July 2013 archive

Jul 23 2013

Don’t Hold Your Breath

By ek hornbeck

Why is it that D.C. is six weeks behind the rest of the country? Is it something in the water?

What I expect is a great flurry of inaction and word salad hoping that the issue will just quietly slink away with any actual change simply making things worse.

People need to be FIRED! They need to be LOCKED UP! They need to be so shamed and punished that they never again hold a position of responsibility in the government!

Mood shifting, Congress may move to limit NSA spying

By David Lightman, Kate Irby and Ben Kamisar, McClatchy

Friday, July 19, 2013

Skepticism has been slowly building since last month’s disclosures that the super-secret NSA conducted programs that collected Americans’ telephone data. Dozens of lawmakers are introducing measures to make those programs less secret, and there’s talk of denying funding and refusing to continue authority for the snooping.

…

Late Friday, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court reauthorized collection of telephone and online data by the federal government, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper revealed. He said the administration was “undertaking a careful and thorough review of whether and to what extent additional information or documents pertaining to this program may be declassified, consistent with the protection of national security.”

“It is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to have a full and frank discussion about this balance when the public is unable to review and analyze what the executive branch and the courts believe the law means,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who has asked the administration to make the opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court public.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is leading an effort along with Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, to have the court’s judges nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Currently, the Supreme Court’s chief justice selects judges from those holding other federal district court judgeships.

Schiff also is pushing a measure, along with Rep. Todd Rokita, R-Ind., to require the attorney general to declassify significant Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act opinions, and got a boost Friday from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

…

The concerns fall into two general categories: What exactly is the NSA doing, and how can its work be more open?

“They need to provide as much clarity as they possibly can so people know and have a familiarity with what’s happening, why that happens,” said James Lankford, R-Okla., chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee. He wanted “another round of information again and to be able to process that.”

The desire to know more sparked a sometimes fiery House Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this week with top administration officials.

Conyers, the committee’s top Democrat, noted that the Fourth Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable search and seizure. “You’ve already violated the law as far as I am concerned,” Conyers said.

The ire came from both parties. “The Star Chamber . . . in England started out . . . as very popular with the people. It allowed people to get justice that otherwise would not,” said Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., referring to a court that was abolished by Parliament in 1641 over its abuses of power. “But it evolved over time into a powerful weapon for political retribution by the king.”

…

“There’s no legitimate reason to keep this legal analysis from public interest any longer,” said Conyers. Judiciary Chairman Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., was sympathetic, saying, “I share his concern about some classified information that does not need to be classified.”

Jul 23 2013

Blowback

By ek hornbeck

Panama arrests ex-CIA station chief sought by Italy in rendition case

By Tim Johnson, McClatchy

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Robert Seldon Lady was the CIA station chief in Milan when Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr was pulled from the streets of that city as part of an operation that Italian prosecutors later said involved 22 American agents, all of whom fled Italy shortly afterward.

Italy’s main news agency, ANSA, reported that Lady was detained in Panama and that Italian Justice Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri would have two months to formally request his extradition.

…

Italy’s top court of appeals in September confirmed a nine-year jail term for Lady in the extraordinary case, the first attempt by a foreign judiciary to prosecute U.S. officials for the controversial practice of extraordinary rendition – the practice of sending a person detained in one country to another country for questioning without requesting the approval of a court.

…

Nasr was snatched from Milan’s Via Guerzoni before noon Feb. 17, 2003, by two men who sprayed chemicals in his face and forced him into a white van. He turned up in an Egyptian prison, where he spent four years before his release. U.S. officials suspected him of recruiting radical Muslims in Italy for jihad in the Middle East, but he was never charged with a crime in Italy or Egypt.

Italian prosecutors said they proved that the van was part of a CIA scheme to round up Nasr, move him to an air base north of Venice and on to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, before delivering him to Egyptian interrogators.

…

If Lady now faces the threat of being returned to Italy, Nasr has fared little better. During his four years in an Egyptian jail, Nasr tried to commit suicide three times, his attorney told Knight-Ridder newspapers, which was later bought by The McClatchy Co., in 2006.

“He’s been exposed to torture ever since he was kidnapped in Italy,” attorney Montasser Zayat said then. “He said he was beaten even on the plane that took him to Germany before he was handed to Egypt.”

Lady has since been released and has flown back to the United States. An INTERPOL Warrant for his arrest remains in force.

Germany backs away from claims NSA program thwarted five attacks

By Matthew Schofield, McClatchy

Thursday, July 18, 2013

(German Interior Minister Hans-Peter) Friedrich had made the assertion about the number of attacks that the NSA programs – which scoop up records from cellphone and Internet accounts – had helped to avert after a brief visit to the United States last week. But on Tuesday, he told a German parliamentary panel, “It is relatively difficult to count the number of terror attacks that didn’t occur.” And on Wednesday, he was publically referring to just two foiled attacks, at least one and possibly both of which appeared to have little to do with the NSA’s surveillance programs.

…

(O)pposition politicians and commentators now are talking about the arrogance of the U.S. application of “winner’s power” (a reference to the political authority the United States had here during the Cold War, when Germany was divided between east and west, and West Germany leaned heavily on America for support), and how traditionally strong relations between the two countries have been harmed by the scandal.

…

Perhaps most troubling was how quickly the government backed down on the claims that the surveillance helped foil terror plots. Gisela Piltz, a Liberal Party member of the Bundestag intelligence committee, said she could not give exact details of what took place in the secret hearing but noted: “There was a clear discrepancy between the previously reported number of foiled terror attacks and the number we talked about.”

…

Piltz said that while terrorism is a real threat, the U.S. monitoring programs have done little to prevent it.

“Germans are not safer because of U.S. espionage,” Piltz said. “It is true Germany has been lucky not to have suffered a terror attack, but there has to be a balance. We cannot sacrifice freedom for security, and when in doubt I would always opt for freedom.”

1 comments

Jul 22 2013

Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

By TMC

Our regular featured content-

On This Day In History July 22 by TheMomCat
Punting the Pundit by TheMomCat

These featured articles-

Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Capitalism causes cancer by bigjacbigjacbigjac by Anti-Capitalist Meetup
Sunday Train: Net Energy Yield and the Steel Interstate Energy Revolution by Bruce McF
At Least Obama Now Honest About Trashing the Fourth Amendment by TheMomCat

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Write more and often. This is an Open Thread.

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Jul 22 2013

How The Democrats Can Beat The Republicans – and Nate Silver – Bloody

By terryhallinan

Chuck Todd is one of the kinda liberals on MSNBC who opines abortion doesn’t really matter in “presidential politics.” Nate Silver is the flawless sabermetrician who carries the message beyond and above and says it probably doesn’t matter well below.

They are both full of it.

The abortion wars are about far more than abortion and extend far beyond the bedroom to cancer. Life expectancy is falling for some southern women probably because of the closure of health clinics for women.

Of course gays and transexuals figure into the mix but things get messier and messier the more you look.

But hey, looky here:

Virginia Republican Suffers Abortion Backlash From Donors

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/…

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving fellow though the Democrat is no prize.

The polls are essentially tied but money talks very loud.

Women are the majority. Wish you would show it – particularly in New Jersey but one step at a time I guess.

Best, Terry

Jul 22 2013

Cartnoon

By ek hornbeck

Jul 22 2013

On This Day In History July 22

By TMC in News

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on images to enlarge

July 22 is the 203rd day of the year (204th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 162 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1933, Wiley Post becomes the first person to fly solo around the world traveling 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.

Like many pilots at the time, Post disliked the fact that the speed record for flying around the world was not held by a fixed-wing aircraft, but by the Graf Zeppelin, piloted by Hugo Eckener in 1929 with a time of 21 days. On June 23, 1931, Post and his navigator, Harold Gatty, left Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York in the Winnie Mae with a flight plan that would take them around the world, stopping at Harbour Grace, Flintshire, Hanover twice, Berlin, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk, Nome where his airscrew had to be repaired, Fairbanks where the airscrew was replaced, Edmonton, and Cleveland before returning to Roosevelt Field. They arrived back on July 1, after traveling 15,474 miles in the record time of 8 days and 15 hours and 51 minutes. The reception they received rivaled Lindbergh’s everywhere they went. They had lunch at the White House on July 6, rode in a ticker-tape parade the next day in New York City, and were honored at a banquet given by the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of America at the Hotel Astor. After the flight, Post acquired the Winnie Mae from F.C. Hall, and he and Gatty published an account of their journey titled, Around the World in Eight Days, with an introduction by Will Rogers.

His Lockheed Vega aircraft, the Winnie Mae is on display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, and his pressure suit is being prepared for display at the same location. On August 15, 1935, Post and American humorist Will Rogers were killed when Post’s aircraft crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Point Barrow, in Alaska.

history, On This Day in History, Open Thread

Jul 22 2013

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

Smelted 2

Muse in the Morning

Jul 22 2013

Late Night Karaoke

Late Night Karaoke

Jul 22 2013

Dirty Talk – Climate Change

By terryhallinan

Climate scientist James Hansen has said that it is “game over” for the climate if the Keystone XL pipeline is allowed to be built as it would lock us into unsustainable use of the dirty tar sands crude for the foreseeable future. And climate activist and author Bill McKibben has written about Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math which states that we must leave the oil industries massive oil reserves in the ground if we are to have a chance at mitigating climate change.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Then why don’t these worthies do something about it? Are they on Exxon’s or the Koch Brothers’ payroll? [ A small bit of snark. I am sure they are not paid by the dirties but they surely work in their interests though they would deny it.]

Today mountains of solid waste are disposed of, at best, in landfills while they could be used to convert coal and natural gas plants to biomass burning plants with little modification. Natural gas may be dirtier than even coal for reasons that have been elucidated many times.

Years ago a car burning cow manure made a continental run. In that case the manure was converted to methane with anaerobic digestion but it is not necessary for vehicles to make any conversions to liquid or gaseous fuels with today’s technology derived from ancient times. Instead money is being wasted on electric vehicles with limited use and further pollution of the planet.

Biomass, whether from waste, forest slash and kindling for forest fires or even – the worst option – agriculture devoted to growth of biomass only, is fought tooth and nail by purported environmentalists like the above gentlemen.

Then again, the most potent and cheapest of all energy sources put together – Mother Earth herself – has an even harder time with the nitwit “environmentalists.”

Filling a summer news hole with news on earthquakes

The never ending story of scientific studies proving that geothermal activities cause earthquakes continue and it seems the recent wave of articles is simply another run at the same topic in this case likely to fill a news hole over the summer period.

http://thinkgeoenergy.com/arch…

Surely but it’s hard to top word that increased tapping of the vast geothermal potential of California’s Salton Sea area may start the San Andreas fault in motion with ginormous consequences beyond anything ever imagined.

Geothermal plants trigger small quakes near San Andreas fault

Geothermal plants on the Salton Sea cause tremors, study finds, but it isn’t clear if they could touch off a major quake on the San Andreas fault.

http://www.latimes.com/news/lo…

It’s not as if the Dirty Bunch, blasting away underground with abandon and pouring poisonous chemicals into the breech giving a whole new meaning to fire water for people with water wells, was the real threat drilling for water is.

The geothermal folks at the link above speculate the oil and gas drillers may have paid for the harum-scarum.

No need. It is impossible to plumb the depths of human stupidity.

Best, Terry

Jul 22 2013

In Memoriam: Helen Thomas 1920 – 2013

By TMC in News, Politics

Journalism and the world lost one of its greatest on Saturday, the “Dean of the White House Correspondents” Helen Thomas died at her home in Washington. She was 92.

She had a lot of “firsts” for women in journalism. She broke down the walls of the traditional “old boys’ clubs” of the Beltway:

Thomas was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, and the first female member of the Gridiron Club [..]

In 1962, Thomas convinced Kennedy to not attend the annual dinners held for the White House correspondents and photographers if they disallowed women from attending. Kennedy moved for the dinners to be combined into one event, with women allowed to attend. In 1970, UPI named Thomas their chief White House correspondent, making her the first woman to serve in the position. She was named the chief of UPI’s White House bureau in 1974.

Thomas was the only female print journalist to travel to China with President Richard Nixon during his 1972 visit to China. During the Watergate scandal, Martha Beall Mitchell, wife of United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell, frequently called Thomas to discuss how the Nixon administration was using Mitchell as a scapegoat.

She was the only member of the White House press corp to have her own seat, all the other seats are designated for the media outlets. She often reminded her colleagues, “We are not here to be their friends.”

She was remembered fondly by many this weekend.