps without any problem cutting thru the Syrian defenses? One can only wonder if they could not do that again to the Iranian air defense systems.

      The problem is however the rules are not equal.

      IF Israel should lose a soldier, any soldier and Hezbollah or Iran survive?

      Israel loses in the eyes of the ignorant.

      Delete
    4. The BEST way to fight Iran's going hot?

      Sanctions.

      But not to worry, Obama JUST re-uped the waivers for Turkey, China and others when it comes to the Iran Sanctions act.

      Delete
  23. Natural gas price might have found sweet spot

    It’s not hard to imagine the reactions inside the Beltway if the price of gasoline more than doubled in a single year: the congressional investigations, demands for action from the White House and loud protests from consumers.

    But the price of natural gas actually has more than doubled since the spring of 2012 — and the reaction in both Washington and the markets has largely been a shrug.

    In fact, some analysts hope that natural gas prices, which had fallen to historic lows amid the shale boom, are finally settling into a sweet spot: high enough to bring healthy profits to gas producers while still offering stiff competition to other fuel sources like coal.

    Benchmark prices for natural gas traded up to a 20-month high in April after a late winter cold snap hit parts of the country but have eased since then, with production growing modestly and demand trailing off into the weaker-demand summer season.

    Natural gas was trading near $4.16 per million British thermal units on Monday, a huge jump from its low of $1.80 in April 2012. Last month, it reached as high as $4.40.

    Last month’s natural gas price averaged $4.17, the highest monthly average since July 2011, the Energy Information Administration said. Though they are notoriously volatile, gas futures prices stretching out to the end of 2014 are in a fairly tight range between about $4.20 and $4.54.

    That range is still a fraction of the $8.90 natural gas was selling for in 2008, before the fracking-driven shale boom upended domestic energy markets and turned gas into a surging competitor to coal, nuclear power and renewables.

    ---

    What Rufus cited as Fracking's Achilles, proof that it was a flash in the pan, turned out to be markets at work.

    ...funniest thing.




    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Many analysts predicted that rising gas prices will prompt companies to operate more drilling rigs, which was long considered a key indicator of future gas output. The number of drilling rigs in operation has slumped to an 18-year low since last year’s price collapse, according to data from oilfield services group Baker Hughes that says 354 gas-directed rigs are now operating.

      But Bowman said that with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, rig counts aren’t as accurate an indicator as they used to be because a single well pad can house several wells.

      As natural gas prices fluctuate, the market will see a lot more of this switching back and forth among fuel sources, Book said.

      Delete
  24. Frac Daddy is going out at 30-1 in the Belmont.

    ReplyDelete
  25. VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis has revealed that he never wanted to be pope and that he's living in the Vatican hotel for his "psychiatric" health.

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_VATICAN_POPE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-06-07-07-44-14


    bob

    ReplyDelete
  26. Rufus just put in a phone call to Doyle's.

    Utah Data Center

    ReplyDelete
  27. All is good with the US government snooping into the private conversations, files, health and tax records and every other detail private and public of every US man, woman and child. All good there. Very American that.

    But don’t they dare ask someone to show their visa, passport or identify themselves in order to vote. That would be un-American.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...and free Obamacare for illegals.

      Licensed, or not.

      (Depending on state of "residence")

      Delete
  28. A better than expected Jobs Report this morning.

    420,000 Entered the Workforce

    319,000 Found Jobs

    The Participation Rate ticked up a notch to 63.4

    The number of "part-timers" more or less treaded water

    BLS

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup, unemployment went up less than expected.

      bob

      Delete
    2. The large number entering the workforce did cause the unemployment rate to tick up to 7.6%.

      Delete
    3. 14.6% in the real world.

      bob

      Delete
    4. At this point in the cycle you expect a lot of the people on the sideline will start to "come back" into the labor force, and start looking for jobs. You always have some upticks in the unemployment rate when things start to get better.

      Delete
    5. And in a booming economy unemployment soars.

      Doug, can you help this man?

      bob

      Delete
  29. Quirk just put in a call to Sandii at "Wanna Talk Rough?"

    Utah Data Center


    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Transcripts available, $10.95 each at NSA/SNOOP@yourgov.intrusion

      Delete
  30. California was within a whisker of 2,000 Megawatts of Solar, yesterday. Neat how wind and solar works together, huh?

    CaISO

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When the wind blows at night, solar kicks in too.

      D O U G

      Delete
  31. This website continues to be the go-to source for relevant data on the economy. He does a good job on this morning's labor report (and, lots of pretty graphs.) :)

    Calculated Risk

    ReplyDelete
  32. I think we're going to have a hard time getting this economy out of "granny-low" without a significant raise in the Minimum Wage.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. raise the minimum wage?

      I'll fire the full time workers and replace them with minimum wage workers.

      Then? I'll out source printing and production to china and korea where possible and reduce some part timers down to 20 hours.

      Delete
    2. Buying better machines to replace idiot workers...

      Got to love it, they take no breaks, they do not steal and require no health insurance.

      Can't wait for the fast food places to replace cashiers with ATM style kiosks...

      Delete
    3. Nobody cares what some Israeli does.

      Delete
    4. And, yes, you can't have an Israeli Passport if you're Not an Israeli.

      Delete
    5. Sorry to burst your alcohol soaked bubble.

      I am an American. 100%

      Only got one passport and it says USA on the cover.

      Delete
    6. I am a hyphenated american


      I am Jewish-American

      I am Bald-American

      I am Fat-American

      I am Old-American

      But whether you like it or not...

      I am AS AMERICAN as you.. (that is IF you are an American and not hold an Indian Reservations Passport)

      Delete
    7. Sorry, asshole; you gave the game away when you came online boasting of your Israeli passport. You're just a lying, sack of shit, foreign agent. Fuck off.

      Delete
    8. And, if you did have an American passport you would know that it Does Not have USA anywhere on the cover.

      Delete
    9. Looks like it says United States of America on the cover to me -

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_passport

      Picture of front cover of contemporary United States passport.

      I just saw one the other day. My new niece has one. And she is a citizen of India. I think she got it through the foreign student program. Looked just like that picture.

      bob

      Delete
    10. Rufus just took 24 ounce Extreme Beer from refrigerator.

      from Stream Reports, Utah Data Center, dishwasher cams division

      Delete
    11. Yes, "United States of America."

      Not, USA

      Delete
    12. Rufus you are one stupid drunk injun.

      From one American to another?

      You are a disgrace.

      Delete
    13. O well for God's sake you are sounding like General Bunk.

      What the hell is the difference?

      You are straining gnats and swallowing camels.

      bob

      Delete
    14. And you are the dingleberry that said I was a foreigner cause is did use a capital a...

      asshole

      Delete
    15. bob,

      he's just pissed that obama is turning out to be such an asshole

      Delete
    16. Going through a kind of pre-withdrawal crisis or something. He knows his guy is unsupportable, but he voted for the fraud, and it is, well, you know, kinda embarrassing really. Hard to come to terms with, voting for a dick, and accusing everyone that didn't of being racists.

      It's a tough situation for anyone to be in and we must show understanding and compassion.

      bob

      Delete
    17. truly.

      It's the decent thing to do.. Think of the lack of self esteem one would have pushing obama on us for almost 6 years....

      Has to call me an "israeli" as some kind of insult, next he will be claiming I'm not chubby and I have a 10 inch pecker..

      Oh the insults...

      oh well...

      Delete
  33. The desperation here is palpable, but also understandable. If, instead of trying to fix your party’s deepest pathologies you wagered its entire future on a high-risk strategy that was starting to turn bad, you’d be a little desperate, too. Perhaps it’s a subset of Obama Derangement Syndrome that afflicts conservatives when they talk about health care—call it Obamacare Derangement Syndrome. Maybe one day, once the dust has settled, it’ll be covered under Obamacare, too.

    Obamacare is killing the GOP

    ReplyDelete
  34. You are hallucinating. Support for your favorite program is at an all time low. And now that it is being tied in people's minds to the IRS it is going to sink further. God bless South Carolina, they are about to outlaw its implementation in that state.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, they tried "nullification" once before. That must have worked out better for them than I thought.

      Delete
    2. It is not, ahem, a sign of support.

      bob

      Delete
  35. And why would they do this? ... The ... only way to understand the refusal to expand Medicaid is as an act of sheer spite. And the cost of that spite won’t just come in the form of lost dollars; it will also come in the form of gratuitous hardship for some of our most vulnerable citizens. ...

    A new study from the RAND Corporation ... examines the consequences if 14 states whose governors have declared their opposition to Medicaid expansion do, in fact, reject the expansion. The result ... would be a huge financial hit: the rejectionist states would lose more than $8 billion a year in federal aid, and would also find themselves on the hook for roughly $1 billion more to cover the losses hospitals incur when treating the uninsured.

    Meanwhile, Medicaid rejectionism will deny health coverage to roughly 3.6 million Americans, with essentially all of the victims living near or below the poverty line. And since past experience shows that Medicaid expansion is associated with significant declines in mortality, this would mean a lot of avoidable deaths: about 19,000 a year, the study estimated.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just think about this... It’s one thing when politicians refuse to spend money helping the poor and vulnerable; that’s just business as usual. But here we have a case in which politicians are, in effect, spending large sums, in the form of rejected aid, not to help the poor but to hurt them.

      And ... it doesn’t even make sense as cynical politics. ... What it might do ... is drive home to lower-income voters — many of them nonwhite — just how little the G.O.P. cares about their well-being, and reinforce the already strong Democratic advantage among Latinos, in particular.

      Rationally, in other words, Republicans should accept defeat on health care, at least for now, and move on. Instead, however, their spitefulness appears to override all other considerations. And millions of Americans will pay the price.

      The Spite Club

      Delete
  36. Anyone following the Sarah Murnaghan story?

    bob

    ReplyDelete
  37. Three mission accomplished OOrahs for NATO:

    BEIRUT — Growing lawlessness in southern Libya and an influx of Islamist militants from Mali are stoking worries that Libya’s security weaknesses are fast becoming a destabilizing factor in the region.

    A former Libyan intelligence source has told VOA that al-Qaida-linked jihadists driven out of Mali by a French-led offensive earlier this year have set up at least three jihadist camps in southern Libya in recent months.

    As a consequence, the source said, Libya has now become the headquarters for al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

    The situation has triggered criticism from neighboring sub-Saharan nations and has caused Libya to appeal for technical assistance from Europe to help police the nation’s long borders.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Drone the jihadi camps! Out there in southern Libya it's unlikely there'd be many innocents around.

      bob

      Delete
  38. Is Saudi Arabia next on the Arab Spring list? Those jihadis coming back from Syria trying to take on the King?

    That should get some attention. What would Barky do?

    bob

    ReplyDelete
  39. The opportunity to rebuild Afghanistan has been squandered, and America is losing the war. Since the fall of the Taliban in November 2001, Afghanistan has not evolved into a functioning state.

    Democracy never had a chance to take root. Without exception, the country’s elections were rigged, allowing the worst elements of society to rise to the top. Warlords have retained their power. Institutions have stayed weak and ineffective. The government is infested with corruption and nepotism.

    Kim Howell, a former minister at the British Foreign Service overseeing Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan, once accused the Afghan government of being corrupt “from top to bottom.” And on April 4, 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported the result of a survey that the United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime has carried out. According to this survey, Afghan citizens paid about $3.9 billion in bribes in 2012—twice the amount of the country’s tax revenue.
    Endemic corruption, utter lawlessness, and government incompetence have pushed Afghanistan to the brink of disaster.

    Deteriorating security and the failure of the government to plan and execute the country’s economic and institutional reconstruction have left the great majority of the population under arbitrary rule and mired in abject poverty.

    In the absence of the rule of law, a productive economy based on private enterprise did not develop, and jobs were not created to ease the country’s high unemployment rate. It is not surprising that the largest group among illegal immigrants trying to enter Greece in the west and Australia in the east consists of young Afghans, who risk life and limb and reportedly pay $20,000 to flee the utter hopelessness that today’s Afghanistan presents its people. And it is the fear of what is in store for the Afghan people after 2014 that propels 40 percent of Afghan diplomats not to return home from overseas postings.

    Once, the country had a vibrant textile industry and exported millions of meters of cloth. Today, there is no textile manufacturing to speak of. While billions of tons of limestone wait to be processed, cement factories remain closed or operate marginally, and 95 percent of the country’s need for cement is imported.

    {…}

    ReplyDelete
  40. {…}

    Agriculture—the country’s most important economic sector, where 80 percent of Afghans eke out a subsistence living—has been ignored. Afghanistan’s cotton yield, once a valuable export item, has declined to a mere 15 percent of its former harvest. Even basic fares—such as milk, cheese, eggs, and poultry—comes from neighboring countries.

    All the while, the production of opium has been a phenomenal success. In 2001, Afghanistan produced about 200 tons of opium. Today, that figure exceeds 8,000 tons. Never mind whether corruption has propelled Afghanistan to first place in the production of opium, or whether the trade with illegal drugs has distinguished it to be among the three most corrupt countries in the world. TIME columnist Joe Klein once observed that the reason for the failure to reverse Afghanistan’s opium production is “because some of the proceeds are skimmed by officials and perhaps family members of the stupendously corrupt government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.”

    Afghanistan is still the failed state it was in 2001 when U.S. forces invaded it. Without strong institutions and a functioning economy, it is stuck in insecurity and wretched poverty. Despite the billions of dollars that were poured into Afghanistan, three million children suffer from malnutrition. Just 15 miles outside Kabul, the night belongs to insurgents.

    In view of the withdrawal of most foreign troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, that country’s new millionaires have already sent most of their money abroad. In 2012 alone, over four billion dollars, a quarter of Afghanistan’s GNP, was taken abroad in suitcases.
    Warlords are adding newer and better weapons to their arsenal. And contrary to the Afghan people’s warm welcome of the international troops in 2001, most Afghans today view foreign troops as invaders and the Afghan government their tool.

    Make no mistake: The U.S.-led coalition of nations present in Afghanistan is by no means blameless. It installed the current leadership and financed sham elections. It lectured against corruption, but looked the other way when it came to act against it. And the phenomenal growth of poppy cultivation and opium trade took place under the very noses of 100,000 foreign troops. As the above-mentioned Kim Howell once observed, the U.S.-led international community engaged in Afghanistan wrongly treated President Hamid Karzai with “kid gloves.”
    {…}

    ReplyDelete
  41. {…}
    Whatever mistakes the U.S. and its allies have made is done and can no longer be undone. However, what they should do is to avoid making another serious mistake that could spell disaster in years to come. Leaving Afghanistan in its present condition would be such a mistake.

    Quitting Afghanistan once again, before the job was done, would almost certainly lead to disaster. Hopelessness and the black hole of misery will again become fertile grounds for criminals and international terrorists. And the Free World would again be forced to face an enemy at enormous cost—both in life and treasure.
    The responsible thing to do would be to acknowledge that we have messed it up and begin all over again.

    First, we must recognize that nothing can be achieved as long as the warlords and drug kingpins can hang on to their power. They are the product of chaos. They know that lawlessness has been the bedrock of their success and will do anything to keep it that way. Their hold on power must be broken.

    Second, we must reintroduce the concept of democracy—not as a foreign instrument to oppress the populace, as is now understood by many Afghans, but as the best system of government that guaranties justice and progress. We must make sure that the next presidential elections are free of manipulation and vote rigging. One way to achieve this is to issue new electronic voter cards. Late last year, Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission declared the voting cards that had been used in the last presidential and parliamentary elections invalid on grounds that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of fake cards had been issued, rendering the next presidential elections, scheduled to be held in April 2014, as fraudulent as the last one had been. President Karzai objected and forced the chairman of the Independent Election Commission to accept the old voting cards, the ones with the help of which he had secured his second term.

    If the U.S. and its allies wish to see fair elections and a legitimate presidency, then they should take off the “kid gloves” and insist that the old voting cards be discarded and new ones issued.
    Lastly and perhaps most importantly, the alliance must make sure that it leaves behind a functioning and self-sustaining economy. Only then will people can hope that they have a future in their country.
    All that will cost money. But if it is done less wastefully and more prudently the cost will be a trickle of what has been spent in the past 12 years. And this time, the U.S. and its allies should also do it less complacently and far more thoughtfully.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I got Afghanistan's "democracy" swingin', right'cher.

      Fuck the Afghanis, fuck the Taliban, and fuck the elites, and their Military Industrial Complex.

      We're outta there.

      Delete
  42. {…} 7 June 2013
    Afghanistan on the Brink of Disaster


    By Nasir Shansab for Diplomatic Courier (DC)

    ReplyDelete
  43. By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, June 7, 12:14 PM

    BEIRUT — Syrian troops backed by Hezbollah fighters pressed on with their offensive Friday in the country’s opposition heartland, taking two small villages near a strategic town that was captured by the government this week.

    The leader of Syria’s main opposition group, meanwhile, warned that the involvement of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah is transforming the war into a sectarian conflict pitting Shiites against Sunnis, saying it is impossible to hold peace talks as long as Hezbollah and Iran fight alongside Assad’s regime.

    Following Wednesday’s capture of Qusair, Assad’s forces aided by Hezbollah fighters have directed their efforts toward driving rebels from the country’s densely populated heartland, including the cities of Homs and Aleppo.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Putin Offers Russian Troops as Golan Peacekeepers
    By RICK GLADSTONE
    Published: June 7, 2013

    President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia volunteered his country’s troops as replacements on Friday for the Austrian members of a United Nations peacekeeping force who are vacating the disputed Golan Heights area along the Israel-Syria border, where violence from the Syrian civil war has intensified.

    ReplyDelete
  45. SPEECHLESS: President at loss of words after staff fails to provide speech...

    Calls concerns over spying 'hype'...

    TOP DEM OPERATIVE: Liberals, Democrats must stand up against Obama... drudge


    bob

    ReplyDelete
  46. As 800,000 Jews were once expelled from Arab countries, so are Christians being forced from lands they've inhabited for centuries.

    The only place in the Middle East where Christians aren't endangered but flourishing is Israel. Since Israel's founding in 1948, its Christian communities (including Russian and Greek Orthodox, Catholics, Armenians and Protestants) have expanded more than 1,000%.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203960804577239923033348982.html

    ReplyDelete
  47. Just for shits and giggles I thought I might look at my Passport.

    It says: USA

    Above my photo (below the 3 versions of PASSPORT)
    It's says USA right after my BIRTHSTATE.
    It's says USA right under where it says United States /Dept of State. in BIG bold Red letters

    It says USA right before my last name and on the line under that.

    Rufus you are a moron.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A moron whose first language is English:

      From your comment: "Only got one passport and it says USA on the cover."

      Delete
    2. yep, it has USA.

      I guess someone of your towering intellect has never used an abbreviation?

      You are one piss ant nit picking twit.

      Delete
    3. Hmmm, is USA an abbreviation, a contraction, an acronym, an initialism or just what of United States of America?

      Caution: A contraction is an abbreviation, but an abbreviation is not necessarily a contraction.

      An abbreviation (from Latin brevis, meaning short) is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase. For example, the word abbreviation can itself be represented by the abbreviation abbr., abbrv. or abbrev.

      In strict analysis, abbreviations should not be confused with contractions or acronyms (including initialisms), with which they share some semantic and phonetic functions, though all three are connoted by the term "abbreviation" in loose parlance.[1]:p167An abbreviation is a shortening by any method; a contraction is a reduction of size by the drawing together of the parts. A contraction of a word is made by omitting certain letters or syllables and bringing together the first and last letters or elements; an abbreviation may be made by omitting certain portions from the interior or by cutting off a part. A contraction is an abbreviation, but an abbreviation is not necessarily a contraction. However, normally, acronyms are regarded as a subgroup of abbreviations (e.g. by the Council of Science Editors). Abbreviations can also be used to give a different context to the word itself, such as "PIN Number" (wherein if the abbreviation were removed the context would be invalid).



      Most everyone got WiO's meaning, 'cept you.

      bob





      Delete
    4. Rufus IIFri Jun 07, 03:55:00 PM EDT
      Yeah, I got Afghanistan's "democracy" swingin', right'cher.

      Fuck the Afghanis, fuck the Taliban, and fuck the elites, and their Military Industrial Complex.

      Now that's English... Can't spell and can't use commas correctly.

      Or maybe you were just typing as you went...

      LIKE ALL OF US.

      But one standard for me and no standards for the drunk Mississippian.

      Delete
  48. From Long War Journal.

    As you read this remember the shitbirds in France, UK and DC want us allied with these people against Assad and Hezbollah


    The raising of al Qaeda’s flag in Aleppo is not surpising. By early 2013, the Al Nusrah Front had imposed sharia, or Islamic law, in Aleppo. The Nusrah Front is also in control of vast areas of eastern Syria, including Raqqah, a provincial capital, and has imposed sharia there as well.

    The video of the Al Nusrah Front raising its flag appears just two days after al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri again implored Muslims to wage jihad in Syria. From Zawahiri's speech, which was released on jihadist forums and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group:

    O lions of Islam in the Levant of garrison and jihad: There is hope to bring back Palestine, which was usurped from us 65 years ago, with your blessed jihad. So, O Ummah of Islam and its free and honorable people, if you want the Caliphate to return, then deploy to the Levant. If you want to establish Shariah-based governance, then deploy to the Levant. If you to liberate Palestine, then deploy to the Levant. If you want to extirpate the corrupt rulers, then deploy to the Levant. If you want to resist America, then deploy to the Levant. And if you want to stand against the Iranian Safavid expansion, then deploy to the Levant. Deploy with yourselves, monies, experiences and knowledge.
    Make no mistake: Syria has become a prime front for al Qaeda. The Al Nusrah Front was estimated by the US government to have had more than 10,000 fighters at the end of last year; this number doesn't include the more than 3,000 Free Syrian Army fighters who have defected to the Al Nusrah Front as of the beginning of May. And it doesn't include the Muhajireen Army, which is led by a Chechen commander and is closely allied to the Al Nusrah Front.



    Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2013/06/al_nusrah_front_raises_al_qaed.php#ixzz2VZqeMt5u

    ReplyDelete
  49. WE need the superior intellect of say a John Kerry to explain this to us so that we can get with the program.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd rather put my trust in Joe Biden. Nobody ever listens to Joe, though. He at least got Iraq right. Nobody else did.

      "Iraqia est omnis divisa in partes tres"



      bob

      Delete
  50. Vladdy was humping a gymnast and Mrs. Vladdy split the sheets.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
  51. Rufus IIFri Jun 07, 09:48:00 AM EDT
    California was within a whisker of 2,000 Megawatts of Solar, yesterday. Neat how wind and solar works together, huh?


    Rufus, could you explain the correct usage of capital letters for the terms "megawatts" or "solar"?

    One as brilliant as you surely have a proper reason for using capitals on those words.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think it must be some type of reverent expression for an adored sacred object, entity, or concept, WiO.

      Just my guess.

      bob

      Delete

  52. Limbaugh: 'We are in the midst of a coup'...
    NSA, FBI secretly mining data from Internet firms...
    'THEY QUITE LITERALLY CAN WATCH YOUR IDEAS AS YOU TYPE'...
    MICROSOFTYAHOOGOOGLEYOUTUBEFACEBOOKSKYPEAPPLE...
    Top-secret PRISM program...
    Vast Data Trove...
    Billions of Phone Calls...
    Justice Dept Fights Release of Court Opinion Finding Unconstitutional Surveillance...
    USA spends $80 billion year on secret information gathering...
    Postal service photographs front and back of EVERY piece of mail it processes...



    OBAMA ORDERED PLANS FOR CYBERATTACKS





    Officials: NSA mistakenly intercepted emails, phone calls of innocent Americans...

    Holder 'destroyed data'...

    drudge
    ......

    I can hardly keep up. Thankfully there is an oasis of sanity during the Belmont Stakes tomorrow.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmmm, if one could intercept all the stable talk of the owners, trainers, jocks one could make a pretty penny out of the horses, I'd think.....


      No no no don't start thinking that way...

      But all this surveillance has an economic value and I imagine it will occasionally be used and has been used to that purpose.

      bob

      Delete
  53. Pakistani Muslim, Egyptian Christian say anti-Zionism IS anti-Semitism

    Thursday, June 06, 2013 | Israel Today Staff

    In a must-watch interview with Arutz Sheva TV, a British-born Pakistani Muslim and an Egyptian Christian pastor explain how Israel's Islamic enemies have turned anti-Zionism into a convenient cover for what is really anti-Semitism.

    The two men, who were visiting Israel last week, note that while openly advocating the murder of Jews is no longer en vogue, denying Israel the right to defend itself (which is essentially the same thing) has become internationally acceptable.

    One of the men, Kasim Hafeez, also takes aim at the ridiculous accusations that are slung at Israel every day.

    All one has to do is visit Israel and "you'll see how laughable the apartheid slur is," says Hafeez.

    Watch the full video:


    http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/23893/Default.aspx?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=814&utm_content=original


    bob

    ReplyDelete
  54. Fox 2 News Detroit Reporter Charlie LeDuff reports on police training exercise authorized by acting Police Commissioner Quirk -

    LeDuff: Detroit police's simulated purse snatching goes awry

    Posted: Jun 06, 2013 7:37 PM PDT Updated: Jun 06, 2013 8:39 PM PDT

    By Charlie LeDuff, Fox 2 News - email

    Read more: http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/22527213/leduff-detroit-polices-simulated-purse-snatching-goes-awry#ixzz2VbH4Igwl

    video

    Acting Police Commissioner Quirk is standing in temporarily for the regular Police Commissioner who is standing trial for negligent homicide.

    bob



    ReplyDelete
  55. One little problem when you legalize marijuana


    PHILADELPHIA—A heavy equipment operator with a lengthy rap sheet was high on marijuana when a downtown building collapsed onto a thrift store, killing six people, and he will be charged in their deaths, a top city official said as authorities moved swiftly to assign blame for the deadly construction mishap.

    Police are looking for Sean Benschop, 42, to charge him with six counts each of involuntary manslaughter, risking a catastrophe, reckless endangerment and other offenses, Deputy Mayor Everett Gillison told The Associated Press on Friday evening, little more than two days after the collapse on Philadelphia's busy Market Street.

    Authorities believe Benschop had been using an excavator Wednesday when the remains of the four-story building gave way and toppled onto an attached Salvation Army thrift store, killing two employees and four customers, and injuring 13 others.

    A toxicology report showed "evidence that he was high" on marijuana, Gillison said. That finding, combined with witness statements and evidence from the scene, led to the decision Friday to raid his North Philadelphia home and later seek an arrest warrant, he said.

    "The D.A. has approved it (his arrest), and my police officers are out looking for him as we speak," said Gillison, deputy mayor for public safety.

    Benschop did not return phone messages left at numbers listed in his name, though he told The Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday that he couldn’t comment because of the investigation.

    Benschop, who also goes by the name Kary Roberts, has been arrested at least 11 times since 1994 on charges ranging from drugs to theft to weapons possession, according to court records. He was twice sentenced to prison in the 1990s after being convicted on drug trafficking charges. Benschop's last arrest, for aggravated assault, came in January 2012, but the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.

    As the criminal investigation heated up, at least two survivors sued the demolition contractor and building owner, alleging gross recklessness at the job site.

    The city, meanwhile, promised to crack down on the demolition industry

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  56. You cannot focus in a normal manner or function with normal reactions operating machinery when you are stoned on marijuana.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Justice is served, maybe.

    The suspect in a woman's rape and murder was buried alive by Bolivian villagers Wednesday night, inside the grave of the woman who was believed to be his victim.

    Police had identified Santos Ramos, 17, as the possible culprit in the attack on 35-year-old Leandra Arias Janco Sunday in a Quechua community near the municipality of Colquechaca, said Jose Luis Barrios, the chief prosecutor in Potosi province where the community is located, the Associated Press reported.

    Urgent: Is Obama Telling the Truth on IRS, Benghazi Scandals?

    Enraged, more than 200 community members seized Ramos and buried him alive alongside his alleged victim Wednesday night, according to Barrios. He said residents on Thursday blocked the road to the community, preventing police and prosecutors from reaching it.

    A local reporter for an indigenous radio station, who would only speak on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, told The AP that Ramos was tied up at the woman's funeral. Mourners threw him into the open grave, placed the woman's coffin in it and filled the grave with earth.

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  58. In Islamic lands they'd stone the woman and celebrate Ramos.

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    Replies
    1. In Israel they'd have a fair trial.

      Delete