Category Archives: defense contractors

If you have nothing to hide…

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common dreams has this up on the Obama Administration continuing to not enlighten us.  This is such a dangerous precedent–our democracy is based on many checks and balances to keep any one person from having too much power.  As the saying goes, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It’s just mindboggling that American citizens are having their right to privacy being stripped away — being “guilty” before being proven innocent — but those in positions of power are increasingly unaccountable towards those same Americans.

 

Anonymous connection to cyber stealth stealing

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Well, this is….interesting.  The comments are interesting, as well, as they point out that Anonymous released all of these emails and personal information.  But is it THE Anonymous? And which members of Anonymous?  This is just too, too, cloak and dagger for my taste…

Selling of the war

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Rachel Maddow has a special out on the selling of the Iraq War.  Unfortunately, I’m at a computer with no sound today, so I can’t listen to this piece.  I hope that she holds Hillary Rodham Clinton accountable, and the other dems who were all too happy to go along with the charade.

The big eye in the sky

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common dreams has this up on the move by the FAA to allow drones to spy on your every move. (Note that this is a Friday news dump–they save the most worrisome news for Fridays, hoping that it will, ahem, fly under the radar.

How detached does an engineer have to be to joke about the ability to spy on people in their backyards?  What the hell gives them the right?

 

Speaking of Scam Artists

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PR Watch.org has this up on the gerrymandering in Wisconsin.

From the article:

In early February of 2012, GOP legislators released multiple documents, but continued to keep around 84 emails confidential. The three judges — two of them appointed by Republican presidents — again criticized the Republican legislators for “an all but shameful attempt” to keep documents secret, writing:  “Without a doubt, the Legislature made a conscious choice to involve private lawyers in what gives every appearance of an attempt — albeit poorly disguised — to cloak the private machinations of Wisconsin’s Republican legislators in the shroud of attorney-client privilege.”

And…incredibly:

According to the documents that were released, Republican legislators signed a pledge of secrecy during the redistricting process and were told to ignore what GOP leaders said publicly about the new election maps.

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What is this, high school or college where you make secret pledges?  Seriously?? Does this mean they get double secret probation?

Note that some emails obtained by Center for Media and Democracy  were not released to the lawyers challenging the maps.  Just incredible!

I think this is why Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the tea partiers are so baffled that they lost the election….how could they lose when they’ve worked so hard against the democratic process??

 

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More on ALEC sponsors here.

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And, lastly, ALEC and the electoral college here.  They just can’t figure out enough ways to demolish the democratic process….

 

 

More on Education

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…wow, there’s something going on when there are so many education posts in 24 hours.

Link here and here .

I should mention the connection between the Bushes and the McGraw-Hill publishing house that publishes education texts and materials.

I picked up my college history book to look at the reference to Ronald Reagan again.  It was a glowing report on him without much critical analysis of his actions nor was it all inclusive of his destruction of the Fairness Doctrine, unions, consolidation of the media markets, etc. I looked at the publisher: McGraw-Hill .

More on the profiteering by the Bushes here.

Yep, where there’s money to be made and destruction of society…you’ll find the Bushes and Cheneys….

Freedom town

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Jon Stewart takes a look at the Freedom Towns being promoted by the fundamentalist/conservatives.  Wow.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-29-2013/america-2–now-with-more-freedom—a-glenn-beck-holiday

In the beginning of this segment, when they are just outlining what it is about, I’m thinking….they’re talking Communes?

Well, okay, not exactly communes, where everybody is supposed to share food and chores and stuff, but yeah, this comes pretty close to it, by demanding residents adopt the same narrow view.

The thing is…it’s not that far from Communism, which requires everyone be the same—by discouraging independent thought and creativity and action.  (And I wonder what they do with someone who loses their job and becomes homeless in this Utopia? Or *gasp* someone who develops an independent thought and starts expressing liberal ideals…?)

And to link into the previous post on the Fourth Amendment–it along with the First Amendment are parts of the Constitution that kept us from becoming Communist China, Communist Russia, and Nazi Germany.  Without them, we’re toast.

So…..you would think that the conservatives would be fighting like the despised liberals to preserve them.

Why aren’t they??