Friday, June 07, 2013

'Toontime: In the Shadow of Old Dick

[credit: J.D. Crowe, Mobile Register]
Wackydoodle sez: He ain't named Hold'er for nutin!
The press scandal continues to simmer in the increasing Washington humidity (its not the heat) much to the delight of Repugnants. Democrats are ripping Attorney General Holder for putting B. O'Drama in range of the scandal mongers. Holder is himself under investigation for perjury during his testimony last month about the subpoenaing of news media phone records. He said under oath he was never involved in a subpoena of news media phone records. But later reports revealed Holder did sign off on a decision to approve a search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosen. Video of May 29, 2013 testimony.

Meanwhile back at the fundraiser, high-maintenance Michelle 'FLOTUS' O'Drama backed down an irate lesbian heckler "looking for federal equality before I die" with intimidating power poses and an ultimatum to the crowd. US Person thinks with dysfunctional associates like these the Current Occupant will need another war to survive his second term! The shadow of Nixon looms ever larger*:

[credit: Nate Beeler, Columbus Dispatch]
Wackydoodle axes: Where's the gap?

*Just as in the days of Tricky Dick, there is massive domestic surveillance being conducted in the name of national security.  The difference is that this time Congress has ostensibly authorized the spying by virtue of its ill-conisdered license to the executive branch to conduct a "War on Terror" by any means necessary (the so-called Patriot Act). Verizon was ordered by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to turnover on a "daily on-going basis" the records of all landline and mobile telephone calls of its customers.  This order was disclosed by the British newspaper, The Guardian, not an American paper. It is likely that similar orders are in place for other major phone companies. The Current Occupant defends the program saying the spying is necessary to protect American lives and that the intrusion is minimal since private conversations are not monitored unless there are indications of terrorist "communities of interest" in which case a wiretap would be requested. Verizon has 121 million customers according to its first quarter report. Civil libertarians say the program is destroying Americans' constitutionally protected right to privacy. That's because amassing telephony "metadata" on an individual can enable a spy service to construct an accurate and intrusive picture of a person's private life without warrant or notice. And that's not all! The NSA has direct access to supposedly private information on Google, Facebook, Apple and other major internet service companies. The program code-named "Prism" allow spys to collect material including search histories, e-mail contents, file transfers and live chats. Uncle Sam may not be listening to your phone calls, but he is reading your e-mail!