Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

I present tonight's meme In case you missed the above recent example of Señor Trumpanzee's special genius.

We might as well have elected a scarecrow made of tin. He truly is a man with no heart and no brain. In fact, he's a cowardly lion, too. Even worse, he is in no way a sympathetic person of any kind. And, Dorothy would never have anything to do with him, for more than one reason. Neither should any sane human.

This time there's no wizard that can help; just plenty of witches we need to melt. Pleasant dreams to you all. Nighty night!

Trump Will Have Vast Powers As President. Thanks, Democrats.

by Gaius Publius

I don't want to let this go by without a mention. There have not been many voices in the mainstream Democratic ecosystem that have taken Obama and his Democratic administration for taking Bush II's war on civil liberties and putting it on steroids.

It's been left to those of us at the margins of the conversation, i.e., not on MSNBC or in the Washington Post, to notice, for example, that via the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act), the executive branch can order indefinite detention of U.S. citizens. Or that Obama's drone kill program normalizes executive execution. As Jonathan Turley wrote in 2012:

On Monday, March 5, Northwestern University School of Law was the location of an extraordinary scene for a free nation. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder presented President Barack Obama's claim that he has the authority to kill any U.S. citizen he considers a threat.

How does this not mean that President Obama asserts the White House right to order you killed?

Seems silly to say it that way, doesn't it? I mean, Obama's one of the good guys (i.e., a Democrat), and he'd never use that power frivolously, right? (Actually, of course he would, but not against anyone you would care about — meaning, ethnically European — except in jest.)

Now all that power that our vengeance-seeking, retributional nation thought was "safe" in Obama's hands will be handed to Donald Trump.

Civil Liberties in the Age of Trump

Suddenly, on the cusp of the Age of Trump, the Washington Post sees a problem (emphasis added):

Glenn Greenwald: Trump will have vast powers. He can thank Democrats for them.

Liberals liked executive authority as long as Obama wielded it. Now they've set a precedent.

Liberals are understandably panicked about what Donald Trump can carry out. “We have a president-elect with authoritarian tendencies assuming a presidency that has never been more powerful,” Franklin Foer wrote this past week in Slate. Trump will command not only a massive nuclear arsenal and the most robust military in history, but also the ability to wage numerous wars in secret and without congressional authorization; a ubiquitous system of electronic surveillance that can reach most forms of human communication and activity; and countless methods for shielding himself from judicial accountability, congressional oversight and the rule of law — exactly what the Constitution was created to prevent. Trump assumes the presidency “at the peak of its imperial powers,” as Foer put it.

Not to mention the extra-judicial detention and murder mentioned above. The cause of the problem, of course, is Barack Obama. The news is that the Post is now willing to notice this:

[B]eginning in his first month in office and continuing through today, Obama not only continued many of the most extreme executive-power policies he once condemned, but in many cases strengthened and extended them. His administration detained terrorism suspects without due process, proposed new frameworks to keep them locked up without trial, targeted thousands of individuals (including a U.S. citizen) for execution by drone, invoked secrecy doctrines to shield torture and eavesdropping programs from judicial review, and covertly expanded the nation’s mass electronic surveillance.

The other cause of the problem, of course, is that partisan Democrats and other Obama supporters found all of this completely acceptable. (I don't mention Republican enablers here, since they will almost always find authoritarian rule acceptable.)

Blinded by the belief that Obama was too benevolent and benign to abuse his office, and drowning in partisan loyalties at the expense of political principles, Democrats consecrated this framework with their acquiescence and, often, their explicit approval. This is the unrestrained set of powers Trump will inherit. The president-elect frightens them, so they are now alarmed. But if they want to know whom to blame, they should look in the mirror.

Something to keep in mind as you cringe considering the Trump possibilities, or when you fall back into Obama nostalgia.

Constitutionalizing State Violence

Just as one likely cause of Clinton's electoral loss was Obama's mad push to pass TPP before leaving office, one certain cause of all of Trump's abuse of executive power regarding indefinite detention, death-by-drone, and mass-surveillance of citizens (with the resulting blackmail opportunities this clearly offers) ... is that Barack Obama normalized what Bush II did, gave it the color of law, and a bipartisan blessing.

What both parties agree can be done, can be done by either party. It's the other way our Constitution gets amended. Or, as Greenwald puts it:

By putting a prettier liberal face on these policies, and transforming them from a symbol of GOP radicalism into one of bipartisan security consensus, the president entrenched them as permanent fixtures of the American presidency. As [Bush DoJ official Jack] Goldsmith put it, Obama’s actions were “designed to fortify the bulk of the Bush program for the long-run.”

Yes, he did say "designed to fortify" the Bush program "for the long run." In other words, Obama's actions were deliberate, to secure for the executive branch by law what Bush had secured by taking. 

Trump will have vast powers as president, powers that we will not be able to curtail. Thank you, Mr. Obama, and thank you, complicit Democrats. I hope we don't forget you, as the vice grip tightens, that your hand was on it too.

GP
 

Why Hasn't Obama Fired John Brennan Yet?

We've been going through Michael Gurnow's book, The Edward Snowden Affair and finding some pretty awful facts about domestic spying. Basically, Cheney put a system in place they allowed for no privacy from government snooping for anyone for any reason at any time. Neither Bush nor Obama was completely comfortable with it-- but comfortable enough to leave it in place.

Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, for example, accounted for 98% of PRISM data intake. They and all the commercial internet firms were facilitating the government to spy-- unconstitutionally-- on their own customers. And then they lied about it.

Speaking on behalf of Apple, Steve Dowling announced, "We have never heard of PRISM" while the chief security officer for Facebook, Joe Sullivan, declared, "We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers," despite the PRISM slide which includes the phrase, "Collection directly from the servers of."

A couple weeks ago, Conor Friedersdorf, writing for The Atlantic asked an uncomfortable question: Does John Brennan Know Too Much for Obama to Fire Him?. Brennan's broken a lot of law and lied his ass off, as you can see in the BraveNewFilms clip up top. And he's pissed off a lot of senators. But Obama says, he still has confidence in his CIA chief. The two of them were certainly in cahoots in regard to drone strikes of dubious legality.

When John Brennan assured the country that the CIA hadn't improperly monitored the Senate team that compiled a report on Bush-era torture, he fed us false information. That much is clear from Thursday's news that "the C.I.A. secretly monitored a congressional committee charged with supervising its activities." Either the CIA director was lying or he was unaware of grave missteps at the agency he leads. There are already calls for his resignation or firing from Senator Mark Udall, Trevor Timm, Dan Froomkin, and Andrew Sullivan, plus a New York Times editorial airing his ouster as a possibility.

President Obama could surprise the country by axing his former counterterrorism adviser, explaining that under Brennan's management, employees broke laws and undermined the separation of powers core to our democracy. Obama may well make a good-faith effort to act in the national interest. But it's impossible to believe that he won't be aware of the following: No U.S. official knows more than Brennan about Obama's many drone killings. Some of the killings were solidly grounded in international law. And others may have violated the Fifth Amendment, international law, or the laws of war.

In the past, Brennan has been willing to lie about those drone strikes to hide ugly realities. For example, he stated in the summer of 2011 that there had been zero collateral deaths from covert U.S. drone strikes in the previous year, an absurd claim that has been decisively debunked. What if he grew more forthright, either in public statements or by anonymously leaking information?

…I am not suggesting that Brennan is blackmailing Obama, or even that he would necessarily retaliate if fired. Still, if Obama is like most people in positions of power, he fires no subordinate without first asking himself, "Could this person damage me?" If Obama is a normal person, rather than an unusually principled person, the answer factors into his decision. Look at what Brennan said in March, immediately after denying that the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee, when Andrea Mitchell asked if he'd resign his post if that turned out to be wrong: 

... if I did something wrong, I will go to the president, and I will explain to him exactly what I did, and what the findings were. And he is the one who can ask me to stay or to go. 

He's a smart man.

All this may be irrelevant to his continued tenure. Perhaps Obama has always believed and continues to believe that Brennan is doing a heckuva job. But just as secret torture acted as a cancer on the U.S. government, encompassing acts so barbaric and criminal that, even recently, the CIA spied on a Senate subcommittee investigating the subject, America's semi-secret policy of semi-targeted killing rendered everyone involved complicit in activities sufficiently dubious that all desire their secrecy. Would you fire a guy who knows as much about your most morally fraught acts as Brennan knows about who Obama has killed in secret? Yeah, me neither. This isn't the biggest cost of presidents who hide arguably illegal actions by declaring them state secrets. But it is certainly one of the costs.

There's inevitably a need to review the job performance of people party to these secrets. They typically keep their jobs. So George W. Bush left us a CIA staffed partly with people willing to torture, and Obama will likely leave us with a CIA that includes torturers, people willing to kill American citizens in secret without due process, and people willing to spy on their Senate overseers. The Senate intelligence committee was established precisely to stop this sort of thing from playing out, but it is failing in its duties, as yesterday's crimes spawn today's efforts to spin or suppress those crimes. If the Senate doesn't act now to rein in the CIA, what will it take?

Confidential to Dilbert's CEO: If anybody makes a fuss about your drones-to-terrorists deal, just say, "Who could have known?"

Or, if you need stronger stuff, we've
got a new jeremiad from Chris Hedges
(Plus Dilbert update -- see below)


Here on the Pequod: Yes, that's Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab. Says Chris H: "We, like Ahab and his crew, rationalize our collective madness. All calls for prudence, for halting the march toward economic, political and environmental catastrophe, for sane limits on carbon emissions, are ignored or ridiculed. . . ." Or, if you're a little farther back from the precipice, you can just do Dilbert.

by Ken

No, if you're in the grip of advanced existential (possibly existentio-occupational) rage, Dilbert probably won't do it. Not when (and I can say this from personal experience, all-too-recent personal experience) you're sitting in your cubicle confronting the cold hard reality that life is really, really hard and also pretty darned pointless -- and you know in the depths of your soul that it should be only one or the other, that both is just plain nuts and utterly inexcusable. No, at that point what you probably need is a Chris Hedges jeremiad, explaining why the end is nigh, maybe just a matter of weeks. And luckily we've got one of those ready for the taking, called "The Myth of Human Progress and the Collapse of Complex Societies."

Chris has apparently been reading Moby-Dick, and Ahab and the crew of the Pequod and, yes, even the White Whale all work for him as a literary representation of our voyage to nowhere.

Our financial system—like our participatory democracy—is a mirage. The Federal Reserve purchases $85 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds—much of it worthless subprime mortgages—each month. It has been artificially propping up the government and Wall Street like this for five years. It has loaned trillions of dollars at virtually no interest to banks and firms that make money—because wages are kept low—by lending it to us at staggering interest rates that can climb to as high as 30 percent. ... Or our corporate oligarchs hoard the money or gamble with it in an overinflated stock market. Estimates put the looting by banks and investment firms of the U.S. Treasury at between $15 trillion and $20 trillion. But none of us know. The figures are not public. And the reason this systematic looting will continue until collapse is that our economy [would] go into a tailspin without this giddy infusion of free cash.

The ecosystem is at the same time disintegrating. Scientists from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean, a few days ago, issued a new report that warned that the oceans are changing faster than anticipated and increasingly becoming inhospitable to life. The oceans, of course, have absorbed much of the excess CO2 and heat from the atmosphere. This absorption is rapidly warming and acidifying ocean waters. This is compounded, the report noted, by increased levels of deoxygenation from nutrient runoffs from farming and climate change. The scientists called these effects a “deadly trio” that when combined is creating changes in the seas that are unprecedented in the planet’s history. This is their language, not mine. The scientists wrote that each of the earth’s five known mass extinctions was preceded by at least one [part] of the “deadly trio”—acidification, warming and deoxygenation. They warned that “the next mass extinction” of sea life is already under way, the first in some 55 million years. Or look at the recent research from the University of Hawaii that says global warming is now inevitable, it cannot be stopped but at best slowed, and that over the next 50 years the earth will heat up to levels that will make whole parts of the planet uninhabitable. Tens of millions of people will be displaced and millions of species will be threatened with extinction. The report casts doubt that [cities on or near a coast] such as New York or London will endure.

Yet we, like Ahab and his crew, rationalize our collective madness. All calls for prudence, for halting the march toward economic, political and environmental catastrophe, for sane limits on carbon emissions, are ignored or ridiculed. Even with the flashing red lights before us, the increased droughts, rapid melting of glaciers and Arctic ice, monster tornadoes, vast hurricanes, crop failures, floods, raging wildfires and soaring temperatures, we bow slavishly before hedonism and greed and the enticing illusion of limitless power, intelligence and prowess.

The corporate assault on culture, journalism, education, the arts and critical thinking has left those who speak this truth marginalized and ignored, frantic Cassandras who are viewed as slightly unhinged and depressingly apocalyptic. We are consumed by a mania for hope, which our corporate masters lavishly provide, at the expense of truth. . . .

NOW I DON'T MEAN TO MAKE LIGHT OF THIS

I have no doubt that Chris is probably right, and there are times, as I suggested above, when this straight truth is all that will do. At less stressed moments, however, I wish I could take Chris's hand and urge him to chill, friend, that things aren't all that desperate, or even if they are, well, what are you gonna do? Look at the bright side. I'm pretty sure there are still more new episodes of The Good Wife to come this season.

If you can manage to step back this far from the brink, then Dilbert may be just what the doctor ordered. Why, just these last couple of days we've had --

DILBERT -- Yesterday (click to enlarge)


DILBERT -- Today (click to enlarge)



NOW, BY WAY OF REMINDER WHERE DILBERT
HIMSELF STANDS IN THE SCHEME OF THINGS --

DILBERT -- Monday (click to enlarge)


No, this isn't much like Life with Ahab. It's more like if you imagined that the Pequod had a lounge with a nice flat-screen TV and an endless supply of DVDs, and life was sweet as long as you were cool with knowing that each night's entertainment had to begin with an episode of Parenthood because the captain "just can't get enough of that sweetie Lauren Graham."


DILBERT UPDATE: Dilbert is "managed"

DILBERT -- Thursday (click to enlarge)

#

Obama, Drones And The National Surveillance State-- Speech Mañana

Just over a week ago, we presented a post featuring JFK ruing the day he had ever decided to keep Allen Dulles as head of the CIA. NOt just that-- JFK was ruing the day he had ever gotten into business with the CIA at all. Incredibly incompetent and determined to run its own unaccountable proto-fascist foreign policy, the CIA, Kennedy came to realize, was the center of evil in American politics. From Stephen Kinzer's brilliant new book, The Brothers, we learned that after the CIA suckered Kennedy into the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, clearly meant to force him into an American invasion of Cuba, Kennedy cursed the "CIA bastards" for luring him into it, and wished he could "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds."

Unfortunately, for the U.S. and the entire world, the CIA was not splintered into a thousand pieces and was not scattered into the winds. Despite a record of horrendous and consistent failure as well as unmitigated abuse of power, the most anti-Constitutional of all American institutions has just kept on chugging' on. Presidents tend to figure it out long before Members of Congress ever do. And today, as Obama seeks to make modest adjustments in the CIA plan for world domination and destruction, Congress is once again standing up for evil and dysfunction. What CIA shills in Congress are trying to do now is to block Obama's plan to shift control of the U.S. drone campaign from the CIA to the Defense Department. The Washington Post reported yesterday that a senior senator, probably Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) or Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), inserted "a secret provision in the massive government spending bill introduced this week that would preserve the spy agency’s role in lethal counterterrorism operations."

The measure, included in a classified annex to the $1.1 trillion federal budget plan, would restrict the use of any funding to transfer unmanned aircraft or the authority to carry out drone strikes from the CIA to the Pentagon, officials said.

The provision represents an unusually direct intervention by lawmakers into the way covert operations are run, impeding an administration plan aimed at returning the CIA’s focus to traditional intelligence gathering and possibly bringing more transparency to drone strikes.

…[S]enior lawmakers have been vocal in expressing concern about the prospect of the CIA ceding responsibility for drone strikes to the military. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Appropriations Committee, said last year that she had seen the CIA “exercise patience and discretion specifically to prevent collateral damage” and that she “would really have to be convinced that the military would carry it out that well.”

…[A]t issue is the fundamental mission of the CIA, which during the past decade has morphed into a paramilitary force. Senior officials, including CIA Director John O. Brennan, have warned that the agency’s emphasis on lethal operations deviates from its traditional mission and could impair its ability to focus on gathering intelligence.

The administration first signaled its intent to shift control of drone operations to the Pentagon last year, when Obama announced new guidelines for counterterrorism missions-- including a pledge of greater transparency-- during a speech at the National Defense University. At the time, administration officials briefing reporters said there would be “a preference for the Department of Defense to engage in the use of force outside war zones.”

Peter Baker, at the NY Times was reporting at the same time that Obama himself has undergone a big transformation from a critic of the excesses of the Military Industrial Complex's surveillance state to its overseer. Baker recalled the heady days of the 2008 campaign when Obama promised "no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens… No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime.”

More than six years later, the onetime constitutional lawyer is now the commander in chief presiding over a surveillance state that some of his own advisers think has once again gotten out of control. On Friday, he will give another speech, this time at the Justice Department defending government spying even as he adjusts it to address a wave of public concern over civil liberties.

The journey between those two speeches reflects the transition from the backbench of the United States Senate to the chair behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Like other presidents before him, the idealistic candidate skeptical of government power found that the tricky trade-offs of national security issues look different to the person charged with using that power to ensure public safety.

Aides said that even as a senator, Mr. Obama supported robust surveillance as long as it was legal and appropriate, and that as president he still shares the concerns about overreach he expressed years ago. But they said his views have been shaped to a striking degree by the reality of waking up every day in the White House responsible for heading off the myriad threats he finds in his daily intelligence briefings.

“When you get the package every morning, it puts steel in your spine,” said David Plouffe, the president’s longtime adviser. “There are people out there every day who are plotting. The notion that we would put down a tool that would protect people here in America is hard to fathom.”

At the same time, aides said Mr. Obama was surprised to learn after leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, just how far the surveillance had gone. “Things seem to have grown at the N.S.A.,” Mr. Plouffe said, citing specifically the tapping of foreign leaders’ telephones. “I think it was disturbing to most people, and I think he found it disturbing.”

Yet it is hard to express indignation at actions of the government after five years of running it, and some involved in surveillance note that it was Mr. Obama who pushed national security agencies to be aggressive in hunting terrorists. “For some, his outrage does ring a little bit hollow,” said a former counterterrorism official.

All of which leads to worries by critics of government surveillance that he will not go far enough on Friday. “If the speech is anything like what is being reported, the president will go down in history for having retained and defended George W. Bush’s surveillance programs rather than reformed them,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

…Feeling little pressure to curb the security agencies, Mr. Obama largely left them alone until Mr. Snowden began disclosing secret programs last year. Mr. Obama was angry at the revelations, privately excoriating Mr. Snowden as a self-important narcissist who had not thought through the consequences of his actions.

He was surprised at the uproar that ensued, advisers said, particularly that so many Americans did not trust him, much less trust the oversight provided by the intelligence court and Congress. As more secrets spilled out, though, aides said even Mr. Obama was chagrined. They said he was exercised to learn that the mobile phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany was being tapped.

Mr. Obama appointed a panel to review the programs. “The point we made to him was, ‘We’re not really concerned about you, Barack, but God forbid some other guy’s in the office five years from now and there’s another 9/11,’ ” said Richard A. Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism adviser who served on the panel. He had to “lay down some roadblocks in addition to what we have now so that once you’re gone it’ll be harder” to abuse spying abilities.

On the other hand, Mr. Obama was acutely aware of the risks of being seen as handcuffing the security agencies. “Whatever reforms he makes, you can be sure if there’s another incident-- and the odds are there will be in our history-- there’ll be someone on CNN within seconds saying if the president hadn’t hamstrung the intelligence community, this wouldn’t have happened,” Mr. Axelrod said.

Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser working on Friday’s speech, said Mr. Obama saw the issue as two separate questions-- abuse of government power and extent of government power. With the 2008 legislation setting a new structure, the president had focused on avoiding abuse until the latest revelations. “At this point, we’re looking more systematically at these programs to ensure that we’re taking into account both technological advances and also the need to inspire greater public confidence,” Mr. Rhodes said. “We have an ability to do essentially anything technologically. So do we have the appropriate legal and policy overlay to ensure that’s focused?”

That will be the question Mr. Obama tries to answer in the speech.

Olympia Snowe Was A Moderate… Susan Collins Has Always Been A Mainstream Conservative

Let me start by saying that Blue America is backing Shenna Bellows for the Maine Senate seat currently occupied by conservative Republican Susan Collins. We are raising money for her and helping her connect to like-minded voters in Maine. (You can contribute to her grassroots campaign here and you can read everything I've written about her here.) OK, that out of the way, I want to point out that the Beltway media's idea of covering the Senate race in Maine is to tout-- zombielike-- Collins' "moderate" credentials. None of them examine it or define their terms. They just repeat it, ad nauseum. The fact is, she's isn't a reactionary or a fascist like so many Republicans. She's not Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Jim Inhofe or Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. They're not conservatives though. They're reactionaries and fascists.

An old friend, Mike Lux, used to blog at OpenLeft. Almost 6 years ago exactly, he wrote about a train ride he took with another far right fascist, Rick Santorum, then a U.S. senator who was going to lose his seat in a landslide of revulsion 10 months hence.

The guy sitting behind me starts making phone calls on his cell. He's got a fairly loud and authoritative voice, so I can't help but overhear, and he's making call after call after call to tell various people that we've gotta find a way to beat McCain, just would be just awful, and going on and on about how much McCain sucks and that even having Hillary or Obama would be better than having McCain because he would just be horrible for the conservative movement because he just doesn't get the movement and he's always using liberal language to talk about things and how that's a terrible thing. And in one conversation with one person he was talking to, he was trying to talk him into coming out with a terrible story about McCain from five or six years ago, and he's like yeah, what he did to you was just incredible, and you should go public with that story, etc.

After a while I got up to go get something from the café cart, and it turns out the guy sitting behind me was Rick Santorum, which makes it all the more fun and all the more interesting. So pretty much the whole trip this guy is working his cell phone, talking to people about how anyone is better than McCain and Giuliani would be better than McCain because then at least he wouldn't betray the conservative movement… yeah, Giuliani is bad on some issues like abortion, but at least he would stand with the conservative movement. He was saying that there are people like Susan Collins who vote moderate sometimes, but at least she is a team player who always plays with the team and never plays against the conservative side even if she has to give the liberals a vote because she's from Maine.

BINGO! Santorum knew exactly what he was talking about-- and he wasn't talking about Olympia Snowe, who actually was a moderate and was detested by conservatives and reactionaries. Back towards the end of November, John Nichols wrote about Collins in The Nation as the barrier to transparency and accountability on drones. Not "a," THE, although he was talking about the Senate, not the House, where Buck McKeon and Colleen Hanabusa are the barrier to transparency and accountability on drones.

Susan Collins is supposed to be the last reasonable Republican in the Senate.

The pair of New England Republicans with whom she had aligned in something of a regional caucus-- fellow Mainer Olympia Snowe and Scott Brown of Massachusetts-- are gone. So, elite media outlets frequently remind us, it’s up to Collins.

But on a fundamental question of democratic governance-- accounting for civilians killed by US drone strikes-- Collins does not appear to be up for it.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, on which Collins sits, voted this month to require the government to report on the number of civilians who have been being killed by drone strikes, as part of a broader effort to bring the Congress into a proper advise-and-consent role when it comes to killings that are committed in the name of the American people but without their informed consent.

The legislation is a big deal: “Because the U.S. government number is secret, we can’t have a normal democratic debate about the policy,” explains the group Just Foreign Policy. “Government officials anonymously tell the press that civilian deaths from drone strikes have been rare. Independent reporting says otherwise. Government officials anonymously tell the press that the independent reporting isn’t accurate, but they won’t say why it isn’t accurate and they won’t say what is accurate. So the broad public is left with ‘he said, she said.’ Media that reach the broad public won’t challenge the government’s claims about civilian casualties until we can force the government onto the public record to defend its claims.”

Unfortunately, notes Robert Naiman, the policy director for Just Foriegn Policy, Collins voted “no.”

“Because of the way the Senate works, Susan Collins’s opposition could keep this crucial reform of the drone strike policy from becoming law,” Naiman and his Just Foreign Policy colleagues argue.

This is how Collins fits into the equation: “Senator Collins’s support for this provision is crucial because it’s not likely that the Senate will pass it into law unless it attracts some Republican support. Republicans outside the committee tend to defer to Republicans on the committee. But no Republican supported the amendment in committee. Susan Collins is the Republican member of the committee considered most likely to change her position.”

Which takes this debate out of the Intelligence Committee, out of the Capitol and out of Washington.

Drone policy is unlikely to change unless Collins changes her position. But that is not likely to happen, Naiman suggests, “unless there’s some public agitation for it.”

To get that, there has to be a real debate about drone policy—nationally, but especially in Maine.

Nationally, there’s a MoveOn petition campaign urging Collins “to reverse her opposition to telling the public about civilian deaths from US drone strikes.” It has already attracted roughly 15,000 signatures, with thousands of new names being added daily.

But what about Maine?

Enter Shenna Bellows.

The longtime executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, recently announced that she would challenge Collins in 2014 as a “Democrat. Libertarian. Progressive.”

Bellows is serious about all three words. And she has a record of taking on both parties on issues ranging from the Patriot Act to freedom of information to drone policy. In fact, she has been a national leader on the final issue, having organized a left-right coalition that got the Maine legislature to pass legislation requiring police agencies to obtain a probable cause warrant before using drones for surveillance.

Bellows launched her campaign in October, with a declaration that:

• We need to repeal the Patriot Act and REAL ID.
• We need to stop the NSA and the FBI from wasting their time and taxpayer dollars spying on ordinary Americans through our cell phones and email.
• We need to place limits on drones.

Bellows argues that Congress has created a constitutional crisis by failing to defend basic liberties, and by failing to serve as a check and balance on executive overreach.

She is right.

And her candidacy highlights a vital constitutional question-- that of the right of Congress and the people to information about military missions-- on which Collins is wrong.

Political campaigns, by their nature, are competitions for power. But they are also competitions of ideas. They can put issues into play. And they can force entrenched politicians to think anew about stances they have taken. Even those who might not back Shenna Bellows must recognize the value of a candidacy that demands Collins think more deeply about the essential role of the legislative branch in checking and balancing the executive.

As a correspondent of mine pointed out today, Maine is the second most rural state  in America and one of only four majority-rural states (53.9%)! Collins has joined the Republican obstructionists who have prevented passage of a farm bill that will directly benefit her own state's residents. Do potato farmers in Aroostook and blueberry farmers in Washington County and workers in the forest and wood products sector know their "moderate" senator is helping her deranged party hold back rural economic development programs such as broadband, rural housing, etc., as well as ag research at UMaine/Orono, and food stamps for the rural poor? The media doesn't cover it and she's had one free pass after another. and it isn't only rural workers who Collins is screwing. She's been a typically bad actor in the transpartisan "free" fade debate that has wrecked out country's economy. She's backing fast-tracking the disastrous-- for Maine-- Trans Pacific Partnership, which will devastate good jobs at firms like New Balance which has economically essential plants in Norridgewock, Norway and Skowhegan. Susan Collins shouldn't be working to make Mainers have to compete with slave labor rates in Vietnam and Bangladesh. Who does she think she is, Paul Ryan?

Let me go back to Shenna Bellows and back to drones for a moment. I reached her this morning before she started her campaign schedule of meeting voters around Maine. "What if," she asked rhetorically, "the US drone killing program overseas were harming national security? Commonsense suggests that the drone killing program may be fomenting dangerous anti-American sentiments as revelations about civilian deaths from US drone strikes continue to emerge. This fall, Congress had an opportunity to hear directly from relatives of an elderly grandmother who was targeted by a drone as she was picking okra in a field in Pakistan. On December 12, US drones reportedly killed 12 people at a wedding in Yemen. From a human rights perspective alone, these deaths are deeply troubling. But there are financial and security costs as well-- costs that are impossible to measure accurately without a public accounting. Unfortunately, the Obama administration refuses to make public the number of civilian deaths, and one key Senator-- my opponent, Susan Collins-- is standing in the way of Congressional oversight. Susan Collins voted against requiring the Executive Branch to fully report on the drone killing program in the Intelligence Committee, and now the measure is stalled in the Senate. She and I may disagree about the costs and benefits of the drone killing program. But there's a deeper issue in her refusal to allow details about the program to be released. It goes to the role of government itself. Either we trust government to conduct important business in our names in secret. Or we demand freedom of information, one of the cornerstones of our democracy. I'm running for the United States Senate to restore our constitutional freedoms and advance open government. I believe there can be no meaningful public debate about any government program without freedom of information. Government secrecy breeds abuse of power. It also leads costly mistakes."

Please help Blue America replace Susan Collins-- who vowed she would retire 6 years ago-- with Shenna Bellows, who we see as another courageous fighter for ordinary American families along the lines of public servants like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alan Grayson and Jeff Merkley. Maine deserves no less-- and here's the place where you can put in your two cents (or, hopefully, more).

Happy Near Year's-- Your Tax Dollars Are Still Paying For Predator Drones That Slaughter Innocent Civilians

We've written about Buck McKeon's Drone Caucus-- they call it the Unmanned Systems Caucus-- before. It's little more than a way of exchanging bribes from drones makers for voters from some of Congresses sleaziest and most contemptible members. And, of course, like most Beltway bribery schemes, it's bipartisan. McKeon's co-chairman is George Bush's favorite Democrat, Blue Dog Henry Cuellar. Other Democrats on the take in this particular scheme are Hawaii's most corrupt politician, Colleen Hanabusa (New Dem), Bob Brady (the Philadelphia Machine boss), André Carson (New Dem-IN), Joe Courtney (New Dem-CT), Gene Green (TX), Gerald Connolly (New Dem-VA), William Keating (MA), and, of course, Loretta Sanchez (Blue Dog/New Dem-CA). So 8 crooked Democrats and 37 warmongers from the GOP, from notorious criminals like Darrell Issa (R-CA), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Don Young (R-AK) to low level vote sellers like Joe Wilson (R-SC), Steve Pearce (R-NM), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Steven Palazzo (R-MS), Tom Rooney (R-FL), Joe Heck (R-NV), Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Tom Cole (R-OK) and Trent Franks (R-AZ).

Over the weekend, Heather Linebaugh, a former employee of the U.S. drone program, penned an article for The Guardian which makes the point that not only is the public in the dark, but so are most of our elected officials. Remember when you read this, though, that corrupt careerists like McKeon, Forbes, Hanabusa and Cuellar don't give a rat's ass about any of this as long as the Military Industrial Complex continues to finance their disgraceful careers and helps enrich their families.

Whenever I read comments by politicians defending the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Predator and Reaper program – aka drones – I wish I could ask them some questions. I'd start with: "How many women and children have you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile?" And: "How many men have you seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound for help while bleeding out from severed legs?" Or even more pointedly: "How many soldiers have you seen die on the side of a road in Afghanistan because our ever-so-accurate UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicle] were unable to detect an IED [improvised explosive device] that awaited their convoy?"

Few of these politicians who so brazenly proclaim the benefits of drones have a real clue of what actually goes on. I, on the other hand, have seen these awful sights first hand.

I knew the names of some of the young soldiers I saw bleed to death on the side of a road. I watched dozens of military-aged males die in Afghanistan, in empty fields, along riversides, and some right outside the compound where their family was waiting for them to return home from mosque.

The US and British militaries insist that this is such an expert program, but it's curious that they feel the need to deliver faulty information, few or no statistics about civilian deaths and twisted technology reports on the capabilities of our UAVs. These specific incidents are not isolated, and the civilian casualty rate has not changed, despite what our defense representatives might like to tell us.

What the public needs to understand is that the video provided by a drone is a far cry from clear enough to detect someone carrying a weapon, even on a crystal-clear day with limited clouds and perfect light. This makes it incredibly difficult for the best analysts to identify if someone has weapons for sure. One example comes to mind: "The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon?" I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people, if we endangered the wrong people, if we destroyed an innocent civilian's life all because of a bad image or angle.

It's also important for the public to grasp that there are human beings operating and analysing intelligence these UAVs. I know because I was one of them, and nothing can prepare you for an almost daily routine of flying combat aerial surveillance missions over a war zone. UAV proponents claim that troops who do this kind of work are not affected by observing this combat because they are never directly in danger physically.

But here's the thing: I may not have been on the ground in Afghanistan, but I watched parts of the conflict in great detail on a screen for days on end. I know the feeling you experience when you see someone die. Horrifying barely covers it. And when you are exposed to it over and over again it becomes like a small video, embedded in your head, forever on repeat, causing psychological pain and suffering that many people will hopefully never experience. UAV troops are victim to not only the haunting memories of this work that they carry with them, but also the guilt of always being a little unsure of how accurate their confirmations of weapons or identification of hostile individuals were.

Of course, we are trained to not experience these feelings, and we fight it, and become bitter. Some troops seek help in mental health clinics provided by the military, but we are limited on who we can talk to and where, because of the secrecy of our missions. I find it interesting that the suicide statistics in this career field aren't reported, nor are the data on how many troops working in UAV positions are heavily medicated for depression, sleep disorders and anxiety.

Recently, the Guardian ran a commentary by Britain's secretary of state for defence Philip Hammond. I wish I could talk to him about the two friends and colleagues I lost, within one year leaving the military, to suicide. I am sure he has not been notified of that little bit of the secret UAV program, or he would surely take a closer look at the full scope of the program before defending it again.

The UAV's in the Middle East are used as a weapon, not as protection, and as long as our public remains ignorant to this, this serious threat to the sanctity of human life-- at home and abroad-- will continue.

It's tricky defunding this by refusing to pay your taxes. But refusing to contribute the politicians who push this program is a much better idea. Good way to start: help Senator Brian Schatz defeat a right-wing primary challenge from corrupt, drone-crazed Colleen Hanabusa in the Democratic primary in Hawaii.

Al Qaeda Makes A Move In Yemen

Yemen seems like an interesting place to visit. So far the closest I've come is listening to Ofra Haza's music and sitting around a kitchen table in Los Angeles and talking with her before she passed away. In 2009 we looked into how safe it is to visit Yemen-- short answer: it's one of the world's 10 least safe countries--and in 2011 we suggested postponing your trip to see the mud skyscrapers until after the revolution. I think I better update that; wait til your next lifetime. Back in 2011, the State Department was very clear:

The Department of State warns U.S. citizens of the high security threat level in Yemen due to terrorist activities and civil unrest. The Department urges U.S. citizens not to travel to Yemen. U.S. citizens currently in Yemen should consider departing Yemen. The Department of State has authorized the voluntary departure from Yemen of the family members of U.S. Embassy staff and non-essential personnel. This replaces the Travel Warning for Yemen issued October 15, 2010.

...The security threat level in Yemen is extremely high due to terrorist activities and civil unrest. Piracy in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean is also a security threat to maritime activities in the region. Terrorist organizations continue to be active in Yemen, including Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The U.S. government remains concerned about possible attacks against U.S. citizens, facilities, businesses, and perceived U.S. and Western interests. There is ongoing civil unrest throughout the country and large-scale protests in major cities.

Guess what the U.S. (and the Brits) are telling their citizens in Yemen this week. GET. OUT. OF. DODGE... NOW! Two planefuls of American citizens were evacuated from Yemen Tuesday.

The U.S. Department of State warns U.S. citizens of the high security threat level in Yemen due to terrorist activities and civil unrest. The Department urges U.S. citizens to defer travel to Yemen and those U.S. citizens currently living in Yemen to depart immediately. On August 6, 2013, the Department of State ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel from Yemen due to the continued potential for terrorist attacks.

U.S. citizens currently in Yemen should depart. As staff levels at the Embassy are restricted, our ability to assist U.S. citizens in an emergency and provide routine consular services remains limited and may be further constrained by the fluid security situation. This supersedes the Travel Warning for Yemen issued on July 16, 2013.

The security threat level in Yemen is extremely high. In September 2012, a mob attacked the U.S. Embassy compound. Demonstrations continue to take place in various parts of the country and may quickly escalate and turn violent. U.S. citizens are urged to avoid areas of demonstrations, and to exercise extreme caution if within the vicinity of a demonstration. Terrorist organizations, including Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), continue to be active throughout Yemen. The U.S. government remains highly concerned about possible attacks on U.S. citizens (whether visiting or residing in Yemen), and U.S. facilities, businesses, and perceived U.S. and Western interests. A U.S. citizen was attacked and killed in Taiz on March 18, 2012 and the press reported that AQAP claimed responsibility. An ongoing risk of kidnapping exists throughout Yemen. In the last year, international and local media have reported several kidnappings of Westerners. Violent crime is also a growing problem; local media reported the murder of two U.S. citizens in Taiz and Aden in 2013. In addition, piracy in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Indian Ocean is a security threat to maritime activities in the region. See our International Maritime Piracy Fact Sheet.

...U.S. citizens remaining in Yemen despite this Travel Warning should limit nonessential travel within the country, make their own contingency emergency plans, enroll their presence in Yemen through the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), and provide their current contact information and next-of-kin or emergency contact information.

Why all the concern? Who remembers Ayman al-Zawahri? He took over al-Qaeda when bin-Laden was killed in Pakistan. And he personally ordered a big Ramadan mayhem spree. That's why Obama closed two dozen embassies and consulates in the Middle East last week-- and why they're still closed and why U.S. citizens, tourists and otherwise, are being told to stay away. NSA intercepted some electronic messages-- which is their job (rather than spying on American citizens in the U.S., which is NOT their job and not constitutional). The conversation between al-Zawahri and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who was part of a mass breakout from a prison in San'a in 2006, indicated that a big bang was ordered in Yemen.

Al Jazeera is reporting that a U.S. drone strike killed at least four al-Qaeda fighters in Yemen's Marib province and that one of them, Saleh al-Tays al-Waeli, was wanted in connection with al-Zawahri's Ramadan plot. Drone strikes have killed 17 people in Yemen last week. The BBC is reporting that al Qaeda fighters have been converging on San'a to implement the plan.

The source described the plot as dangerous, and suggested it was to include explosions and suicide attacks aimed at Western ambassadors and foreign embassies in Yemen, in addition to operations aimed at the Yemeni military headquarters.

I would also avoid the hotels where westerners stay, like the Sheraton, the Sheba and the Mövenpick. Not as tempting a target as an Embassy... but it would do fine in a stretch.

The King Of Drones-- Buck McKeon Brings Home Some Disgrace Along With The Bacon

Not all that many of his own constituents have noticed, but last week the BBC called out a congressman from Santa Clarita: A lawmaker helped create the drone industry-- and has reaped the benefits. Don't expect any exposés like this in the Signal, or even the L.A. Times, but Buck McKeon's cushy-- and extremely corrupt-- deal with the drone industry has been raising eyebrows all over the world.

The story of how drones became a robust niche in domestic law enforcement-- and part of the commercial world as well-- is rooted in Washington DC. Indeed, the rise of the drone can be traced in part to one man, Howard "Buck" McKeon.

McKeon, a California Republican, is chairman of the House armed services committee and co-chairman of a legislative group he founded, the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus, which supports expansion of the industry.

Military officers on Capitol Hill and executives in the aerospace industry have welcomed McKeon's support.

Of the dozens of members on the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus in the House of Representatives, McKeon has received the most "drone-related campaign contributions"-- $833,650 (£551,689), according to a report by Hearst Newspapers and the Center for Responsive Politics.

McKeon is a case study in how a member of Congress can work within the system, operate within ethical boundaries created by Congress, and have an impact on policy-- as well as increase profits for Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, all of which make drones in his district.

McKeon, who has not been accused of any crimes or charged with any ethical violations, refused repeated requests for interviews for this article.

Years ago, Americans were shocked at the way lobbyist Jack Abramoff worked the system in Washington. But he was also convicted of bilking, or cheating, Indian tribes, and imprisoned for serious criminal offences.

After the scandal, members of Congress re-examined their ethical rules. Today, however, the system remains much the same.

Lobbyists promote clients, including the makers of drones, and contractors give money to members of Congress, who in turn work on legislation that regulates their industry. Within this world of money and politics, McKeon is one who stands out.

Not only is McKeon the recipient of contributions from drone manufacturers, but he is also one of Washington's most vocal supporters of the industry. He and members of his Capitol Hill office have close ties with lobbyists and contractors.

In a "Most Corrupt" report for 2012 compiled by researchers for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a progressive watchdog group, McKeon is one of several given a "dishonourable mention" over a mortgage he had received on preferential terms and his alleged improper use of official staff.

Another Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington report looks at the way members of Congress "use their positions to benefit themselves and their families."

The report says McKeon's campaign paid his wife, the treasurer, a salary of about $118,000 (£77,956) in the 2010 campaign cycle.

McKeon once received a cut-rate loan from lender Countrywide Financial, as researchers for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington point out. He was included in a congressional report about Countrywide's attempt to influence members of Congress.

McKeon has not been accused of wrongdoing. A spokesman for McKeon told a New York Times reporter that McKeon was "shocked and angry" to hear his loan was mentioned in the investigation.

...Drones cannot be used for commercial pursuits, though that is likely to change. At the behest of Congress, Federal Aviation Administration officials are looking at ways to introduce drones into the civilian airspace. Officials expect that 10,000 drones will be flying in the air by 2020.

The presence of drones above cities and towns has troubled lawmakers. Virginia was the first state to enact a drone ban. Idaho and Florida have since followed suit.

State legislatures in Tennessee and Montana have passed anti-drone legislation. Lawmakers are worried drones will spy on people, especially since their sensors "scoop up quite a lot of information," according to the Brookings Institution.

In addition, drones are plagued with flaws. One may have been hacked, according to media accounts. Another crashed recently near Panama City, Florida.

...McKeon and other members of the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus reportedly helped push through a law, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Modernization and Reform Act, in February 2012.

It sets policies for the civilian use of drones by 2015 and is designed to make things easier for journalists, filmmakers, biologists and others who want to use the drones in their daily work.

...The new law makes individuals such as the Project on Government Oversight's Winslow Wheeler uneasy. He says that McKeon and his colleagues in the congressional caucus are acting more as boosters of drones, rather than as critical observers of the industry.

When McKeon was a child in California, his parents sold meat out of a second-hand fish truck. Later they opened Howard and Phil's Western Wear, and he worked for the family business. He went to Brigham Young University in his 40s and majored in animal husbandry.

From his early days in Congress, McKeon was recognised as someone who worked hard for business owners. Jane Harman, a former member of Congress, introduced him at a 1993 event as "someone who helps me save the aerospace industry in California."

...In 2001 McKeon made the rounds at a trade fair near the US Capitol. He admired the Pegasus, which was made by Northrop Grumman, and told Helicopter News he was impressed with its "cost-effectiveness."

An executive with a company called Textron, which makes unmanned systems, started giving campaign money to McKeon that year. The following year, according to Aerospace Daily, McKeon began asking heads of the military services to issue a report about plans for unmanned aerial vehicles. McKeon continued over the next decade to push for federal money for drones and travelled to Turkey, Kuwait and elsewhere, speaking with officials about the unmanned aircraft.

McKeon is "the staunchest advocate for military power," says Thomas Donnelly, a director at the American Enterprise Institute, adding that McKeon has a "gentlemanly" manner.

..."Very affable and well-respected," says Mackenzie Eaglen, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

But Wheeler provocatively counters that McKeon's judgment is coloured by a lack of knowledge. "He reads off the material his staff has prepared," says Wheeler. "He has been spectacularly clueless in looking seriously at drones."

Critics say lines between government and industry are blurred. Executives at one company, AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems, were involved in the formation of the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus.

"We were original plank holders in the UAV caucus," says AAI Senior Vice-President Steven Reid. Many of the defence contractors belong to the Arlington, Virginia-based Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

..."The only changes made to the UAS"-- an acronym that refers to unmanned aerial systems-- "sections of the House FAA bill were made at the request of AUVSI. Our suggestions were often taken word-for-word."

..."We're not members of Congress," Gielow says. "We don't necessarily get anything passed into law." Still, he says they were involved: "As the industry advocacy group, we made suggestions, and our suggestions were incorporated into the bill."

Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says: "The question is will it pass the sniff test of how we think policy should be made?"

"An average person would wonder, 'Are these decisions that would be made in the absence of lobbying by the defence industry?'"

"You make sure money gets to the key contractors in your district," says Gary Bass of the Center for Effective Government.

"In the case of drones, the question-- 'Is this the smartest thing?'-- may be secondary," Bass says.

McKeon is one of the figures who are behind the growth of the drone industry, and money is given to him for that reason. With backing from the industry, he has become influential in Washington and in this way is better able to help them obtain funding for drones.

"He is propelling business as usual," says Wheeler, "an apparatchik in a broken system."

What the BBC didn't take into account is that McKeon and his sleazy family have been working full speed ahead on setting up a private lobbying firm for drone manufacturers and other purveyors of the instruments of war. McKeon plans to retire from Congress and enrich himself and his brood as a lobbyist. He'll have a lifetime of chits to cash in by then.

The Woolwich murderer, says Ian Welsh, is "a bad man," but "not as bad as the men we put in office"

"When Tony Blair and George W. Bush are put in front of war crimes trials, along with Rumsfeld and many others, we can talk. Till then, our 'justice' isn’t, it’s just tribalism dressed up in the name of justice, because it picks and chooses amongst murderers, letting the greatest of them, the ones with the most blood on their hands, walk free."

-- Ian Welsh, in a new post,
"The Moral Calculus of the Woolwich Murder"

by Ken

I don't say that our friend Ian Welsh doesn't mean exactly what he says, that "on the scale of bad, immoral things," the murder of that soldier in London by hacking his head off "ranks very low," in that "the murderer took the time to kill someone in the military" and "did not target civilians," which "makes him superior, morally, to the Boston bombers" also "to Obama, who routinely murders civilians, knowingly, but hitting weddings and funerals," and to Tony Blair and George W. Bush, "who launched a war based on lies against a country which was no threat to Britain or to America."

Ian further suggests:

You should read a transcript of the Woolwich murderer’s reasons. It seems that he was offended by the fact that other Muslim civilians were routinely being murdered. Having been taught, by the state, that murdering is acceptable, he proceeded to do so.

Now, as I say, I don't doubt that Ian means just what he says. But it's also possible to consider his position as intentionally provocative: challenging anyone who disagree to show how it's not the case that the Woolwich murderer "is a bad man, to be sure, but he's not as bad a man as the men we put in office." Or to find some way in which it's not true, despite "all the hysterical hand-wringing and the rush to moral condemnation" (which "bores and tires" Ian) that:

It is a fact that America and Britain killed, deliberately, tens to hundreds of thousands of civilians in a war which was not even pre-emptive. The Iraq war was exactly the same type of war-crime for which Nazis were hung at Nuremburg. Exactly.

I don't see any obvious way to deny this "fact," or the rest of Ian's proposition regarding the people we place in high office. If you think you do, perhaps you should read the whole piece. first.

IAN WELSH

The Moral Calculus of the Woolwich Murder
Posted: 27 May 2013 06:00 AM PDT

So, a man killed a soldier in Woolwich London by hacking his head off.

That’s bad.

But on the scale of bad, immoral things, it ranks very low.

The murderer took the time to kill someone in the military. He did not target civilians.

This makes him superior, morally, to the Boston bombers. It also makes him superior, morally, to Obama, who routinely murders civilians, knowingly, by hitting weddings and funerals. It makes him morally superior to the British ex-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and to George W. Bush, who launched a war based on lies against a country which was no threat to Britain or to America.

All the hysterical hand-wringing and the rush to moral condemnation bores and tires me. It is a fact that America and Britain killed, deliberately, tens to hundreds of thousands of civilians in a war which was not even pre-emptive. The Iraq war was exactly the same type of war-crime for which Nazis were hung at Nuremburg. Exactly.

You should read a transcript of the Woolwich murderer’s reasons. It seems that he was offended by the fact that other Muslim civilians were routinely being murdered. Having been taught, by the state, that murdering is acceptable, he proceeded to do so.

He, however, proved himself superior to the contemporary American and British States by murder a military man and not a civilian. He took far more care in choosing his victim than Obama does his.

So spare me the hand-wringing and condemnation. He’s a bad man, to be sure, but he’s not as bad a man as the men we put in office.

When Tony Blair and George W. Bush are put in front of war crimes trials, along with Rumsfeld and many others, we can talk. Till then, our 'justice' isn’t, it’s just tribalism dressed up in the name of justice, because it picks and chooses amongst murderers, letting the greatest of them, the ones with the most blood on their hands, walk free.

on edit: oh yes, and there are calls to censor the internet more. The net result of these attacks is to reduce your freedom. And no, censoring the internet more won’t make you more safe.

Which leaves one last question, in the event that we can't contradict the logic: What is the significance of our conclusion?

#

Buck McKeon's Family Opens A Defense Industry Lobbying Firm To Enrich Itself At Taxpayers' Expense

The other day it was revealed that three stooges named Steve McKeon, Daniel McKeon & Joe McKeon opened up a new shoppe-- a war industries lobbying shop. Joe is Buck's failed businessman brother who's gone bankrupt at everything he's tried. Steve and Daniel are Buck's nephews. Buck himself was appointed Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee by Boehner and, despite, a serious national security breach connected to McKeon's overt corruption, has refused to make him give up the chair, despite demands from other Republican committee members. And, keep in the back of your mind that Buck McKeon has taken in more in legalistic bribes from war industries than anyone else in Congress-- more than Boehner, more than Cantor, more than any senator. He started the Congressional Drone Caucus-- officially, the Unmanned Vehicle Caucus-- and he got the legislation carefully crafted by the drone manufacturers through Congress. Buck insists he'll be scrupulous in making sure there are no conflicts of interest with the family firm and the taxpayers money, although his history would indicate that the entire enterprise was planned out as one giant conflict of interest.

Roll Call, in their Moneyline column-- "Inside the flow of money in politics"-- points out the obvious: "More than likely the McKeon name will help business." For his whole shady career, McKeon gas taken in an astronomical $1,396,400 in legalistic bribes from arms manufacturers and related war-oriented firms. In way of comparison, McCain has only gotten $1,230,052 from these same galoots. Lindsey Graham, another demented war-monger has only taken in $354,966 and John Boehner and Eric Cantor only got, respectively $385,100 and $430,750. In the 2012 cycle, McKeon topped everyone else again-- both Houses of Congress. Last year alone, he took in more than the second and third biggest recipients combined:

The drone manufacturers have been particularly generous to him. His family firm, Golden Oak Consulting of Santa Clarita started last May as bribes from the arms manufacturers were gushing into McKeon coffers to the maximum extent allowed by the very lax laws. He needed to figure out a way to get even more-- and that's where ne're-do-well brother Joe and his kids came in. Their first arms manufacturing client was  Threat Deterrence of Alexandria, Va., a computer software firm dealing with defending against various kinds of threats.

The company website states, “we have worked inside some of the most capable threat mitigation agencies in the world. These agencies include the United States Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, national Security Agency, US Joint Special Operations Command, US Congress and many other threat support organizations.”

Golden Oak Consulting also registered on May 21 to lobby for GoPro of San Mateo, Calif., which makes waterproof and shockproof cameras. In 2011 the company launched a military helmet mount for its camera. A press release stated “We developed our NVG Mount to make it simple for them to attach their GoPro cameras to the helmets they’re already using every day. The men and women serving in the military and civil services are out there every day, working in some of the most extreme conditions on earth. We are hopeful that our products can help them with their work…”

The managing partners of Golden Oak Consulting are Steve McKeon, Daniel McKeon and Joe McKeon. These are the first two federal lobbying clients for the firm.

Golden Oak Consulting is also working with another company, DuraSeal Coatings, a nanotechnology company, in Kansas City, Mo. A Golden Oak Consulting press release stated, “Golden Oak is looking forward to enhancing DuraSeal Coating’s current value position and is committed to building DuraSeal Coating’s position in the new Government market.” DuraSeal Coatings wants to sell products to the Department of Defense. In September of 2012, another firm, J. M. Burkman & Associates registered to lobby on behalf of DuraSeal Coatings in the Defense area, and specifically the “sale of coatings products to DOD.”

Folks in the Santa Clarita area are used to seeing scams perpetrated on innocent families by vicious predators who all happen to be named McKeon. This is a news account of one of the "scrupulous" McCain clans forays into what anyone would call "bad behavior," especially since it always seems to involve Mormons taking advantage of non-Mormons.

The largest creditor of a defunct retail clothing chain co-owned by U.S. Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon has accused the company-- and most of its owners-- of fraud and misrepresentation.

The accusations are part of a civil suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court Wednesday by Coast Business Credit, a division of Southern Pacific Bank. Coast claims McKeon's four brothers, all part-owners of Howard and Phil's Western Wear, owe it about $4 million.

Under a preliminary sale agreement, expected to be finalized today, Coast will receive roughly $550,000 for the remaining assets of the broken company. But that is just a fraction of the money Coast says it is owed, and in its suit it seeks to foreclose on homes owned by the four brothers to cover part of the shortfall.

In its suit, Coast says Howard and Phil's "deliberately overstated the value and/or amount of the finished goods inventory... with the intent to deceive Coast" into giving it large cash advances.

The suit says Joseph B. McKeon, John D. McKeon, Monte B. McKeon and Timothy McKeon "participated and conspired in the submission of false reports to Coast."

Yeah... real scrupulous. It's hard to understand why even a crook like Boehner won't cut McKeon lose as the chairman of such an important and sensitive committee.