BP - Time For a New WPA?

The Political Difference Between 7 and 23

Trey Smith

The White House, and most headline writers around the country, are crowing that the November jobless rate of 7.0%, reported Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the lowest since 2009 when President Obama took office, when it was 7.3% and rising.

But is this number really something worth cheering?

Not if you look behind it.

That 7.0% number is the BLS’s so-called U3 figure, which is the percentage of the labor force currently unemployed, and it is significantly lower than the figure for November 2012, which was 7.8%. But U3, known as the “official unemployment rate,” doesn’t really count everyone who is unemployed. It doesn’t include, for example, anyone who has even one hour a week of work, or who has not had a job for more than six months, or who in despair has given up looking.

A better number to look at, in terms of getting a true picture of the health of society and the economy, is the BLS’s U6 number, which also counts as unemployed those who are “marginally attached to the labor force,” meaning discouraged people who are not working and have given up looking for work, but who told BLS interviewers that they have looked within the past year and would take a job if one were available. U6 also counts as unemployed those who are currently working part-time for “economic reasons,” meaning that they want full-time work but cannot find it.

The U6 measure of unemployment for November is 13.2%, and while that too is down from 14.4% in November 2012, it is historically very high. Furthermore, as the analytical website ShadowStats points out, even U6 doesn’t tell the whole story. The BLS U6 figure, as ShadowStats’ John Williams notes, doesn’t count long-term discouraged workers -- people who have given up trying to find work because they cannot find a job. This group was “defined out of existence” by the BLS during the Clinton presidency in 1994. You can understand why that was done: adding these people to the total gives a current unemployment rate of a whopping 23% -- a number that, unlike the U3 and even U6, has been continuing to rise since the start of the so-called Great Recession in late 2008, even through the last four years of “economic recovery.”
~ from BLS 7% Jobless Rate for November is Nothing to Cheer About by Dave Lindorff ~

In the past, I have shared with you numerous snippets from Paul Craig Roberts who, like Lindorff above, draws attention to the work of John Williams at ShadowStats. It is not that Williams is some sort of magician or soothsayer; he merely takes the time to pore through the government's own data. Sadly, the mainstream media doesn't follow suit!

Because the mainstream media either is patently lazy OR they simply are in bed with the governmental elites, they continue to trumpet figures that don't do much justice to the situation.

Let's be honest here. Pretending that only 1 in 14 workers is unemployed is a far cry from admitting that it's really more like 1 in 4. But doctoring statistics has become the norm in this political climate. Bush did it and the Democrats decried it. Now Obama does it and the Democrats are silent.

MR - Corporatist Third Way Dems Exposed

With a Friend Like This...

Trey Smith

Remember a week or so ago when staunch NSA defender Sen. Dianne Feinstein became all "upset" that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been spied on? Feinstein announced that this was going too far and it had motivated her to introduce legislation to "reform" the nasty NSA. As it turns out, Feinstein has an odd way of defining the word, reform.

The legislation would make clear in no uncertain terms that communication records like phone, email, and internet data can be collected without even an ounce of suspicion, pursuant to the so-called privacy rules already in place. Being silent on other types of data like location information or financial records, it passively condones their collection too, but without even the benefit of the paltry protections in place now. For the first time in history, Congress would explicitly and intentionally authorize dragnet domestic spying programs targeting every day Americans.

The Feinstein bill also makes the current situation even worse. It gives the government a 72-hour grace period to warrantlessly spy on foreigners who enter the US, without even the attorney general approval that is currently required in emergency situations. It explicitly states that none of its provisions should be read to prevent law enforcement from digging through massive NSA databases for evidence of criminal activity. By doing so, it authorizes that specific practice in a roundabout way. Finally, it sets up the prospect of all members of Congress accessing important court orders and other information, but then undercuts this requirement by endorsing current rules and practices that have been used to prevent members of the House from reading foundational documents that could inform the votes they must make on whether to continue these programs.

I think we can call this doubling down! Not only does she not really want to reform anything, she wants to make a bad situation worse. She wants to provide the NSA with the legal permission to do whatever they want to. She wants to grant the NSA the ability to ignore the US Constitution outright.

It also should be remembered that Dianne Feinstein is a D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T, not some rabid conservative who doesn't trust the rabble. She supposedly is a leading member of a political party that historically stood up for the unwashed masses. Sadly, that Democratic Party is dead as a doornail. What we are left with is two parties that represent the same constituency -- the elite. No one is left to represent the rest of us.

TYT - Wall Street Deregulation After Government Shutdown Ends

TYT - How Republicans Win On Budget Cuts

Not So Fast

Trey Smith

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a longtime defender of the National Security Agency, unveiled plans Thursday for legislation designed to rein in some aspects of the NSA’s controversial domestic surveillance programs.

At a rare open hearing of the intelligence panel, Feinstein said her legislation would limit the NSA’s access to the so-called metadata it collects on Americans’ cell phone usage and would seek to codify the legal standard under which such data could be searched by NSA workers.

The legislation also would require the NSA to reveal more details about its use of the information it collects under two U.S. laws, the USA Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including making annual reports to Congress on how many times NSA searches its database of cell phone information.
~ from NSA Defender Feinstein Bows to Growing Political Pressure by Ali Watkins ~

Wow. If even Diane Feinstein is offering reform legislation, it must mean that the tide is turning in the halls of Congress, right?

Not. So. Fast.

Staunch defenders don't turn into opponents overnight. The job of a staunch defender is to minimize the damage that reform legislation might entail. While other members of Congress have floated legislative proposals with teeth, Feinstein wants to short circuit such attempts by offering legislation with few or no teeth at all. She wants to create the facade of reform without actually bringing about much of any substantive change.

And there is a crucial political reason to do this. As the two sides debate more substantive legislation, she can offer her bill as a "compromise" between the two sides. And let's face it. When the public is clamoring for change, most politicians want to appear as if they are listening -- they want to be re-elected, ya know. Consequently, legislation that sounds like substantive change, but really isn't, is very popular in such situations.

Mark my words. Feinstein's legislation will be among the most water-downed and open-ended of the various bills submitted. If you want to see the NSA reformed, it is the one bill you should not support.

So Brave and Yet So Timid

Trey Smith

Last week the US Senate held another hearing about the NSA and their mass surveillance programs. While most of the Senators lobbed softball questions at NSA officials, according to Glenn Greenwald, two asked more substantive questions -- Democrats Ron Wyden and Mark Udall -- and these two have been sort of warning the American public about NSA excesses for some time.

Those two spent years publicly winking and hinting that the NSA under President Obama was engaged in all sorts of radical and abusive domestic surveillance (although - despite the absolute immunity protection they enjoy as Senators under the Constitution - they took no action, and instead waited for Edward Snowden (who had no such immunity) to bravely step up and reveal to the American people specifically what these two Senators kept hinting at).

In a manner of speaking, these two Senators have acted so brave and yet so timid at the same time.

In terms of the elite Washington power brokers, they have been courageous. Though both have been encouraged by their colleagues and the President himself to keep their mouths shut, they have steadfastly drawn attention to the fact that what NSA officials and members of the Obama administration say is not altogether accurate. Basically, they have pointed out repeatedly that a lot of lies have been told without necessarily calling them lies.

But while one could characterize them as being brave in a limited sense, they concurrently have been chickenshit cowards! Though they have known the truth from the lies, they have hidden themselves behind the idea that they aren't allowed to discuss classified information in public. As Greenwald makes abundantly clear, this assertion simply isn't true! The US Constitution grants them virtual immunity for anything they say -- at the very least -- on the floor of the US Senate.

In others words, rather than hinting at improprieties, both have had numerous opportunities to spill the beans. They have had numerous opportunities to bring the truth to light. Despite these repeated opportunities, they each chose to duck for cover.

So, it is hard to pat them on the back for being cowardly heroes of democracy and transparency.

Which Team Is Which?

Trey Smith

I just had two discussions with neighbors in my suburb of Philadelphia that offer both a hope that the Republican-run House may block President Obama’s war on Syria, and a warning that liberal Democrats could hand him the narrow majority he needs to claim Congressional backing for his war.

The first conversation was with a neighbor whose family is fundamentalist Christian. Each national or statewide election, they enthusiastically back, including with roadside signs on their property, the Republican candidate, including McCain/Palin and Romney/Ryan.

We are friends with this family. The parents are very much do-it-yourselfers, home-schooling their three kids with the help of a religious-based home-schooling association in the area that helps organize some group activities, cutting their own firewood, raising chickens, etc. The kids are all very smart and open-minded, though both boys are attending religious colleges. But while we all get along well and like each other, we never talk politics.

That is, until yesterday, when the mother and I got onto the issue of the looming war on Syria. “This is terrible,” she said. “I thought at least that Obama was against this kind of thing. Didn’t he say he thought the war on Iraq was wrong? What’s going on?”

She wants to know what the US has to do with a civil war in Syria, and how bombing and killing Syrians is going to make anything any better in that country, or this one. And she said she thinks there are more important things to spend money on in the US, noting the terrible condition of education in neighboring Philadelphia, where class size in elementary schools is now 37, “with no teachers’ aides,” and where the school district is bankrupt.

I found myself thinking this woman sounded like me, and we parted casting shared aspersions on both political parties, which we agreed are not responding to the public’s views.

Then it was lunch with a several liberal friends. We very quickly found ourselves discussing what looks to be the next in this country’s unending string of wars, which have been a national constant at least since Pearl Harbor--and for all of our lives.

I was expecting to have a four-man rant about the insanity of a bombing attack on Syria, but was stunned when one of the men at the table, a sweet retired guy who I’m sure wouldn’t harm a fly, and who spent his life in the health care field, said, “I hope we go in and bomb Syria, and I hope we ‘take out’ Assad and his wife.”

Shocked, I asked, “What about his kids?”

He said, “Kids too. Kill ‘em all!”

A second guy, also a mellow fellow who has been very opposed to the wars, wasn’t quite so bloodthirsty in his sentiments, but said he was for bombing Syria too. “We can’t allow a country to use poison gas,” he said.

When I pointed out that it is not at all clear that President Bashar al-Assad’s government and military was responsible for the gas attack in Damascus, and that the administration’s case for blaming Assad and for going to war is full of lies, half-truths and conjecture, with no verifiable facts to support it, he scoffed. After all the government’s lies about Iraq, and lies about Afghanistan, and after a more than a decade of two wars that accomplished nothing except to destroy two countries with a combined population of almost 50 million people, he refused to believe that we are being lied to yet again.

“We have to do something,” he said plaintively, clearly either unaware or unwilling to acknowledge that there’s something obscene about a nation that poisoned millions of Vietnamese with the defoliant Agent Orange, that has strewn depleted uranium all across the cities of Iraq, that uses child-shredding anti-personnel weapons all the time and sells them on the global arms market, refusing to sign onto a global ban, and that continues to use napalm, a prohibited weapon, by simply changing an ingredient so it can claim it is something else, trying to claim it has the moral authority to punish another nation for allegedly using poison gas.

Only the third member of this group of friends, a retired Philadelphia teacher, agreed with me that an attack on Syria was nuts and will just lead to another disaster and another destroyed country.
~ from Anti-War Conservatives and War-Monger Liberals by Dave Lindorff ~

Some astute readers surely will note that some of the anti-war conservatives have taken that position solely because it is the opposite of Obama's position. I am confident that is the case for many, but I am also confident that several conservatives are anti-war for other reasons. What really gets me are the war-monger liberals. What is liberal about choosing war over diplomacy?

As I have pointed out many times before, this situation serves to underscore how the Obama presidency has destroyed the foundations of the Democratic Party. On issue after issue, Democrats are advocating and defending what once were Republican positions only a generation ago. It is weird to think that Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan are to the left of today's Democratic Party! If one of them sprang back to life to run in the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary, he would lose for not being conservative enough.

That is truly mind blowing.

We Need More Democrats Like Jeff Jarvis

Trey Smith

What are you thinking, Mr President?

Is this really the legacy you want for yourself: the chief executive who trampled rights, destroyed privacy, heightened secrecy, ruined trust, and worst of all, did not defend but instead detoured around so many of the fundamental principles on which this country is founded?

And I voted for you. I'll confess you were a second choice. I supported Hillary Clinton first. I said at the time that your rhetoric about change was empty and that I feared you would be another Jimmy Carter: aggressively ineffectual.

Never did I imagine that you would instead become another Richard Nixon: imperial, secretive, vindictive, untrustworthy, inexplicable.

I do care about security. I survived the attack on the World Trade Center and I believe 9/11 was allowed to occur through a failure of intelligence. I thank TSA agents for searching me: applause for security theater. I defend government's necessary secrets. By the way, I also defend Obamacare. I should be an easy ally, but your exercise of power appalls me. When I wrote about your credibility deficit recently, I was shocked that among the commenters at that great international voice of liberalism, the Guardian, next to no one defended you. Even on our side of the political divide, I am far from alone in urgently wondering what you are doing.

As a journalist, I am frightened by your vengeful attacks on whistleblowers – Manning, Assange, Snowden, and the rest – and the impact in turn on journalism and its tasks of keeping a watchful eye on you and helping to assure an informed citizenry.

As a citizen, I am disgusted by the systematic evasion of oversight you have supported through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts; by the use of ports as lawless zones where your agents can harass anyone; by your failure on your promise to close Guantánamo, and this list could go on.

As an American often abroad, I am embarrassed by the damage you have caused to our reputation and to others' trust in us. I find myself apologizing for what you are doing to citizens of other nations, dismissing the idea that they have rights to privacy because they are "foreign".
~ from As a Democrat, I Am Disgusted With President Obama by Jeff Jarvis ~

It is not enough for civil libertarians and folks like me (I didn't vote for Obama either time) to criticize the president. If there is ANY hope of him listening -- and, realistically, that hope is slim -- it must come from members of the Democratic Party. It must come from those who voted for him.

We need more Democrats like Jeff Jarvis. We need more Democrats, particularly those who serve in Congress, to tell the president that he is destroying the Democratic Party from the inside out. Today's Democratic Party is to the right of Richard Nixon's Republican Party! Under Obama's leadership, it may soon be to the right of Ronald Reagan's Republican Party!

How much further right can you rank-and-file Democrats stand to go? Will we soon come to the day when the Democratic Party will be to the right of Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann of 2012?

What We Need Is Some Real Political Courage

Trey Smith

The way our elected representatives in Congress tell it, courage is calling out the other side. When the Democratic President or other Democratic leaders support policies opposed by the GOP, Republicans say it is courageous to stand up against them. When the shoe is on the foot, Democrats say the same thing. The problem is that this really isn't courage at all -- it is partisanship. It is business as usual in the halls of politics.

Real courage is calling out those on your side when you believe they have gone astray. In the current Congress, real courage would be for Democratic representatives and senators to stand up against the wayward Obama administration and to do so without mincing words. (Likewise, it would have taken real courage for Republicans to call out President Bush.)

A Democratic leader standing up against the Obama administration would constitute genuine courage because there likely would be political repercussions. Behind closed doors, such a Democratic politician might be threatened with a loss of standing and access or blackmailed into supporting the President's policies. If these methods didn't work, the administration would try using the carrot instead of the whip. If you look the other way, we will provide the utmost support for one or more of your pet projects.

It typically takes real courage to go out on -- what might be -- a political limb. You may stand up with the idea that you are standing with others, only to discover the others have high-tailed it out of there and you are left standing all alone.

But that's what we need today. It's not enough to have the libertarian wing of the Republican Party opposing the growing police state in this country. Most people will view that as an example of run-of-the-mill partisanship. If, on the other hand, a few courageous Democrats stood up to say that the values of the Obama administration are not theirs and they will do everything within their power to rein in these overly broad surveillance programs -- President Obama's support for such, notwithstanding -- then we have a fighting chance of getting somewhere.

When I speak of real courage, please don't confuse that with the faux courage of someone like Sen. Ron Wyden (D - OR). Though he has spent the better part of the past 5 years warning that much was amiss with the implementation of various aspects of the Patriot Act, he hid behind the prohibition of being explicit. He says that the law prohibited him from telling what he knew -- ooh, the information is "classified" -- but that same law didn't stand in the way of Edward Snowden! Snowden showed real courage by consciously deciding to break the law to expose far more serious criminality.

Besides, if James Clapper, the Director of the NSA, can wantonly lie before Congress and not get in the slightest amount of hot water, do you really think the Capitol police would have arrested Sen. Wyden on the senate floor?

Very Strange Bedfellows

Trey Smith

If you pay any attention to the news, you know that John Boehner, Michele Bachmann, Eric Cantor, Darrell Issa and Paul Ryan are leading Republican congresspeople who rarely, if ever, have a good thing to say about President Barack Obama. On so many issues, these members of the GOP and others deride the president for being out-of-touch or out-of-step with the American people.  Some of them have even hinted that Obama is a socialist or, at least, a typical tax-and-spend liberal.

Yes, these leading conservatives are completely unable to find common ground with this nation's first black president...except when it comes to war and spying.  Bring up those two issues and you can find the aforementioned Republicans sitting around a campfire with Barack singing Kumbaya!

As has been noted before in this space, President Obama had to look to the leadership of -- not his own party -- but the Republicans to beat back an attempt to place some constraints on one NSA spying program.  Only 40 percent of the members of his own party sided with him, while his policy position was successful due to nearly 60 percent of Republicans backing up him up. 

Did you ever think the day would come when Michele Bachmann would be lauding the president?  (Me neither.)

But that wasn't the only telling aspect of this historic vote.  Jan Schakowsky of Illinois -- considered by many to be one of the most progressive members of Congress -- cast her vote to allow the NSA to continue to spy on Americans suspected of no wrongdoing.  So too did Marcy Kaptur, the woman who defeated Dennis Kucinich during 2012 in a race between two liberal Democrats forced to face off in a gerrymandered district primary.

When it comes to violating the constitutional rights of the people they ostensibly serve, we increasingly are seeing very, very strange political bedfellows.

~

Conor Friedersdorf has some advice in terms of this vote.  If you consider yourself a progressive, I hope you take it!

Is it appropriate in a free society for government to hoover up and store as much information on everyone as possible? Or should government only spy on Americans reasonably suspected of wrongdoing? Thanks to Tuesday's vote, which wouldn't have happened without Edward Snowden's leaks, voters now have their elected representatives on record about where they stand.

That is a vital thing in a democracy! Don't like the position they've taken? The next election is coming up in 2014. Personally, I'd like to see every last elected official who voted against this attempted reform ousted from office. I don't care if they're beat by primary challengers or in a general election. It seems to me that the American people should send a message to the NSA apologists: The U.S. has managed to flourish for decades without spying on all its citizens, and it should continue to do so. (emphasis mine)

One If By Land, Two If By Sea

Trey Smith

I am sure that most of our American readers are familiar with Paul Revere's Midnight Ride. As the story goes, Revere was to inform the sexton of a church in the Concord, Massachusetts area as to whether British troops were coming by land or sea (actually, the Charles River). The sexton was then to shine one or two lanterns to alert the citizens in the neighboring town of Charlestown. Revere was then to ride through the countryside warning friendly colonists along the way.

I mention this historic tale in reference to something currently in the news. Democratic Senators Ron Wyden (OR) and Mark Udall (CO) are being hailed by some because they have tried to warn citizens for years that something wasn't kosher about the NSA's various surveillance programs.

In my book, neither warrants being called a hero. Their so-called "warnings" were always vague and never included anything specific. When faced with protecting classified secrets versus defending the US Constitution, both chose the former. Even though both men indicated that they believed the US Constitution was being violated, neither showed the courage nor fortitude to stand up tall to tell the American people what the hell was going on. No, such courage was shown by Edward Snowden, not them!

Since Wyden has taken the lead on this issue, I thought I would illustrate this situation by replacing Paul Revere with him. Thus, that historic event might have gone something like this.

When Ron Wyden received the secret information from operatives, he decided to change plans. He went to the church of the sexton and stood up in the bell tower and yelled over and over again, "Somebody is coming. Somebody is coming." After a while, he attracted the attention of some area townspeople who came to the church to ask him some questions.

Wyden: Somebody is coming! Somebody is coming!

Person #1: Are the British troops coming?

Wyden: I didn't say it was the British. All I said is "someone."

Person #2: Okay, so who IS this someone?

Wyden: I am not at liberty to divulge that information.

Person #2: What do you mean by that?

Wyden: I mean, I can't tell you.

Person #3: Can you at least tell us if it is friend or foe?

Wyden: It is one or the other.

Person #1: What good is it to know if "somebody is coming" if you won't tell us who it is?

Wyden: Look, I'd really like to tell you, but I just can't.

Person #4: Can't you give us a little hint?

Wyden: Hmm. I can tell you that the someone who is coming is not currently here. Satisfied?

Person #3: What kind of answer is that! Of course, the people who are coming aren't here. If they were already here, then they wouldn't be coming!

Person #1: Can you tell us why they are coming?

Wyden: Sorry, but I can't tell you that either.

Person #2: Great! Somebody -- whose identity we don't know -- is coming and we don't know why this unknown somebody is coming.

Wyden: True, but you do know that somebody IS coming.

Person #1: Is this coming imminent, like tomorrow, or is it more like a few days from now?

Wyden: It could be in a few hours...or it could be next month.

Person #3: Well, which is it?

Wyden: I'm not at liberty to say.

Person #4: Could you at least tell us if this somebody is coming by land or water?

Wyden: I think it's one or the other, but it could be both.

Person #5: Alright. Let me see if I have this straight. Some unknown person or persons who are not here now is/are coming. You won't tell us when this somebody is coming. You won't tell us why this somebody is coming and you won't tell us how this somebody is coming. All you will tell is that somebody is coming.

Wyden: Yes! You've got it. I just wanted to warn you all that somebody is coming, so you wouldn't be caught off guard.

The townspeople decided that Wyden had consumed too much ale. They dispersed and went back to their homes. When the British troops showed up the next day, everyone was caught off guard. The rebellious colonist leaders were put in the stockade and the rebellion never recovered. Many generations later -- in 2012 -- one of Wyden's descendants was elected to the House of Commons as a representative of the North American British Colonies.

The Sickness of Partisanship

Trey Smith

The most vocal media critics of our NSA reporting, and the most vehement defenders of NSA surveillance, have been, by far, Democratic (especially Obama-loyal) pundits. As I've written many times, one of the most significant aspects of the Obama legacy has been the transformation of Democrats from pretend-opponents of the Bush War on Terror and National Security State into their biggest proponents: exactly what the CIA presciently and excitedly predicted in 2008 would happen with Obama's election.

Some Democrats have tried to distinguish 2006 from 2013 by claiming that the former involved illegal spying while the latter does not. But the claim that current NSA spying is legal is dubious in the extreme: the Obama DOJ has repeatedly thwarted efforts by the ACLU, EFF and others to obtain judicial rulings on their legality and constitutionality by invoking procedural claims of secrecy, immunity and standing. If Democrats are so sure these spying programs are legal, why has the Obama DOJ been so eager to block courts from adjudicating that question?

More to the point, Democratic critiques of Bush's spying were about more than just legality. I know that because I actively participated in the campaign to amplify those critiques. Indeed, by 2006, most of Bush's spying programs - definitely his bulk collection of phone records - were already being conducted under the supervision and with the blessing of the FISA court. Moreover, leading members of Congress - including Nancy Pelosi - were repeatedly briefed on all aspects of Bush's NSA spying program. So the distinctions Democrats are seeking to draw are mostly illusory.
~ from On Prism, Partisanship and Propaganda by Glenn Greenwald ~

It is so disheartening to watch Democrats rally around the President. The very same people who railed against Bush for undermining the privacy guarantees of the US Constitution, now cheer Obama for doing much the same thing and worse. It is this lack of commitment to principle that has exposed so-called liberals to be the craven political animals they truly are.

One of the lessons my parents taught me -- one that is taught by many parents -- is the notion that a foundational principle should be as strong as a rock. If you believe in a core value, then it doesn't matter who breaks it. A principle is something that doesn't bow to the god of convenience or expedience. If an action is deemed evil, immoral or unethical in one instance, it doesn't become good, moral or ethical if committed by someone you favor (or yourself). Principles like that are built upon sand!

In the case of widespread domestic spying, the mainstream Democratic Party position is based solely upon the windblown sand of partisanship. If a conservative president does it, ooh, that is as bad as bad can get. However, if it's their guy, then they don't even bat an eyelash. (Note: The same is true of Republicans as well.) What this situation has shown -- without the slightest pretense of doubt -- is that the concept of principle does not live in the halls of our federal government. When one of our leaders throws down a rhetorical gauntlet, it is nothing more than a passing mirage.

Consider, for example, the fact that the Democrats, during the Bush years, painted themselves as the last line of defense against the steadfast evisceration of our hallowed civil rights. Elect us, they said, and your constitutional rights will be protected. So, if they are real defenders, how could this happen?

The leading role of the Democrats in implementing the assault on democratic rights was on further display during Thursday’s congressional vote on the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act. The fiscal year 2012 NDAA, signed by Obama, contained provisions allowing for the indefinite detention of US citizens without due process.

An amendment submitted by Republicans to this year’s NDAA, which funds the military, says that nothing in US law can deny citizens the right to a court hearing. The amendment passed, with only three Democrats voting for it.

The NDAA amendment was a cynical maneuver that will have no effect on US policy and will almost certainly be stripped from the final version before it passes the Senate. A stronger version of the same amendment was rejected. Nevertheless, it exposes the Democratic Party’s full support for the destruction of democratic rights in the US.

Folks, it's all smoke and mirrors! There is almost no one left in power who is willing to stand up for principle anymore.

What Has Gotten Into Al Gore?

Trey Smith

You remember Al Gore, don't you? He served as Vice President under Bill Clinton for 8 years (1993–2001). Back then, he was a loyal centrist Democrat. Today, however, he almost sounds like a left wing commie -- at least compared to other leading Democrats!

On Friday, he spoke out about two major issues: the Keystone XL Pipeline and the revelations about the NSA. He did not laud President Obama by offering weak nudges. He didn't fall all over himself trying to concoct excuses for why Obama seems to be moving in the wrong direction. No, he voiced his objections strongly.

As reported in The Guardian, here is what Al had to say about the pipeline project.

Al Gore has called on Barack Obama to veto the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, describing it as "an atrocity".

The former vice-president said in an interview on Friday that he hoped Obama would follow the example of British Columbia, which last week rejected a similar pipeline project, and shut down the Keystone XL.

"I certainly hope that he will veto that now that the Canadians have publicly concluded that it is not safe to take a pipeline across British Columbia to ports on the Pacific," he told the Guardian. "I really can't imagine that our country would say: 'Oh well. Take it right over parts of the Ogallala aquifer', our largest and most important source of ground water in the US. It's really a losing proposition."

No equivocating there. No mealy-mouthed platitudes either. He basically threw down a gauntlet.

Turning to The Guardian again, here is what Mr. Gore had to say about spygate.

The National Security Agency's blanket collection of US citizens' phone records was "not really the American way", Al Gore said on Friday, declaring that he believed the practice to be unlawful.

In his most expansive comments to date on the NSA revelations, the former vice-president was unsparing in his criticism of the surveillance apparatus, telling the Guardian security considerations should never overwhelm the basic rights of American citizens.

He also urged Barack Obama and Congress to review and amend the laws under which the NSA operated.

"I quite understand the viewpoint that many have expressed that they are fine with it and they just want to be safe but that is not really the American way," Gore said in a telephone interview. "Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that those who would give up essential liberty to try to gain some temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Once again, Al isn't pulling punches. He is staring the Obama administration in its grill and challenging them to live up to their own rhetoric.

Rather than following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, it appears Al is borrowing a page from the Jimmy Carter playbook. Carter was only a so-so president, but he's been a great ex-president. Al Gore is turning into a really darn good ex-vice president!

TYT - Gay Activists Call Out Obama - 'No More Excuses'

The Legacy of Barack W. Obushma

Trey Smith

Ooh, the shit is really hitting the fan now. Not only have we received confirmation that our federal government is spying on ALL Verizon customers, but according to Senator Diane Feinstein, the government has been doing so since 2006!! This means that the original request came during the administration of George W. Bush and that the Obama administration has renewed the request all throughout HIS presidency. In other words, the rights of Verizon customers have been violated for 7 years with no end in sight!

Why are the customers of Verizon being singled out for such shoddy treatment? Are they potentially more dangerous than the customers of their rivals?

Of course not and this leads to an obvious conclusion. While we have the paperwork in hand to prove that Verizon has been compelled legally to hand over this information, the government is compelling the same thing from all other communications companies. And, most likely, they have been doing it since 2006.

What this means is that every phone call, text, email, tweet and who knows what else from almost every person who resides in the United States is being collected by our secretive "democratic" government. All this information is being stored in giant databases and countless numbers of people are analyzing it. It means that the right of privacy has been shredded beyond belief. If recent reports are accurate, all three branches of the federal government have been in on this evisceration of the 4th Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

Why has the 4th Amendment been so vilely compromised? According to government officials, it is to keep us safe. They need this dastardly "tool" to protect us.

And yet, according to the government, two young men (who the FBI was familiar with) allegedly planted bombs at the Boston Marathon which killed and injured hundreds of people. With all this information at the government's disposal, these two fellows supposedly nonchalantly walked into a crowded area and committed a terrorist act and, at least initially, the government was clueless as to who was responsible. What good is it to collect all this information if it doesn't allow the government to thwart supposed terrorist acts BEFORE they happen?

In my view, the primary reason the government is collecting this data has little to do with terrorism. I'm not suggesting it has nothing to do with terrorism, only that this is not the chief motivation. It smacks of a strategy to quell political dissent by putting everyone on notice that almost nothing we think or do anymore is private. US Constitution be damned!

Republicans have so desperately wanted a scandal and this is a scandal of gargantuan proportions. It is so big, in fact, that impeaching a large number of the political participants won't do the situation justice, though it would certainly be a good start. What the American people should do is to punish EVERY politician who has been a party to this -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- by voting ALL OF THEM out of office when they come up for reelection, if not sooner.

A Brand New (Old) Idea

Trey Smith

Jeffrey St. Clair is right to deplore the current low level of activity of the US left in his article, “The Silent Death of the American Left”.

St. Clair’s article omits the recent Occupy Movement, whose sudden and spontaneous emergence shows the potential for unrest lurking below the surface. But without an organization or a strategy, Occupy has disappeared. The potential is still there, because the profound problems that plague most Americans have not been solved or even ameliorated.

What is missing? A left electoral presence. To most Americans, politics means elections. But the Left lacks electoral representation.

There are a few exceptions: Bernie Sanders is a US Senator, while Dennis Kucinich served honorably for sixteen years in the House. But someone may object, what good does it do to have a Senator on our side?

Not long ago, Bernie Sanders took the floor of the Senate to read a list of dozens of big corporations who paid no income tax, and some even got tax credits. Hillary Clinton wouldn’t do that, nor would Mitch McConnell. Instead of debating whether taxes are too high or not high enough, the Left ought to point out who pays taxes – and who doesn’t. “Only little people pay taxes,” proclaimed real-estate queen Leona Helmsley, and she was right.

Sanders and Kucinich got elected without any organized Left to help. If the Left that took seriously the task of building a left electoral presence, that would entail examining every Congressional District in the country, weighing the electorate, the incumbent, the prospects for recruiting a left candidate, and the prospects for winning. It would entail teaching ourselves to explain the left perspectives to the electorate.

What we’ve been doing just does not work in building a left electoral presence:

1. Instead of recruiting our own candidates, we wait until the usual cast of opportunists and careerists get themselves nominated, then hold our noses and work for the lesser of the two evils.
2. We focus on the race for the White House, not Congress or Senator or state legislator.
3. A third party doesn’t work. The system is rigged against third parties. It costs a lot of effort just getting on the ballot. Then as election day approaches, voters realize that voting for the third party will help the Republican candidate win, and the third party fails.

Instead, I propose, in Democratic districts, to recruit and run our own candidate in the Democratic primary. That’s a strategy that actually aims at winning.
~ from The Left’s Missing Ingredient by John W. Farley ~

This is, by no means, a new idea. This is the kind of strategy that Democratic Socialists of America has advocated for decades. My feelings about this proposed strategy are ambivalent, at best.

On the one hand, the third party experiment in the US has failed to gain any significant traction. I do not write this as an outsider. For 15 years, I was involved in third party politics both as a state officer AND candidate for public office. However, after 15 years of tireless work, I honestly can't say that we or others had made much of ANY progress. Every two years we trotted out our slate of candidates and every two years we struggled to garner as much as 5 percent of the vote!

As Farley notes, our political system is rigged against third parties and that hasn't and won't change. So, third parties and their candidates work like dogs and rarely have anything to show for it!

On the other hand, Farley's strategy is far too simplistic and naive. Money is what drives politics and that is what most every truly progressive candidate lacks. Without the requisite millions of dollars in a campaign war chest, progressive candidates can't compete. Sure, they can throw their hat into the primary, but chances are great that they will be trounced. What difference would it make to run as a Democrat in the primary and struggle to garner as much as 10 percent of the vote versus running as a third party candidate in the general election and struggling to garner 5 percent of the vote? Such results equate to almost the same thing!

Until we get money OUT of politics -- which won't happen because it serves the politicians IN politics so well -- it really doesn't matter whether one tries to run inside or outside of the established system. This is why I think the answer lies outside of politics. Really, how do you reform a system that is rotten to its core?

That Was Then, But This Is Now, Part 2

Trey Smith

As I am still dealing with a very nasty head cold, I'm having difficulty writing much of anything that would be considered halfway cogent. So, in this post plus the previous one this afternoon, I will share portions of a recent Glenn Greenwald column that underscores just how partisan partisanship can be!

It was announced yesterday that this very same James Comey - who as Bush's Deputy Attorney General authorized the once-very-controversial, patently illegal Bush NSA eavesdropping program - is President Obama's choice to be the new Director of the FBI.

How are Obama's most devoted media loyalists reacting to the news that he is about to put in charge of the FBI the Bush lawyer who authorized the illegal NSA warrantless eavesdropping program based on warped right-wing legal theories? Exactly as you would expect. Here's one of them - who wrote post after post after post in 2006 and 2007 vehemently denouncing the NSA program which Comey authorized and the theories on which it was based - hailing Comey as "not only non partisan in [his] job but consistently put constitutional equities at center [of his] thinking".

It is true that Comey was at the center of a dramatic Bush-era political controversy that earned him praise from many Bush critics, including me. Comey was one of the Bush DOJ lawyers who, along with Ashcroft, Goldsmith, and FBI Director Robert Mueller, had threatened to resign if Bush did not modify the NSA program in order to make it legal in Comey's eyes, and he then went to the hospital where Ashcroft was quite ill to prevent then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and then-White House chief of staff Andy Card from bullying the infirm and barely cogent Attorney General into signing off on the legality of the NSA program.

In other words, there was something the NSA was doing for years - that we still don't know - even more extreme than the illegal NSA program revealed by the NYT in 2005. It was Comey, along with Ashcroft, Mueller, and Goldsmith, who threatened to resign if it did not stop, and they deserve credit for that. But the reason they didn't end up resigning was because Bush officials "modified" that NSA program into something those lawyers could and did endorse: the still-illegal, still-radical NSA eavesdropping program that spied on the communications of Americans without warrants and in violation of the law. And this was accomplished by inventing a new legal theory to accompany the old one: that Congress, when it enacted the 2001 AUMF, silently and "implicitly" authorized Bush to eavesdrop in exactly the ways the law expressly forbade.

Thus, it was Comey who gave his legal approval to enable that NSA eavesdropping program to spy on Americans without warrants: the same program that produced so much outrage and scandal when revealed by the NYT. How can any progressive who spent the Bush years vehemently denouncing that domestic spying program as the symbol of Bush radicalism and lawlessness now cheer when the lawyer who approved it is about to be put in charge of the FBI?
~ from Obama's New FBI Chief Approved Bush's NSA Warrantless Wiretapping Scheme by Glenn Greenwald ~

In case you still don't get it, Corney was a bad guy when he was on Team Bush, but now he has magically been transformed into a good guy with a white hat simply because he is set to join Team Obama. It's the same guy with the same bad policies and yet here we are!

What They (Really, Really, Really) Intended All Along

Trey Smith

Step into my time machine. We are going back to those frenetic days of...late February 2013. Having supposedly made a deal with the devil during the negotiations over raising the debt ceiling in 2011, it was time for Congress and the White House to face the music. Looming before them was this thing called the sequester, an almost across-the-board significant reduction in federal spending. Supposedly the sequester was like a doomsday machine -- one that neither political party would want to see deployed.

As this article from CBS news reported back then, "Everybody bought in, but nobody wants to claim ownership." Both political parties worked fervently to try to pin the blame for the sequester on the other. While the blame game took center stage, neither party made much of any effort to avoid the deadline and so the sequester went through as scheduled.

Since that time, no one has tried to reverse it. In fact, it is no longer an important issue in the beltway anymore. It is accepted by both parties as a given. This lack of interest should tell us something. It should tell us that the sequester is not something they genuinely wanted to avoid; it is what they really, really, really intended all along.

You see, they simply couldn't come out to say this. While politics predominantly is controlled by and for the elites, average American voters do play a key role. If the electorate becomes sufficiently upset, then the chance theoretically exists that they might throw their support to renegade candidates. That might mean that some members of the ruling junta could be voted out of office and replaced with enough individuals to muck up the system that patently favors the elites.

So, they had to create a spectacle. They had to create the illusion that neither party wanted the sequester and was forced into it by the recalcitrance of the other. The leaders of the [ostensible] two sides clamored up on their soapboxes to wage a war of rhetoric. They threw around their words like darts. They huffed and they puffed and eventually did nothing. And so, austerity came to America like a wolf in sheep's clothing. The American people got leveled by it before they even knew what hit them.

This gambit was a bit of a gamble, but the elites had already succeeded with a dry run experiment and so they were really confident that they could pull this off.

The experiment? Back during the mid-term elections after Obama's "stunning" victory, the GOP came up with a strategy to retake the House of Representatives. On the campaign trail, the number one issue of their candidates was jobs, jobs, jobs. Elect us, they said, and getting this nation back to work will be our number one priority. This tack worked. The GOP easily took back the House. Once back in the majority, the GOP advanced numerous issues, but the one issue they never got around to addressing was.......jobs. To this day, they have introduced NO legislation that directly addresses the employment crisis.

Of course, they blamed the Democrats for this "failure" and the Democrats blamed them. Both sides engaged in a war of words, but just as they would later do with the sequester, both sides accepted a lack of meaningful jobs legislation as a given. In no time at all, the issue disappeared from the radar screen.

I hope you are able to discern a pattern here. The sequester is not some train wreck that either the Democrats or Republicans truly tried to avoid. It was an elaborate masquerade that has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Now that they know that this strategy works, there will be more train wrecks on the horizon that they somehow won't be able to "avoid" either and they will keep engaging in this charade UNTIL the public awakens from its collective stupor!