ALL the President's men

AG Garland said the lessons of Watergate teach us that there must NOT be different rules for the powerful & the powerless. Given the bottom-up nature of criminal investigations, the relatively powerless - Trump’s foot soldiers - are being held accountable. Next up? The powerful.

— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) January 5, 2022

Republican = Racist

Peace,

emaycee

 

Follow the money

Raskin to CNN: "You don’t knock over the US Capitol and wound 140 officers and storm the capitol and lay state of siege to the congress without any money being behind it.... Lots of money was raised and we do intend to get to the bottom of the financial dimension of this attack." pic.twitter.com/ssD8wPQw5h

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 23, 2021

The Republican Party Is Now a Fascist Cult Just Like Nazi Germany

Peace,

emaycee

 

Me and the eff, bee, aye

One of the problems I have had with all the teeth gnashing over the NSA revelations is that I just can't imagine--and this could be because I don't take myself or my existence all that seriously--they really give two shits about 99% of us.  I mean really--most of us live a life that is just slightly more exciting than that of a turtle at a nearby pond resting regularly on a piece of driftwood floating in the middle.  And some of us don't even top that kind of excitement (you know who you are).  Doesn't mean I think the spying programs are hunky-dory, just means I can't get as worked up as some people do.

For shits and grins, I decided to send in a Freedom of Information/Privacy Act request to the FBI (surprisingly, you can't send one to the NSA...hmmmm...).  Now, I would have been stunned had I shown up on any watch lists--other than a handful of traffic tickets, none of them egregious, I have had zero run-ins with any kind of law enforcement.  Nor do I run around threatening to blow up government (or any other kind of) buildings.  For the last thirty-two years I've had a family to support, and while Susan Sarandon can get arrested for forming a human chain in front of Wendy's to protest their use of chicken factory farms, I can't.  No work, no kids eating, very unhappy mothers of children.

My request came back this week, and surprise of surprises, I am not on any watch lists...but...I did find these couple of passages in my official letter from the FBI a bit disconcerting.  Pardon the legalese, I'm quoting:

"By standard FBI practice and pursuant to FOIA exemption (b)(7)(E) and Privacy Act exemption (j2) [5 U.S.C. 552/552a (b)(7)(e), (j)(2)] this response neither confirms nor denies the existence of your subject's name on any watch lists."

And:

"For your information, Congress excluded three discrete categories of law enforcement and national security records from the requirements of the FOIA.  See 5 U.S.C. 552(c) (2006 & Supp. IV (2010).  This response is limited to those records that are subject fo the requirements of the FOIA.  This is a standard notification that is given to all our requesters and should not be taken as an indication that excluded records do, or do not, exist."

What the fuck?  Anyone familiar with All the President's Men would have to call this a non-denial denial.  For fuck's sake, what's so hard about either yes, dipshit, you are on a watch list, or, no, numbnuts, you aren't?

While I still sincerely doubt the FBI or NSA has any photos of the Beautiful Girl and I doing the midnight two-step, you can certainly see why no one--on either the left or the right--would want to trust these bastards.  After reading my letter, and the gobbledygook in the two passages above, where my government can't even give an ordinary, law-abiding citizen like me a straight answer, I know I don't.

Transparency indeed.

Peace,
emaycee

Tarnished forever

In the 1970s, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein worked journalistic magic and exposed the corrupt Nixon administration which eventually (and rightfully) brought his Presidency to an abrupt and fitting end in August of 1974.  Their work justified--not that it was needed--the inclusion of the right to a free press in our Bill of Rights, and may very well be the greatest journalistic episode in the history of America.  It resulted in a book, All the President's Men, which is the book that began my fascination with American politics that lasts to this day.

In fairness, it would be virtually impossible for Woodward and Bernstein to ever top their first big story.  Bernstein may have realized this when he walked away, but Woodward kept pushing forward.  It eventually resulted in his first big failure, Bush at War, which was basically literary fellatio of Bush the Lesser, conerning the wars he presided over in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which are remarkable only for their abject failure (a fact that never seemed to dawn on Woodward).

This week Woodward topped himself, going on Fox News and whining about how he had been "threatened" by Gene Sperling of the Obama administation in an e-mail concerning the current republican created fiscal crisis in Washington.  Woodward proceeded to release a copy of  the e-mail in question to the press, which was a colossal failure on par with Custer thinking he was going to kick the Native Americans' asses all the way back to their tepees.  The e-mail showed nothing even close to being a "threat" and even had conservative publications backing off the Woodward story almost immediately.

Perhaps Woodward realized his days as a journalistic superstar are long gone and wanted to cash in on Fox News, who will pay anyone remotely connected to politics, regardless of their political acumen (see also Karl Rove, Dick Morris, Sarah Palin), as long as they trash President Obama and/or Democrats.  I don't really know what he hoped to accomplish, but what he did was tarnish his reputation beyond repair.

Carl Bernstein may be a rat prick bastard, but at least his journalistic integrity is still intact.

Peace,
emaycee