Sunday, April 20, 2014

Revolting Justice Scalia Urges Tax Revolt

photo 15whiskey.jpg
The Failed Whiskey Rebellion of 1794,
Squelched by George Washington's Troops

Previous Related Posts:
Supreme Court McCutcheon Ruling
#SCOTUS Brings Back Jim Crow
Rachel Maddow Calls Justice Scalia a Troll
Justice Scalia Says Voting Rights Act a Product of Racial Entitlement
Justice Scalia - Supreme Bigot

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Justice Antonin Scalia was talking to some Law Students at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and urged them to start an "Revolt" if their taxes go up. Yeah, that's good advice for a group in Law School! Justice Scalia seems to think he is back in Pre-Revolution Pre-TeaParty 'Merica. He must have learned history in the same school as Sarah Palin. He's no George Washington, that's for sure. But Scalia is definitely revolting.

From ThinkProgress
During an event at the University of Tennessee’s law school on Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia suggested to the capacity crowd that perhaps they should revolt against the U.S government if their taxes ever get too high.
During a question and answer part of the event, a student asked Scalia about the constitutionality of a federal income tax. Scalia assured the questioner that the tax was in fact permissible by the constitution, but added that if it ever became too high, “perhaps you should revolt.”
The remark, first reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel, has become a common rhetorical flourish for conservatives nationwide during the Obama presidency.

From Talking Points Memo
"You're entitled to criticize the government, and you can use words, you can use symbols, you can use telegraph, you can use Morse code, you can burn a flag," he told the students.
Scalia also said that he and other justices do not let politics influence their decisions, and that he believes that the U.S. Constitution is a fixed law.
"The Constitution is not a living organism for Pete’s sake,” he said. "It's a law. It means what it meant when it was adopted."

Scalia is a partisan hack who is serving a lifetime appointment on the highest court in the land. He may be the worst Supreme Court justice in the history of the nation, and now he is calling for people to disobey their government.
Antonin Scalia has got to go.
~ Jason Easley, PoliticusUSA

At what point does a Supreme Court justice agitating for a seeming violent revolution and calling on law students to put faith above state not make people wonder if we are (at least) tip-toeing around the line that is called 'treasonous'.
Imagine if the Dixie Chicks went on stage and called for a revolution against the US government over any issue..
~ tmservo433 on Dail Kos

So, lesson for all you kids and Tea Party delinquents out there: If you don’t like the law, just protest it with signs and symbols, or revolt against your country. But when it comes to voting and elections, or deciding our leaders and laws for ourselves, just leave all that up to your Supreme Court overlords. Wingnuts know best?
~ The Daily Banter

Something about "treason" This is so awful. No words to explain...A justice of the Supreme Court talking this way...
~ StuartG on Democratic Underground










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Friday, April 18, 2014

Putin and Snowden Chat about Surveillance

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Previous Related Posts:
All Hail the Snowden Pulitzer
Putin Shambles on Ukraine with Bizarro-World Press Conference
Snowden Evolves into Max Headroom for Ted Talk
Define Spy For Us ~ Greenwald and Snowden's Secrets
Snowden Finally Leaves Russian Airport
Snowden in Moscow Limbo
Crime or Punishment? Snowden Remains Stuck in Moscow Airport
Snowden the Heroic Outlaw

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President Vladimir Putin of Russia did one of his Q&A sessions on Live TV and guess who just happened to participate? His boy Edward Snowden, the spy most famous for stealing America's hi-tech secrets from the NSA. Once again Snowden appeared via live television, in a scene reminiscent of his recent "Max Headroom" appearance at a Ted Talk.

In a moment full of irony for the whole world but especially Europe right now, Snowden asked Putin if Russia uses surveillance. Yes, that really happened. As a child who grew up during the Cold War, the thought of asking a Russian Leader about oversight on citizens is a waste of a question. Of course they use surveillance! And Snowden knows good and well that every modern country has cameras everywhere. But the ultimate irony is that we are supposed to believe that Snowden asked that question of his own accord, and that none of it was a staged set-up to once again poke Obama in the eye. In the same live interview Putin proudly speaks of renaming Ukraine "Novorussia" - I guess Edward Snowden doesn't care about wars and aggression, as long as Putin doesn't have cameras everywhere. Oh wait - remember the Sochi Olympics when journalists and athletes discovered cameras in their rooms, even in the showers?

By the way, Ed - your friend Vlad is watching you right now.

From the New York Times
In a stunningly bold poke at the White House, the Kremlin arranged for Mr. Snowden, who is wanted on espionage charges, to ask Mr. Putin about Russia’s surveillance practices. Told there was a question from Mr. Snowden, Mr. Putin responded slyly, saying, “Well, how could we do without this?”

. . . “So I’d like to ask you,” he continued, “does Russia intercept, store or analyze in any way the communications of millions of individuals?”

Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. agent and director of the Russian intelligence service, played up their experience in spycraft.

“Mr. Snowden, you are a former agent,” the president replied. “I used to work for an intelligence service. Let’s speak in a professional language.”
“Our intelligence efforts are strictly regulated by our law,” Mr. Putin said. “You have to get a court’s permission first.” He noted that terrorists use electronic communications and that Russia had to respond to that threat.
“Of course we do this,” Mr. Putin said. “But we don’t use this on such a massive scale, and I hope that we won’t.”


After Twitter erupted with disbelief and mockery, Snowden responded - where else? - in the Guardian UK, a newspaper that just shared a Pulitzer Prize with Washington Post, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras for releasing Snowden's secrets to the public. According to Snowden he was trying to hold Putin to the same standards as the United States. Or you could see it another way - it was just another opportunity for Snowden to get face-time on TV for the "cause" of praising his rescuer Putin and shaming America from a nice hidey-hole in Russia.

Guardian UK
I was surprised that people who witnessed me risk my life to expose the surveillance practices of my own country could not believe that I might also criticise the surveillance policies of Russia, a country to which I have sworn no allegiance, without ulterior motive. I regret that my question could be misinterpreted, and that it enabled many to ignore the substance of the question – and Putin's evasive response – in order to speculate, wildly and incorrectly, about my motives for asking it.
The investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, perhaps the single most prominent critic of Russia's surveillance apparatus (and someone who has repeatedly criticised me in the past year), described my question as "extremely important for Russia". It could, he said, "lift a de facto ban on public conversations about state eavesdropping."














































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