Today's news explicating in part the ostensible shortcomings in the process by way of which Edward Snowden and Aaron Alexis received their security clearances ought to give pause to the insane stampede of contracting out government that began during the Reagan years.
Sometimes the arcane politics of NYC vomits up a people's mayor. It seems about to happen again. Perhaps the example of a vigorous populist/progressive will shame that reprobate in the White House into some semblance of activism.
Yes, I am a hypocrite, already on record chortling as big bucks Bloomberg shoved one up the NRA's ass. Call me pisher.
Today in a rare ( perhaps unique) demonstration of courage, New York's City Council overrode the mayor's veto and imposed long needed oversight on a police department intoxicated with ( if statistics are to be believed..) crime suppression success.
My father was subcontracted to write the brief appealing Jimmy Hoffa's conviction (his first, after years of frustrating Bobby Kennedy who was so obsessed with Hoffa that once he became Attorney General he assembled a "get Hoffa"--his words-squad.
All parties to the attorney client privelege having died I believe I commit no trespass in quoting my father who said Hoffa was guilty but framed.
That is to say, Kennedy manufactured evidence of true behavior.
There has been extensive back and forth (not excluding here at the Dag) focussed on the proper way to characterterize Edward Snowden. The polar entries are traitor or full blown patriot/ Ellsberg redux. More focussed deconstruction debated " "whistleblower" vs. irresponsible publicity seeker unwilling to follow the logical mandate that civil disobeyers must surrender to, rather than flee from, "justice". ( fear quotes purposely used for intended irony...)
There are few occasions for international irritation more abrasive than the refusal by one sovereign to honor the request of another that a fugitive from justice be surrendered to the tribunals if the aggrieved nation.
Recall that the proximate casus belli for the longest war in American history was the refusal by the Taliban rump Afghan government to extradite Osama Bin Laden.
You don't need an MBA on staff to have access to exquisitely sophisticated risk management tools. Thanks to the miracle of competing insurance companies, underwriting expertise is constantly available to reduce to a fungible figure all the imponderable interacting risks that attend any activity.
Never one to leave a press release lacking his name, John McCain (R, Getoffmylawnville) is free lancing foreign policy again. As usual, he gives guidance to the thoughtful: "Caution, this way lies madness".
McCain, last seen in a Baghdad market touting our prior venture into Sunni-Shia sectarianism ( that one went well...) now urges " arm the anti-Assad rebels...what could go wrong?"
I have seen the better angel of Obama's nature, and her name is Medea Benjamin.
The odd applause line from yesterday's seminal speech which may ( we humbly pray) in future times be cited as the start of sanity's triumph over societal paranoia. By the time Prez elicited audience approval for his concession, the redoubtable Code Pink founder had been forcibly ejected (not for the first time),
Although my sister lives in New Jersey, I have been blissfully unaware of the post Sandy travails besetting New Jersey Transit due to some demonstrably poor pre-storm planning (must visit more)
Leaving aside the substance of the matter, we learn this amusing if alarming detail:
When asked by the Bergen Record for a copy of their prestorm planning documents (New York City's Transit Authority has a 5 volume treatise) the responsive document, entitled "New Jersey Rail
Operations Hurricane Plan” required only 3-1/2 pages.
Zacarias Moussaoui in August, 2001, attracted FBI attention yet eluded
investigation despite floridly odd public behavior.
Tamerlan Tzarnaev, ten years and trillions of anti terror dollars later,
attracts FBI attention, then maintains a floridly pro jihad ( public) YouTube
channel , yet eludes further investigation.
Obviously, our security apparatus is overworked in the war on terror.
(I suggest triage: withdraw funds from the war on drug users.)
The appropriate, indeed, sole remedy is available in the next primary.
If any of these four escape a primary, we on the left can occupy the toilet. Outcome, notwithstanding. They must be primaried for the sake of minimal cred. BTW Obama has to endorse the primary challenge
From the PBS Newshour, a story so frightful that it will shake your humanity to the core, in horror that your species includes amongst it the sort who would perpetrate the foul crime described.
Briefly, in a spasm of rage mimicked (it is estimated) 5000 times each year, a family of rich Pakistanis stalked and murdered its daughter and grandchildren. Her crime--she married a poor man.
