Showing posts with label hero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hero. Show all posts

Monday, July 20, 2015

Trump Attacks McCain's Military Record

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So Donald Trump is mouthing off now at people who aren't even running against him! He decided to attack ex-GOP nominee John McCain who last ran for the presidency in 2008 and lost to Barack Obama, saying that McCain wasn't a war hero because he was captured. 

This kooky statement might hurt Trump to an extent, considering the outpouring of support for Chattanooga after the murder of five military men. The other GOP candidates now have to decide whether to let it go or stand up for McCain, who is unpopular with the Tea Party and considered an establishment RINO (Republican in Name Only). But of course Jeb and the gang are a bunch of hypocrites no matter what they say because they loved it when John Kerry was attacked by the Swiftboaters back in the day.

Oh how sad, the GOP is in a sticky situation. Make more popcorn!

From Politico
“He’s not a war hero,” said Trump. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
The remarks, which came after days of back-and-forth between McCain and Trump, were met with scattered boos.
McCain, a former Navy pilot, spent roughly five-and-half years in a notorious North Vietnamese prison known as the “Hanoi Hilton,” where he was repeatedly tortured. He spent two of those years in solitary confinement.
. . . He also continued his attacks on the Arizona senator, saying, “I think John McCain’s done very little for the veterans. I’m very disappointed in John McCain.”

John McCain had this reply:
“It’s very bad,” the Republican senator said. “This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful to me,” McCain said. “Because what he did was he fired up the crazies.”




Doubling down, Trump refused to apologize for his remarks.

Tripling down, Trump then called McCain a Dummy - you can't make this stuff up!


























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Friday, September 13, 2013

Ted Cruz Dreams of a Jesse Helms Army

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I’ll tell you something … the very first political contribution I ever made in my life was to Jesse Helms. When I was a kid, I sent $10 to Jesse Helms, ’cause they were beating up on him, they were coming after him hard and I thought it wasn’t right, and at the time my allowance was 50 cents a week. I am willing to venture a guess that I may have been Jesse Helms’ single largest donor as a percentage of annual income.
We need 100 more like Jesse Helms.
~ Senator Ted Cruz speaking to the conservative Heritage Foundation, invoking the name of ultra-conservative ex-KKK member and late Senator Jesse Helms (R, NC)





















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Thursday, September 12, 2013

Vladimir Putin Contradicts Obama in NY Times ~ Now with Greenwald Smackdown and Dude Bro' Hayes


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Excerpt from the New York Times
. . . From the outset, Russia has advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future. We are not protecting the Syrian government, but international law. We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack — this time against Israel — cannot be ignored.

. . . My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Vladimir V. Putin is the president of Russia.

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From President Obama's Speech Syria 9-10-2013:
Moreover, we know the Assad regime was responsible. In the days leading up to August 21st, we know that Assad’s chemical weapons personnel prepared for an attack near an area where they mix sarin gas. 

The White House Responds to Putin
“That’s all irrelevant,” the White House official said in response. “He put this proposal forward and he’s now invested in it. That’s good. That’s the best possible reaction. He’s fully invested in Syria’s CW disarmament and that’s potentially better than a military strike – which would deter and degrade but wouldn’t get rid of all the chemical weapons. He now owns this. He has fully asserted ownership of it and he needs to deliver.”

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  But Putin's Words Ring True to Right-Wing Libertarian Cheering Section
(Greenwald and Breitbart's Shapiro Quoting the exact Same Line)






























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Glenn Greenwald Smackdown!















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Greenwald/Snowden Fan Chris "Dude Bro'" Hayes Weighs In




















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Monday, June 24, 2013

Snowden as Heroic Outlaw

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Previous Posts:
Snowden Stuck in Moscow
Snowden Odyssey: Hong Kong to Moscow
Edward Snowden and the Chinese Phoenix
Naomi Wolf Becomes Snowden Truther
Edward Snowden: Hero or Villain
Edward Snowden Releases NSA Secrets

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Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Edward Snowden and the Chinese Phoenix

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Previous Posts:
Edward Snowden Releases NSA Secrets
Edward Snowden: Hero or Villain?
Author Naomi Wolf Becomes Snowden Truther

I think he's a Traitor, and he's committed crimes in effect by violating agreements due to the contracts he had.
. . . I’m deeply suspicious because he went to China. That’s not a place where you would ordinarily want to go if you are interested in freedom, liberty and so forth. It raises questions whether or not he had that kind of connection before he did this.
I'm also concerned that he had help from inside the agency. Was there somebody else at NSA who had access to a lot of this stuff and passed it?
~ Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Fox News

I hope, I pray and I ask that you will not release any secrets that could constitute treason. I sense that you're under much stress [from] what I've read recently, and [ask] that you not succumb to that stress ... and make a bad decision.
. . . I would like to see Ed come home and face this. I shared that with the government when I spoke with them. I love my son.
~ Lonnie Snowden, father of Edward Snowden, on Fox News

I feel for the guy, and for what his life is going to become. I pity him.
He's in for a world of hurt, for the rest of his life. I feel sorry for him. He's going to go through life not being able to trust anybody. And I think that in the end, it'll end badly for him -- one way or another, they'll get their hands on him. He's going to pay for it. He's doomed.
. . . I don't know if he has an arrangement with the Chinese government. If he doesn't, I would be worried that the Chinese may deport him to the United States to gain some concession in return. I'd be terrified of that, if I were him. Who would trust the Chinese government? He is utterly vulnerable and knows that there are a lot of people who really want to hurt him now. If I were him, I would at this point probably be having second thoughts. Asking myself "What did I do? What have I brought down upon my head? Did I really do this?"
The fact is, he can never come back home.
~ Christopher Boyce, jailed and convicted Spy known as "Falcon" in the book and movie "Falcon and the Snowman" in an interview with CNN



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Excerpts from Edward Snowden's Question and Answer via Guardian UK, Moderated by Glenn Greenwald, June 18, 2013

. . . I'm being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

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Snowden: . . . the US media has a knee-jerk "RED CHINA!" reaction to anything involving HK or the PRC, and is intended to distract from the issue of US government misconduct. Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

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Snowden: . . . the US Government, just as they did with other whistleblowers, immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home, openly declaring me guilty of treason and that the disclosure of secret, criminal, and even unconstitutional acts is an unforgivable crime. That's not justice, and it would be foolish to volunteer yourself to it if you can do more good outside of prison than in it.

Second, let's be clear: I did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets. I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous. These nakedly, aggressively criminal acts are wrong no matter the target

All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.

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Snowden: I was debriefed by Glenn and his peers over a number of days, and not all of those conversations were recorded. The statement I made about earnings was that $200,000 was my "career high" salary. I had to take pay cuts in the course of pursuing specific work. Booz was not the most I've been paid.

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Snowden: More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ, the number of audited queries is only 5% of those performed.

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Question: MonaHol
17 June 2013 4:37pm
Ed Snowden, I thank you for your brave service to our country.
Some skepticism exists about certain of your claims, including this:
I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.
Do you stand by that, and if so, could you elaborate?

Snowden : Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time.

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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Edward Snowden: Hero or Villain?

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Previous Post:
Snark Amendment: Edward Snowden Releases NSA Secrets

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We should be thankful for individuals like Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald who see injustice being carried out by their own government and speak out, despite the risk. They have done a great service to the American people by exposing the truth about what our government is doing in secret.
~ Snowden's choice for President, Ex-Candidate Ron Paul, via Washington Post

Edward Snowden is no Hero
. . . Snowden is now at the mercy of the Chinese leaders who run Hong Kong. As a result, all of Snowden’s secrets may wind up in the hands of the Chinese government—which has no commitment at all to free speech or the right to political dissent. And that makes Snowden a hero?
~ Jeffrey Toobin on The New Yorker



(Snowden) has damaged national security, our ability to track down terrorists, or those with nefarious intent, and his disclosure has not made America safer.
~ Congressman Jim Langevin, D-Rhode Island, in New York Times

I don't look at this as being a whistleblower. I think it's an act of treason.
. . . He violated the oath, he violated the law. It's treason.
~ Senator Dianne Feinstein on The Hill

Edward Snowden is a hero
. . . Snowden is a hero because he realized that our very humanity was being compromised by the blind implementation of machines in the name of making us safe. Unlike those around him, who were too absorbed in their task to reflect on their actions and pause in their pursuit of digital omniscience, Snowden allowed himself to be "disturbed" by what he was doing.
More in the midst of technology than most of us will ever be, Snowden disengaged for long enough to be human and to consider the impact of what he was helping build. He pressed pause.
~ Douglas Rushkoff on CNN

He betrayed honesty and integrity, the foundation of all cooperative activity. He made explicit and implicit oaths to respect the secrecy of the information with which he was entrusted. He betrayed his oaths.
. . . He betrayed his employers. Booz Allen and the C.I.A. took a high-school dropout and offered him positions with lavish salaries. He is violating the honor codes of all those who enabled him to rise.
He betrayed the cause of open government. Every time there is a leak like this, the powers that be close the circle of trust a little tighter. They limit debate a little more.
He betrayed the privacy of us all. If federal security agencies can’t do vast data sweeps, they will inevitably revert to the older, more intrusive eavesdropping methods.
He betrayed the Constitution. The founders did not create the United States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions about what should be exposed. Snowden self-indulgently short-circuited the democratic structures of accountability, putting his own preferences above everything else.
~ David Brooks on New York Times


















































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Edward Snowden Releases #NSA Secrets

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Related Post:
Edward Snowden: Hero or Villain?

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From Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations by Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian
He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

. . . On May 20, he boarded a flight to Hong Kong, where he has remained ever since. He chose the city because "they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent", and because he believed that it was one of the few places in the world that both could and would resist the dictates of the US government.

. . . He left the CIA in 2009 in order to take his first job working for a private contractor that assigned him to a functioning NSA facility, stationed on a military base in Japan. It was then, he said, that he "watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in", and as a result, "I got hardened."
. . . Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA's surveillance activities were, claiming "they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them".

. . . He views his best hope as the possibility of asylum, with Iceland – with its reputation of a champion of internet freedom – at the top of his list. He knows that may prove a wish unfulfilled.
But after the intense political controversy he has already created with just the first week's haul of stories, "I feel satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets."



From Guardian Interview with Snowden
Q: Is it possible to put security in place to protect against state surveillance?

A: "You are not even aware of what is possible. The extent of their capabilities is horrifying. We can plant bugs in machines. Once you go on the network, I can identify your machine. You will never be safe whatever protections you put in place."

. . . Q: When did you decide to leak the documents?

A: "You see things that may be disturbing. When you see everything you realise that some of these things are abusive. The awareness of wrong-doing builds up. There was not one morning when I woke up [and decided this is it]. It was a natural process.
"A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama's promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor."

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From The New York Times

Mr. Snowden, who grew up in North Carolina, did not finish high school and sporadically attended classes at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Md. Military records show he enlisted in the Army Reserve as a Special Forces recruit in May 2004 and was discharged less than four months later, reportedly after breaking his legs in a training accident.
Somewhere along the way, he acquired a top-secret clearance, which, with his computer expertise, was a ticket for admission to the national security establishment....
. . . Mr. Snowden bounced between jobs both inside the government and as a contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency in Switzerland and for the National Security Agency in Japan, Maryland and Hawaii, according to his account. Eventually working for nearly $200,000 a year in classified facilities as a computer systems administrator, he had access to enormous amounts of secret information.

From Washington Post by Barton Gellman
. . . Verax was the name he chose for himself, “truth teller” in Latin. I asked him early on, without reply, whether he intended to hint at the alternative fates that lay before him.

Two British dissenters had used the pseudonym. Clement Walker, a 17th-century detractor of Parliament, died in the brutal confines of the Tower of London. Two centuries later, social critic Henry Dunckley adopted “Verax” as his byline over weekly columns in the Manchester Examiner. He was showered with testimonials and an honorary degree.

. . . I asked him, at the risk of estrangement, how he could justify exposing intelligence methods that might benefit U.S. adversaries.

“Perhaps I am naive,” he replied, “but I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents.” The steady expansion of surveillance powers, he wrote, is “such a direct threat to democratic governance that I have risked my life and family for it.”

In an e-mail on May 24, he dropped a bombshell. Whistleblowers before him, he said, had been destroyed by the experience. Snowden wanted “to embolden others to step forward,” he wrote, by showing that “they can win.” He therefore planned to apply for asylum in Iceland or some other country “with strong internet and press freedoms,” although “the strength of the reaction will determine how choosy I can be.”

. . . On Sunday afternoon, as his name was released to the world, Snowden chatted with me live from a Hong Kong hotel room, not far from a CIA base in the U.S. Consulate.

“There’s no precedent in my life for this kind of thing,” he wrote. “I’ve been a spy for almost all of my adult life — I don’t like being in the spotlight.”

I asked him once more which of the two Veraxes he expected to become: the happy ending or life behind bars?
“That’s up to the global public,” he typed back. “If asylum is offered, we’ll have the first example. If not, we’ll have the second. I am prepared for both.”

From Mother Jones
a spokesman for Anne Arundel Community College (AACC), located in southeastern Maryland, tells Mother Jones a student with Snowden's name and birthdate attended the college from 1999 to 2001 and then again from 2004 to 2005. He did not receive a certificate or degree, the spokesman, Daniel Baum, says.

But here's an interesting wrinkle: Baum says Snowden took no "cyber-related courses" at this college. Nor did he take any classes in the college's NSA-certified "Information Systems Security" program, which focuses on safeguarding computer data and networks, though he went on to work in a related field for the government and in the private sector. It's unclear whether Snowden studied computing elsewhere.
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