A former U.S. Attorney who represents whistle-blowers with knowledge of what happened when armed militants attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya last year says 400 surface-to-air missiles were ‘taken from Libya’ during the attack, and that the U.S. intelligence community is terrified they might be used to shoot down airliners.
Joe diGenova, whose wife Victoria Toensing – a former deputy assistant attorney general – also represents Benghazi witnesses and others with knowledge of the terror attack, told WMAL radio that the loss of those missiles is also one the reason the U.S. State Department shut down 19 embassies across the Middle East last week.
How’s That Hopey Changey Thing Working Out For Ya?
Hundreds of major American corporations are shipping thousands of jobs overseas, according to an analysis of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) filings made to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration on behalf of the displaced workers.
“Unlike the Zimmerman trial, Major Hasan’s has not excited the attention of the media.”
Major Hasan is a Virginia-born army psychiatrist and a recipient of the Pentagon’s Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, which seems fair enough, since he certainly served in it, albeit for the other side. Most Americans think he’s nuts. He thinks Americans are nuts. It’s a closer call than you’d think.
Forward!
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), another member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the biggest challenge has been figuring out exactly what questions to ask. “Sometimes you wonder if you’re missing big things that you shouldn’t be missing,” Schiff said. The task is made harder, he said, because members must leave their briefing materials in the committee offices in the Capitol basement, where each member’s documents are kept in three-ring binders labeled “Top Secret.”
“The members have to maintain their own notes and their own follow-up and keep the issues very much in their own minds,” he said.
Similar concerns have come from some Republicans, including Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, a key author of the law authorizing the bulk data surveillance who has in recent weeks become a critic. He said classified briefings for lawmakers were a “rope-a-dope operation” designed to silence “those who are on the trail of something that isn’t right” because rules restrict their ability to speak with other members and the public.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Not A Muslim
Rather Than Becoming “complicit in crimes against the American people”
Now in the midst of an escalating fight from the federal government aimed at cracking down on encrypted communications, one of the last free and secure services has thrown in the towel under mysterious circumstances.
“I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations,” owner and operator Ladar Levison of Dallas, Texas wrote in the statement. “I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot.”
“I feel you deserve to know what’s going on–the First Amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise,” wrote Levison. “As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.”
Nice country. What a shame that something happened to it.
(h/t soundofmusak)
Is There Nothing That Obama Can’t Do?
Now is the time at SDA when I can’t believe I’m warming up to Glenn Greenwald…
Barack Obama, August 6th – “We put in some additional safeguards to make sure that there is federal court oversight as well as Congressional oversight that there is no spying on Americans. We don’t have a domestic spying program.”
NYT, August 8th – The National Security Agency is searching the contents of vast amounts of Americans’ e-mail and text communications into and out of the country, hunting for people who mention information about foreigners under surveillance, according to intelligence officials.
But wait, there’s more! “The NSA is giving your phone records to the DEA. And the DEA is covering it up.”
The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
Following the seven armed undercover agents required to confront a female college student in last month’s sparkling-water stand-off and the 13 armed officers needed to take down a baby deer called Giggles, in Cook County the other day five-to-seven police officers showed up at the Victory Centre senior living facility to tase, fire at, and kill a 95-year-old man for refusing to take his medication…
Forward.
He’s Also Returning The Bust Of Lenin
In a rare diplomatic snub, President Obama is canceling plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow next month.
“US economic history will be rewritten this week”
Via Kevin B., who notes “1984 wasn’t a warning; it was a playbook”.
Don’t like how high debt-to-GDP figures are? Revise ’em. Unhappy at the post-‘recovery’ growth rates? Revise ’em. Disappointed at the pace of economic improvement in the last decade or two compared to the rest of the world? Revise ’em. This week “we are essentially rewriting economic history” as the BEA is set to revise GDP data from as far back as 1929.
My Obama-Is-Actually-A-Space-Alien Theory*
All is proceeding according to plan;
Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed the books on 2012 with $33.4 million in unallocated cash on hand — down from $167 million the year before — while adding to the mountain of debt piled on Chicago taxpayers, year-end audits show.
Last week, Moody’s Investors ordered an unprecedented triple-drop in the city’s bond rating, citing Chicago’s “very large and growing” pension liabilities, “significant” debt service payments, “unrelenting public safety demands” and historic reluctance to raise local taxes that has continued under Emanuel.
How’s That Hopey Changey Thing Working Out For Ya?
Forward!
Obama Scrubs Web Of 2008 Campaign Promises Including Whistleblower Protection…
“When the Democrats do it, that means that it is not illegal”
IRS watchdog reviewing claims of improper audit of Tea Party farmer
He Who Rewrites History
Intends to repeat it.
“…we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”
— President Obama talking to reporters alongside Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.
Ah, it’s probably nothing.
How’s That Hopey Changey Thing Working Out For Ya?
The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users’ stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.
If the government is able to determine a person’s password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.
Related: The NSA’s New Spy Facilities are 7 Times Bigger Than the Pentagon
Via Drudge
“When the Democrats do it, that means that it is not illegal”
It’s as though Bill never left:
The probe is based on allegations that [Obama nominee] Mayorkas personally intervened to win an approval for Gulf Coast Funds Management, a financing company headed by Clinton’s brother Anthony Rodham, after USCIS officials rejected its application, according to an aide to GOP Sen. Charles Grassley, who had received internal USCIS emails about the matter from a department whistleblower.
Gulf Coast has received media attention in recent months over its partnership with Greentech, an electric car company run by Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee for governor of Virginia.
More: McAuliffe is tied to executive of Chinese firm accused of spying
Not A Muslim
…The marriage to Anthony Weiner, a prominent Jewish progressive, enables Huma Abedin to deflect attention from her associations with various Islamic supremacists even as, during her tenure as a top State Department official, American policy embraces Islamic supremacists.