Obomber

Brought to you by the Nobel Peace Prize Prez:

Kerry Makes It Clear: Obama Wants Authority to Deploy Ground Troops in Iraq and Syria   

by Sarah Lazare

"The 2001 AUMF has been stretched well beyond what Congress intended, and there is no reason to believe the 2015 AUMF will not as well." —Marjorie Cohn, Thomas Jefferson School of Law. 

But, as usual, for know-nothing Democrats -- as bad as the know-nothing Republicans they love to decry -- Obama can do no wrong.

I used to say, back when Bush was president, that, for the Republican faithful, he would have to personally go up in a plane, bomb American cities, deny it, and still his supporters wouldn't shake their faith in him. They would find a way to make excuses. Well, the same is true for party Democrats now. 

The overwhelming sentiment of voters in this country is: "It's all okay, as long as my guy is doing it." 

And then we have the spectacle of former anti-war activist John Kerry leading the charge! The hypocrisy of this country is off the charts.

More TSA Crime - Blogger not updating, so Master List continues here

Blogger is still messed up, so I can't update the Master List of TSA Crimes and Abuses (see tab at top of page). I've tried dozens of times over the past couple of weeks, and no matter how many times I type the info in and hit "Update," it doesn't save the changes. So I'm just going to start continuing the list in posts such as this one.

UPDATE APRIL 9, 2015: I've started a Page 2 of the Master List, so now these incidents have been added:

Man abused by TSA, jailed by cops; TSA agent lies under oath

by LISA SIMEONE on FEBRUARY 4, 2015

HTTP://TSANEWSBLOG.COM/15515/NEWS/MAN-ABUSED-BY-TSA-JAILED-BY-COPS-TSA-AGENT-LIES-UNDER-OATH/

Another TSA agent charged with child sex abuse

by LISA SIMEONE on FEBRUARY 13, 2015

HTTP://TSANEWSBLOG.COM/15568/NEWS/ANOTHER-TSA-AGENT-CHARGED-WITH-CHILD-SEX-ABUSE/

Another TSA sexual predator

by LISA SIMEONE on FEBRUARY 19, 2015

HTTP://TSANEWSBLOG.COM/15583/NEWS/ANOTHER-TSA-SEXUAL-PREDATOR/

Another TSA agent charged with child sex abuse

Today we have news of yet another TSA agent arrested for child sexual abuse. 

Democrats and Republicans

Whistleblower John Kiriakou Finally Freed (kinda, sorta)

Former CIA employee and torture whistleblower John Kiriakou has been freed after almost two years in prison. He is the only American who has served prison time in the (on-going) U.S. torture scandal. While Dick Cheney, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, John Rizzo, and other assorted psychopaths walk free -- and, in fact, are sought out and promoted by the so-called news media -- Kiriakou went to jail for exposing the U.S. torture program. 

The K Chronicles: Keith Knight on Your Rights

Political cartoonist Keith Knight:

Another TSA abuse, another day in the USA

Unfortunately, Blogger is on the fritz and has been for days, so I can't update the Master List of TSA Crimes and Abuses (see menu at top of the page -- Pages 1 and 2 both). I give up. So here's an addition (along with my reply to her) that might someday be added to the list, if Blogger ever gets its act together. From February 2, 2015:

Trish24 • 2 days ago

I may never fly again and I am serious thank you TSA. I was TSA prechecked but my hands got wanded and supposedly something showed up. My carryons were totally dumped out including my wallet I was taken to a room for full pat down..breast, groin they reached inside my pants...degrading, humiliating and frightening..I am a 63 year old woman with high blood pressure they are lucky I didn't stroke out! As I tried o repack my carryons and tuck in my shirt I heard the agents state that I was the fifth false positive that morning and they knew the wand was defective. Not going back to RSA Fort Meyers!

Julian Assange and Wikileaks

TSA Watch – Start Up Funding

A new organization to fight the TSA is starting up, and you can help. 

Lanaguage Freak

This is an op-ed I wrote for the Baltimore Sun back in 2005. I wanted to call it "Language Freak," but of course the copy editor didn't. He/she/they/whoever changed it to what you see below. Anyway, since I'm a linguaphile, and have all sorts of language pet peeves, I thought I'd republish it here:  

In need of 'proactive' translator  

By Lisa Simeone 

Originally published January 31, 2005  

SOMETHING IS happening to my friends. Even my most trusted, down-to-earth, sensible friends. Slowly, over time, they've forgotten how to speak English. 

Ted Rall: Democrats Make A Difference

Once again, the great Ted Rall. As always, click to enlarge.

Psychopaths on Parade

Well-regulated militias of the USA

Free Speech My Ass

Well, I thought it was only Dieudonné who'd been arrested in France for speech, as I wrote earlier today. Now it turns out that 54 people have been arrested -- some have already been sentenced -- some are minors.

You can't make this shit up. The level of hypocrisy is staggering.

Days After Free Speech Rally, France Arrests 54 People for Offensive Speech

Observers warn that government reaction in wake of Charlie Hebdo killings reminiscent of post-9/11 fear campaign

Is This What You Call Freedom of Speech?

Is this what people call freedom of speech?

Dieudonné arrested over Facebook post on Paris gunman 

Notorious French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala has been arrested for being an “apologist for terrorism” after suggesting on Facebook that he sympathised with one of the Paris gunmen, a judicial source has said. 

Prosecutors had opened the case against him on Monday after he wrote “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” – mixing the slogan “Je suis Charlie”, used in tribute to the journalists killed at magazine Charlie Hebdo, with a reference to gunman Amédy Coulibaly. Dieudonné was arrested on Wednesday. 

Coulibaly killed four people at a Jewish supermarket on Friday and a police officer the day before . . . .

Not only is this arrest blatantly hypocritical, but Stéphane Charbonnier and the other murdered Charlie Hebdo staffers would have defended Dieudonné's right to free speech (even as they may have ridiculed him in one of their cartoons).

"Circus of Hypocrisy" in Paris

Excerpt from interview with Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now:

JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, you know, what we saw yesterday on display, on the one hand, was very heartening, to see so many people come into the streets. And, you know, one of the core issues of press freedom, if this is a moment where the whole world is saying we have to have a free press, and that no matter how controversial or hateful some of the speech is or may be interpreted in some communities, that we judge a free press by how we treat the journalists or the stories that we don’t like or that we’re offended by.

But on the other hand, this is sort of a circus of hypocrisy when it comes to all of those world leaders who were marching at the front of it. I mean, every single one of those heads of state or representatives of governments there have waged their own wars against journalists. You know, David Cameron ordered The Guardian to smash with a hammer the hard drives that stored the files of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Blasphemy is considered a crime in Ireland. You had multiple African and Arab leaders whose own countries right now have scores of journalists in prison. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel has targeted for killing numerous journalists who have reported on the Palestinian side, have kidnapped, abducted, jailed journalists.

Je suis Ahmed

TSA logic: Carry on water, get groped; run guns, get a pass

We've only been saying it for years. 

The bigger threat at airports, inasmuch as there is one, comes from the employees, not the passengers. Employees at all levels have unfettered access to airports and airplanes. They roam freely behind the scenes, from the so-called "sterile" area, beloved of TSA bureaucrats, to the planes themselves. Mechanics, baggage handlers, restaurant workers, service employees, you name it -- while we're standing in line and getting harassed, bullied, stripped, and groped, everyone else is getting a pass. 

Je suis Charlie

Je suis Charlie. H/T to litbrit.

Fashion Is Art

All the people who ooh and aah over great works of art in museums yet turn up their noses at fashion make me laugh. They are pretentious and supercilious and profoundly ignorant. 

I, too, love to look at paintings and sculpture and listen to music and read literature. I, too, swoon over da Vinci and Raffaello and Ghirlandaio and Caravaggio and Rodin and Turner and Vermeer and Manet and Goya and Mozart and Mahler and Beethoven and Verdi and Wagner and Strauss and Wharton and Fitzgerald and Whitman and Frost and Baudelaire and Lampedusa and on and on and on. 

Revolution

USA

Psychopath of the Week Redux

I'm reposting what I wrote at the beginning of this year, because this son of a bitch is back in the news again, spewing his garbage, as the news media continue to dance around the word "torture" and weasel out of their responsibility to report what's going on. Instead, they act like PR flacks and mouthpieces for the criminals who run our country.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Psychopath of the Week

Obama Just Gave Your Savings Account to JPMorgan

This is why I spend so much money on beautiful clothes. Because no matter how much I have saved -- and I've saved a lot -- I figure I'll be screwed out of it by the oligarchs who run the country. So I may as well look fab as I'm going down! 

Asshole of the Day

TSA holiday pleas? Oh, please

At TSA News, a civil liberties watchdog site I run, we often call your attention not only to news reports but to other blogs and websites that discuss the TSA. Consumer Traveler is one of them. 

Freak, thanks to my friend litbrit

Thanks to my great friend litbrit. And she says that the generator, if you want to make your own, is here.

Thanksgiving air travel expands, or why we'll never get rid of the TSA

I know I sound like a broken record. That's why, as the years have gone by, I'm writing less and less about the TSA. Because I increasingly see it as pointless. And judging by the activity of our other writers here at TSA News, I'm not alone. 

Beauty, courtesy of Clive James

A quote for the ages, courtesy of author and raconteur Clive James:

"There is enough of heaven in a hedgerow, and enough of hell in the perfidy of man."

Sadly, Clive James is dying. But he faces his end with the grace, wit, and equanimity he has brought to so much of his writing through the years. What a wonderful legacy.

And you call yourselves . . . ?