ADDED: More here:
Senior American officials have accused China of hacking into U.S. military and business computers. Snowden’s claims of extensive U.S. hacking of Chinese computers tracks assertions made repeatedly by senior Chinese government officials that they are victims of similar cyber-intrusions.Note that the Guardian published its first story using Snowden's leaks as President Obama was meeting with the President of China.
So now we have some data — enough dots to connect?
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165 comments:
Well, Choom has already dissed the Reds (should have told Moochelle to make kissy face and just live with it), so this should make Snowden about the most protected guy in Red China.
How secure is our nation when a high school droppout currently in Hong Kong can expose our spy network and toy with us?
Also, can Obama send a drone to kill him? He's a US citizen, outside the US. He's exposed state secrets, which some may argue gives aid or comfort to the enemy (forget that he leaked this information to the US public, so some may argue that the US public is the enemy). And he's continuing to harrass and embarrass the president. Is it time to release the drones?
Well, that must come as a big complete surprise to the Chinese. NOT.
Perhaps we're just looking for the definitive recipe for Sichuan Hacked Chicken.
Tom said...
How secure is our nation when a high school droppout currently in Hong Kong can expose our spy network and toy with us?
Yes, but the War on Terror is over.
The Messiah told us.
So we shouldn't worry Al Qaeda might have SAMs.
Also, can Obama send a drone to kill him? He's a US citizen, outside the US. He's exposed state secrets, which some may argue gives aid or comfort to the enemy (forget that he leaked this information to the US public, so some may argue that the US public is the enemy). And he's continuing to harrass and embarrass the president. Is it time to release the drones
If he's in Red China, nobody's gonna drone him.
The Reds might demand we redeem all the paper they hold.
Little Zero's a tough guy only when he's got the Choom Gang behind him and whomever he's facing can't fight back
"'My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate. I have been given no reason to doubt your system.'"
People in Hong Kong and America can here join together in saying, "Heh heh heh."
I am sure the Chinese knew. Consider what the public announcement will do, though. Will it cause loss of face? Spark retaliatin? Wouldn't it be fun to wake up tomorrow morning to a few of our state secrets in the HK papers?
The situation has possibilities. But do the deciders want make nice or mean?
PS Is it time to start working on our scandal brackets?
Freeman Hunt nails it.
Let him defect to China. He deserves it.
Tom said...
"Also, can Obama send a drone to kill him? He's a US citizen, outside the US. He's exposed state secrets, which some may argue gives aid or comfort to the enemy (forget that he leaked this information to the US public, so some may argue that the US public is the enemy). And he's continuing to harrass and embarrass the president. Is it time to release the drones?"
That's getting into a grey area. My intuition is that the answer is "if it's ever legal, it isn't yet." As Justice Scalia's Hamdi opinion explains, the traditional remedy in this kind of case is prosecution for treason. That is straightforward when the person is in custody. But this goes only for "citizens, accused of [treasonous conduct] who are detained within the territorial jurisdiction of a federal court. … Where the citizen is captured outside and held outside the United States, the Constitutional requirements may be different." A fotiori when the citizen is at large and is not readily-susceptible to being captured. I do not doubt that the executive branch's lawers are telling the President—and they may be right—that when an American citizen has gone beyond our reach to carry out treasonous activities, and when the demands of national security are such that he poses an ongoing danger, the executive is entitled to treat him as an enemy combatant on the battlefield and kill him in the same way that it can kill any other enemy.
But Snowden isn't in the wind; he hasn't taken refuge under the wing of some enemy power; he isn't hiding out with Al Queda in the desert. He's in Hong Kong, a country that stands ready to extradite him. In the circumstances that obtain today, I would say that it would not be legal or proper to kill him, even if we assume that there are circumstances that could yet obtain in which it might become legal and proper. the government must bring a treason case and extradite him.
I guess that's it for the "I'm just fighting for our civil rights" branding he was shooting for.
And, right on cue, a Democrat Senator tells us there's no damage to national security.
That's why they'd like to extradite him.
Given the slight difference between the population density of Hong Kong and Yemen, I think a drone strike is unlikely.
Also given the fact that Hong Kong is under rule of China... Surely no one so much as entertains the notion that China would tolerate drone attacks within its borders.
Why the picture of the girlfriend's mother? How annoying for her!
Again, we know the Chinese are hacking us and we knew we were hacking the Chinese (along with everyone else we could). The existence of the NSA data collection that was suspected and well-considered a fact in tech circles. Thus far Snowden hasn't really disclosed anything we didn't know or suspect and likely any sophisticated enemy would also be aware of.
A high-school dropout can gain access to NSA secrets and start to disclose them, but the NSA's use of the data they've collected can never be misused to spy on Americans and they are not collecting content unless they have a court order. That NSA's story and they're sticking to it.
Yeah, right.
They already knew this. This is why all of Obama's whining and "pressure" on China to stop theirs is so much like the rest of his "smart diplomacy." A joke.
But the fact that he gave them a public admission does harm our national security and he should not have done that. It may be part of the "negotiations" he is having to avoid extradition.
He would have been better off seeking the support of American citizens. In the US he had a chance. He will disappear in China soon enough.
"People in Hong Kong and America can here join together in saying, 'Heh heh heh.'"
No cause to feel smug; we have certainly proved ourselves to be as harshly punitive to our own citizens as China is to theirs, if not more so.
Robert Cook said...
No cause to feel smug; we have certainly proved ourselves to be as harshly punitive to our own citizens as China is to theirs, if not more so.
BS
I don't think we disappear US citizens inside the US yet. Nor do we hold true show trials and make the guilty kneel for the bullet in the ear, then send the bill for the round to the next of kin.
The deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Michael Morell, has resigned.
If he was here in the US, he would go into federal custody and not be allowed to speak at all. Years would pass before a trial and that would likely be secret. This is almost as good as making him disappear. As he is outside the US and accessible by at least one journalist, he is free to speak.
Robert Cook said...
"People in Hong Kong and America can here join together in saying, 'Heh heh heh.'"
No cause to feel smug; we have certainly proved ourselves to be as harshly punitive to our own citizens as China is to theirs, if not more so.
6/12/13, 2:59 PM
I would say there is a strong majority of Americans who would be opposed to disappearing Snowden. But there is a large group of Americans, Obama loyalists, who like Obama, wish we were more like China. but most Americans are not there yet. We are better people still in that regard.
Robert Cook said...
"People in Hong Kong and America can here join together in saying, 'Heh heh heh.'"
No cause to feel smug; we have certainly proved ourselves to be as harshly punitive to our own citizens as China is to theirs, if not more so.
I see Cook let his anti-Americanism out today. The only way to conclude this is first to not understand anything about China and secondly to devalue the vast differences in both the types of infringements and the scale on which they are levied.
The libertarian hero with feet of clay. After he gets hit with an Obama drone strike, libertarians can canonize him, maybe nice statue in the square, Red Square.
Are college graduates inherently more trustworthy than dropouts? I doubt it. Look at all the college grads who think nothing of enabling government agencies to spy on us.
Is there any actual proof he is, or ever was, in Hong Kong, other than Glenn Greenwald saying so?
And Birgitta Jonsdottir, a liberal Icelandic firebrand and Member of Allthinget is in an uproar about the FBI hacking her e-mails, I think official and private - and in Iceland.
Drone, drone of my own
With a big red "X" on my head
And if I go back
To the place I did hack
The drone will make sure I get dead.
The reporting is of the usual quality.
Snowden said he made $200,000 per year. BAH says he was paid at the rate of %122,000/year for the 3 months or so he worked for them.
There is no contradiction.
And harassing the "girlfriend" and her family is beyond the pale for news gathering, but par for a political foodfight these days.
Inga said...
The libertarian hero with feet of clay. After he gets hit with an Obama drone strike, libertarians can canonize him, maybe nice statue in the square, Red Square.
Unlike the Lefty hero with His hands (and eyes and ears and nose) in everybody's business?
The She Wolf of the SS wants him Dead.
He is a traitor!
Because he showed up her new Fuhrer.
I think he belongs in jail, but, at first reading, he seems decent and sympathetic. I wish he were more unlikeable.....Him and his pole vaulting girl friend will eventually inspire more movies than Bonnie & Clyde, Caesar & Cleopatra, and Romeo & Juliet combined.
So now we have some data — enough dots to connect?
Prediction: After being granted asylum, he'll motorbike throughout China (in order to test American prowess at tracking inside China). After that, he'll go work for Jim Rogers in Singapore and make a zillion dollars tax free selling out America.
Rbt Cook:No cause to feel smug; we have certainly proved ourselves to be as harshly punitive to our own citizens as China is to theirs, if not more so.
Absolutely correct. The US moral equivalence to the ChiComms is exactly why the worlds smartest people are flocking to Shanghai and Beijing to cash in on the stratospheric economic growth rates instead of slower growing NYC, Boston and Silicon Valley with the same punitive government oppression.
My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate. I have been given no reason to doubt your system.
Thus making HK the modern day Pontius Pilate.
Hagar said...
The reporting is of the usual quality.
Snowden said he made $200,000 per year. BAH says he was paid at the rate of %122,000/year for the 3 months or so he worked for them.
There is no contradiction.
You just ruined leslyn's whole week.
William said...
I think he belongs in jail, but, at first reading, he seems decent and sympathetic. I wish he were more unlikeable.....Him and his pole vaulting girl friend will eventually inspire more movies than Bonnie & Clyde, Caesar & Cleopatra, and Romeo & Juliet combined.
I don't know about decent and sympathetic, but I think John Bolton's right and he's a front for somebody much higher up in the food chain, who really knows what's what.
The higher up knew this dork would be eaten alive so, as he's a big fan of Red China, told him, once he made his big expose to Greenwald, grab a plane to the Orient and seek asylum.
And it just gets better:
Deputy Director of the Company (the guy who signed off on the Benghazi talking points) resigns.
Is this fun, or what?
Here's how to connect the dots.
First, a question: Why are all of these scandals happening NOW?
The IRS scandal has been known to government sources for some time. Various Tea Party and similar groups had been complaining about this for years. Hell, Glenn Beck's site wrote about this back in early 2012! Glenn Fucking Beck was ahead of every major news entity in the country by 15 months! So why did this come out now?
Benghazi hearings have started again, just recently. Why now with everything else going on?
The Obama Administration has been after news organizations for years: These super-sleuths are just figuring this out in the last few weeks?
Now we have this mess with the NSA after everyone's meta-data, and all that this implies. (Here's a question: Why isn't all this meta-data being used to find murderers and rapists? Someone gets killed at a certain time and place. Check the meta-data to find out who else was there. This wouldn't be enough for a conviction, but would be a fruitful avenue of investigation.) This has been going on for years, and it suddenly becomes the hot topic of conversation now, while several other scandals are brewing?
We have the State Department being used for drug-running and child molesting and prostitution and a rape club, and all the cover-ups of same, and this comes to light at the same time as everything else?
And let's not forget that we've got bad scandals going on at the EPA and HHS and hardly anyone even remembers them because there's so much else going on?
Why is it all happening now? Happenstance? A giant plot against the Administration? Or is this a smokescreen for something else?
Look at the issues. The Benghazi thing has been around for months, and doesn't mean jack-shit. It's never going to be anything.
The IRS scandal has pissed the people off so much that - one person, an NFL player, has urinated on an IRS sign. Big fucking deal.
The EPA and HHS scandals can't even get recognized.
The State Department scandal won't be, because there is no fucking way the media is going to damage Hillary for allowing children to be exploited under her watch, despite the fact that this is exactly what she did. It runs too counter to the narrative they've pushed for over 25 years.
PRISM and everything related to that? The Republicans have already come out and said they side with the police state, and they want the leaker hung for treason, or blown up with a drone.
So I'm voting for smokescreen.
But what for? What are they trying to hide?
I propose that it is the immigration "reform" bill. The elites are in the middle of selecting a new electorate - one far more pliable than the current one. And the last time they tried this the electorate raised holy hell until they relented.
But now, the bill that appeared to be dead in the Senate is about to pass. The House leadership has made it clear that they're going to pass it too. And the President will sign the thing post-haste. And viola! 35 million more Democratic voters, just like that! 35 million more peasants to suppress wages, just like that! Everyone plays, everyone wins. Well, the elites do, anyway.
So I propose that all these scandals, the net results of which WILL be nothing (and at least two of which only came to light because the government made a point of releasing information that had previously been sitting on), all this sound and fury, is just cover for the elites of both parties to screw over American voters and workers by flooding the country with Thuird World peasants.
If any foreign power were trying to do this to us, we'd wipe them off the map. But because it's the assholes we've elected, we're going to let it happen without even noticing what's going on.
forget that he leaked this information to the US public, so some may argue that the US public is the enemy
Actually, he leaked it to a US civil rights advocate who apparently can't get the time of day from US media, so it was published by an English rag.
THE ATLANTIC: The Obama Surveillance Revelations Are Pushing Liberals Over the Edge
Hilarious.
Chris Matthews couldn't bring himself to criticize the won, and the leftists commenting here can't do it either.
The rest of them are busy ignoring this.
El Pollo Raylan said...
So now we have some data — enough dots to connect?
I think she's wondering if people will start accusing him of being a Chinese spy all along, embedded specifically to "uncover" and publicize the US's hacking operations. In this scenario disclosing PRISM would be an unexpected benefit of opportunity disclosed to manipulate public opinion against the US Government.
Does Obama deserve to be called an unmediated man?
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Nor do we hold true show trials and make the guilty kneel for the bullet in the ear, then send the bill for the round to the next of kin.
LOL, get back to me on this after the George Zimmerman trial!
Yeah, it's official. Whatever good will this guy built up has now completely evaporated.
Re: Freeman Hunt:
Also given the fact that Hong Kong is under rule of China... Surely no one so much as entertains the notion that China would tolerate drone attacks within its borders.
Certainly. But on the flip side, we could probably make a deal to have him conveniently "disappear." They're quite good at that sort of thing, you know. No need to our terrifying army of flying killer robots.
Now that the right to privacy has been effectively destroyed by the government (and, judging by public opinion, waived by a majority of Americans), I guess abortions are now constructively illegal.
Icepick said...
I propose that it is the immigration "reform" bill. The elites are in the middle of selecting a new electorate - one far more pliable than the current one. And the last time they tried this the electorate raised holy hell until they relented.
Oh, Hell, they don't need to go through all that.
They just stole an election with people who don't even exist. 20% of the voters in OH, for example. A congresscreep's top aide resigns because he was mailing absentee ballots like the were from Publisher's Clearing House. Then, of course, the 100% votes in urban precincts. "Voters" bussed in from out of state. Machines that default Democrat.
What Icepick is saying gives these people way too much credit for smarts. If they had them, Congress' favorables would be a lot higher.
While I don't doubt Chuckie Schumer and "his" Republicans are trying to take as much advantage of this cover as possible, the idea that they came up with this Byzantine scheme just doesn't compute.
My guess, once the Benghazi thing began drawing some whistleblowers, a lot of others who were fed up with the Choom Gang decided to do the same.
It's happened before.
So now we have some data — enough dots to connect?
The problem for me is what kind of dots is Snowden giving us here?
Unmediated dots are just not that exciting you know... I got nothing. Just like Snowden's own blank stare. Nothing... at least not yet.
Icepick said...
Here's how to connect the dots.
Why is it all happening now? Happenstance? A giant plot against the Administration? Or is this a smokescreen for something else?
PRISM and everything related to that? The Republicans have already come out and said they side with the police state, and they want the leaker hung for treason, or blown up with a drone.
What are they trying to hide?
I propose that it is the immigration "reform" bill. The bill that appeared to be dead in the Senate is about to pass. The House leadership has made it clear that they're going to pass it too. And the President will sign the thing post-haste. And viola! 35 million more Democratic voters, just like that! 35 million more peasants to suppress wages, just like that! Everyone plays, everyone wins. Well, the elites do, anyway.
all this sound and fury, is just cover for the elites of both parties to screw over American voters and workers by flooding the country with Thuird World peasants.
YADR - yet another disillusioned Republican voter.
Just mad at the RINOs, not real Republicans; and he isn't going over to the Democrats, either, moron.
If they had them, Congress' favorables would be a lot higher.
Bullshit. People know they're getting fucked, even if they don't know how, exactly. Congress would still be fucking them in the ass, no matter how smart they were.
But there is one thing that scares Congress: angry voters. That's all that stopped Bush's attempt to give Mexicans the vote. This kind of cover is brilliant in its basic simplicity: Let's dump all the worst smelling crap now and get it over with, and also get what we want under cover of darkness.
YADR - yet another disillusioned Republican voter.
No, dipshit, because I never expected anything else from them. Furthermore, I'm not a Republican.
But keep trying, shit-for-brains. Eventually you may stumble upon something true - such as the Sun coming up in the east tomorrow.
edutcher said...
It's happened before.
And at that instant, the identity between edutcher's political philosophy and J.M.Barrie's 'Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up' was finally revealed.
edutcher, I'm mad as Hell at the whole goddamned lot of them. I'm personally of the opinion that every member of Congress should be tried for treason (for reasons various and sundry), that most of them should be convicted* and hung from the nearest suitable tree. Let's start with the big four: Ried, Boehner, Pelosi and McConnel, and work our way down from there.
* Actually I expect 100% of them, current and from the recent past, have been guilty of doing things to wreck the country, and have done it with that purpose in mind. But I will allow that there may be one or two of them who are merely crooks, as opposed to treasonous crooks, so I'm willing to let them try and prove it during a trial.
Duh! Everyone except the sleepwalking Americans knows what NSA, CIA, Homeland Security do to justify their existence.
CIA spies on foreign enemies, such as Israel; Homeland, with the help of the IRS, on domestic enemies, such as conservatives and Tea Partiers; NSA on everybody.
Today an NSA witness lied or demonstrated ignorance about the ability to tap into internet communications or voice traffic. This can be performed at the IP router or voice switch level.
It's just so sad they don't think they'll be found out.
AnUnreasonableTroll said...
It's happened before.
And at that instant, the identity between edutcher's political philosophy and J.M.Barrie's 'Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up' was finally revealed.
So tell me, Troll, or should I call you Ritmo because that's who you obviously are, you don't think that's what happened in Watergate?
That once Mark Felt opened his mouth, Clinkscales and the rest fwelt safe enough to come forward?
Because that's what happened.
I understand you're scared to death that it will happen here and the whole rotten mess will come tumbling down from its own weight.
And, guess what, on that, for a change, you're right.
Icepick said...
edutcher, I'm mad as Hell at the whole goddamned lot of them. I'm personally of the opinion that every member of Congress should be tried for treason (for reasons various and sundry), that most of them should be convicted* and hung from the nearest suitable tree. Let's start with the big four: Ried, Boehner, Pelosi and McConnel, and work our way down from there.
* Actually I expect 100% of them, current and from the recent past, have been guilty of doing things to wreck the country, and have done it with that purpose in mind. But I will allow that there may be one or two of them who are merely crooks, as opposed to treasonous crooks, so I'm willing to let them try and prove it during a trial.
No problem with most of that. I do think there are some Rs that are on the side of the good guys, but, yes, the Demos and all of "their" Republicans have got to go.
And at that instant, the identity between edutcher's political philosophy and J.M.Barrie's 'Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up' was finally revealed.
You should cited Disney instead ARM. More Americans would get the reference.
Tick-Tock
So tell me, Troll, or should I call you Ritmo because that's who you obviously are, you don't think that's what happened in Watergate?
There is an uncanny resemblance. But for the life of me, I don't get the reason why somebody does that. It's so Greenwald.
'My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate. I have been given no reason to doubt your system.'
Our courts are not good enough for him?
I take that to mean that HE is trying, accusing OUR system via some kind of absentia?
He is no American to me.
Well, treason is looking more and more like a valid charge.
Good one, Pollo.
But notice Troll never denied any of the voting irregularities I mentioned (and another 4 states like OH, 3 if FL pans out, and it's going to be hard to deny the "election" wasn't stolen; especially in light of all we've learned the last couple of months).
Just tossing this into the mix FWIW:
According to Snowden, we've run 61,000 hacking ops worldwide, especially against the Red Chinese, but also the Euros, as well.
If true, in other times, that would be cause for war. It won't now, but does this mean, at some point, pressure that can't be resisted will be brought to make sure some important heads truly roll.
Lem said...
My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate. I have been given no reason to doubt your system.
Our courts are not good enough for him?
I take that to mean that HE is trying, accusing OUR system via some kind of absentia?
He is no American to me.
No, yes, and probably never was.
Just like Choom, ValJar, Axelrod, the Democrats, and just about all the trolls.
Robert Cook the unreconstructed Stalinist: "No cause to feel smug; we have certainly proved ourselves to be as harshly punitive to our own citizens as China is to theirs, if not more so."
"..if not more so."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
snip: "The Great Leap ended in catastrophe, resulting in tens of millions of excess deaths.[3] Estimates of the death toll range from 18 million[4] to 45 million,[5] with estimates by demographic specialists ranging from 18 million to 32.5 million.[4] Historian Frank Dikötter asserts that "coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the very foundation of the Great Leap Forward" and it "motivated one of the most deadly mass killings of human history."
Your standard, run of the mill, lefty workers paradise.
Really, who could ask for more?
But hey, in the late '60's a bunch of lefty rabble rousers at Kent State violently provoked a bunch of blue collar 20 year old national guardsmen to respond with gunfire.
Totally equivalent.
Totally.
Except the US is worse.
Lot's worse.
Totally.
Next up for cookie will be explaining how the US "forced" Mao to behave like a typical leftist.
People who think I made a mistake in picking HK as a location misunderstand my intentions."
So all this moves him from "tossup" to "leans treason."
You can say a lot of things about Peter King (R., NY), such as he was a sponsor of terrorism against GB, but he has been very consistent in arguing that both Snowden and Greenwald should be prosecuted for treason. I support this because such a trial would probably be the best way to force a broad examination of the government's role in the surveillance of its people.
I would hope that they were not convicted, but every cause needs a few martyrs
So all this moves him from "tossup" to "leans treason."
Nice.
Told ya so. I said he was a traitor on day one.
Told ya so. I said he was a traitor on day one.
Admit it Inga, you are only saying that because Obama is the president.
If Bush was the president, you would be saying Snowden is a hero.
Are you implying that Snowden was working for the Chinese? Why would the Chinese want Snowden to go public?
Unless this was intended to send a message that they have obtained access to the data the NSA has been collecting.
Which would have been yet another awesome reason not to build such a stupid thing in the first place.
OK, He's moving into unanimous dick territory now.
Last I looked, we're not at war with anyone.
The War on Terror has been declared won, so Snowden cannot possibly be a traitor.
And, as usual, the She Wolf of the SS is blowing smoke, among other things, out her ass. Only after leslyn got her talking points did the She wolf say much of anything on the subject.
But the reason Troll (Ritmo), the She Wolf, and leslyn are beating the demonization drum is because the House Intel Committee was briefed today and it apparently scared them so badly, Elijah Cummings is looking like George Wallace.
Think what Winston Zeddemore said to Lenny.
The Chinese didn't need anyone to tell them that. I'm sure they know more about it than he does, but him saying it has propaganda value for them.
His stunt will still have a positive effect on privacy rights here. No undoing that now. In addition, his example will do enormous service to tightening up what obviously is very lax security at our "security" agencies.
It seems to me that what he exposed didn't tell our enemies anything they didn't already know, but it will cause great benefits to us in the long run by improving both security and privacy.
I was wrong Wikipedia has a Snowden page.
I intend to use it.
So the question is what do you think of a man who commits an act of treason that actually benefits the country. It appears that was even the intent, so is it even treason? Technically yes, but morally?
Icepick - It's true that amnesty is game, set, match for the Ruling Class and against the Country Class. But the process - to name the Ruling Class' holy of holies - was moving along before some of these scandals got into high gear and well before Snowden/NSA. You say Immigration Reform is barely noticed. Every conservative site I visit is well aware of its importance. Rush has said what you have said about the importation of a huge number of guaranteed Democrat voters marking the end for limited government/liberty many times and with ever increasing insistence. But what is to be done when
the great bulk of Republicans - possibly because they are being lobbied hard by businessmen who want cheap labor, possibly because they're simply afraid of being called dirty names - want, or act as though they want what the Left wants? What is to be done? A march on Washington? To be timed with the House taking up the bill after Senate passage? Yes, I think so. I think it's important enough to call for a march on Washington. But either the Tea Party doesn't think so or it too has been cowed by the threat of being labeled evil meanie racist.
We don't know his true motives yet. Movie deal? Publicity? Money?
Disgust with the Messiah?
But on the flip side, we could probably make a deal to have him conveniently "disappear." They're quite good at that sort of thing, you know.
Yes, I could see that happening. In fact, my initial gut reaction to reading this was that he'd be around a while longer but when China finished with him, he'd never be heard from again.
Robert, you can't possibly believe that China's justice system is as fair or more fair than the United States. Again, I think people in Hong Kong and people here could join together and say "heh" to that. People in HK have been alarmed at the creep of changes since China took over.
So Obama is going to replace the number two at the CIA with a 43 year old White House lawyer with no intelligence or military background.
Damn.
edutcher said...
"Last I looked, we're not at war with anyone."
Is being "at war" a prerequisite for a treason indictment? I concede that in most of the very few cases in which Americans have been indicted for treason, they have given aid to an enemy that was at war with the United States as we ordinarily understand those terms—citizens who collaborated with the Axis powers in World War II and with the South in the Civil War. But is it a necessary element? The first men indicted and convicted of treason by the United States were participants in the Whiskey Rebellion. Were we at war with the Rebellion?
R Cook wrote: No cause to feel smug; we have certainly proved ourselves to be as harshly punitive to our own citizens as China is to theirs, if not more so.
I think you've all misconstrued his comment. You missed the nuance in his voice. Let me clarify
It's one thing to inform the American people of their government's corruption. It is quite another to reveal the same information to our competing interests. This revelation calls into question Snowden's motives and backers.
So Obama is going to replace the number two at the CIA with a 43 year old White House lawyer with no intelligence or military background.
So CIA is now an extension of the WH with Brennan already there. I wonder why Morrel resigned considering he was such a footlicker.
Simon said...
Last I looked, we're not at war with anyone.
Is being "at war" a prerequisite for a treason indictment?
From the source, Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.
Balfegor said...
Re: Freeman Hunt:
Also given the fact that Hong Kong is under rule of China... Surely no one so much as entertains the notion that China would tolerate drone attacks within its borders.
Certainly. But on the flip side, we could probably make a deal to have him conveniently "disappear." They're quite good at that sort of thing, you know. No need to our terrifying army of flying killer robots.
-----------------
The Russians are fairly adept at dealing with traitors fleeing to the West to squeal.
Icepicks to the head, wetwork squads in Sweden, a pellet of ricin shot into a leg of a traitor walking on a Vienna street.
Even after the Cold War, they dealt with a defector dangerous to the Russians, especially the corrupt Russians, by feeding him a Polonium 210-laced cup of tea.
No drones, no big fuss and muss.
Harder to see us doing the retribution.
Even if he is a traitor and defector to China, Rand Paul and the libertarians would object if their "hero" and "US citizen with sacred rights!!" - met with an accident.
Not to mention the ACLU.
That's the Constitution delineating the outer boundaries of any possible treason statute, but you're right, the treason statute, 18 USC § 2381, tracks that language quite closely. But that doesn't answer my question. Is being "at war" a prerequisite for a treason indictment? The indictment of the Whiskey Rebels suggests that the answer is no.
OK, not my area of expertise, but, if you want to trust Wiki, The insurrection collapsed as the army marched into western Pennsylvania in October 1794. Some of the most prominent leaders of the insurrection, like David Bradford, fled westward to safety. After an investigation, federal government officials arrested about 20 people and brought them back to Philadelphia for trial.[96] Eventually, a federal grand jury indicted 24 men for high treason.[97] Most of the accused had eluded capture, so only ten men stood trial for treason in federal court.[98] Of these, only Philip Vigol (later changed to Wigal) and John Mitchell were convicted. Vigol had beaten up a tax collector and burned his house; Mitchell was a simpleton who had been convinced by David Bradford to rob the U.S. mail. Both men were sentenced to death by hanging, but they were pardoned by President Washington.[99] Pennsylvania state courts were more successful in prosecuting lawbreakers, securing numerous convictions for assault and rioting.[100]
Keep in mind this was a tax protest. Hard to justify the "high treason" charge even then, apparently.
YMMV
But the process - to name the Ruling Class' holy of holies - was moving along before some of these scandals got into high gear and well before Snowden/NSA.
The process was bogging down, with many saying (whether they believed it or not) that the bill wouldn't pass the Senate. And there was certainly the threat of a voter revolt as in 2006. (I believe that was the year, apologies if I got the date wrong.)
But now? Every conservative site can claim they're against it, but ultimately the public only has so much attention and will to devote to 'political' issues. And these scandals are 100% guaranteed to suck the oxygen out of the 'room'.
Simon, one more thing on the Whiskey Rebellion and treason, this is the era that produced the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Very hard to argue with anything Anne Coulter has to say here. Why are you guys so keen on amnesty again?
Snowden comes off as a rather idealistic chap who suddenly discovered that the NSA is a big money pit occupied by thuggish hackers looking at corporate web sites, not sophisticated James Bond types ridding the world of bad guys.
The scene from Meaning of Life about machines that go "Bing" comes to mind.
The biggest problem isn't an intelligent person making a thoughtful decision to target some American, but a bored hacker entertaining him or herself, or, worse, someone carrying out petty revenge (or thinking they'll impress their boss with their petty revenge.)
leslyn said...
Every supposed "fact" given by Snowden is unverified except that he worked for less than three months for Booz Allen. Even his salary was grossly inflated.
I believe that was addressed:
Hagar said...
The reporting is of the usual quality.
Snowden said he made $200,000 per year. BAH says he was paid at the rate of %122,000/year for the 3 months or so he worked for them.
There is no contradiction.
Just because someone says, "there is no conflict" doesn't make it so, ed.
It was your Messiah, the C-in-C, so, yes, it does.
Still waiting on the Army
Silence does not mean he was lying, sweetie.
I know, it's just a shame this happened on Choom's watch and not on Dubya's.
If it had, you could call this guy a patriot, right?
Robert, you can't possibly believe that China's justice system is as fair or more fair than the United States.
Freeman, I can't speak for Cook, but for myself I don't think the US system is all that fair. Piss off the regime and get your head handed to you. Piss off the wrong "activists" and have the EPA leak your personal data to people that mean to destroy you. Piss off black people and they will threaten to riot unless you get thrown in prison - and the state will happily oblige. (The problem in the Zimmerman trial is to get six jurors plus four alternates that can lie well enough to claim they don't know much about the case while knowing that they need to convict his stupid ass or watch cities burn. A tough job!)
It is probably better than China's, but (a) that is a low bar and (b) it doesn't mean that our system isn't corrupt.
AnUnreasonableTroll said...
Very hard to argue with anything Anne Coulter has to say here. Why are you guys so keen on amnesty again?
We're not, just the RINOs; y'know, your Republicans.
And it's Ann, moron, as in Althouse.
So Obama is going to replace the number two at the CIA with a 43 year old White House lawyer with no intelligence or military background.
The important thing is that he'll be able to lie like a bitch when asked any serious questions. You know, like Susan Rice did.
It's one thing to inform the American people of their government's corruption. It is quite another to reveal the same information to our competing interests. This revelation calls into question Snowden's motives and backers.
How was he supposed to release the information to the American public without the rest of the world finding out about it?
Also, given that the Chinese are undoubtedly spying on us, they probably already knew everything so far revealed, or at least suspected.
Well, good for him. He's in the human rights paradise of China now, so he'll be okay.
Say...where can I buy a nice kidney these days?
"Perhaps we're just looking for the definitive recipe for Sichuan Hacked Chicken."
No, it's for the egg salad so good you could plotz.
"We don't know his true motives yet. Movie deal? Publicity? Money?"
How about he's appalled at the NSA's gross violation of the privacy and 4th Amendment protections of every American...and also very likely the privacy of everyone around the world who is plugged in to "the matrix," as it were? How about he sees this as tyrannical by its very nature, and a materialization of Big Brother's all-seeing eyes and all-hearing hears?
Freeman, I can't speak for Cook, but for myself I don't think the US system is all that fair.
This makes no difference. The only thing I was addressing was this:
"we have certainly proved ourselves to be as harshly punitive to our own citizens as China is to theirs, if not more so."
Yes, a very low bar. Very, very low.
edutcher said...
"Simon, one more thing on the Whiskey Rebellion and treason, this is the era that produced the Alien and Sedition Acts."
Good point. Still, it seems to me that the text doesn't make it an element of the crime that the enemies must be "at war" as that term has traditionally been understood (and we are assuming dubitante that Al Queda isn't at war with us by that standard), and we have so few cases in which prosecutions have been brought that it's evaded wide-ranging judicial exposition.
"We don't know his true motives yet. Movie deal? Publicity? Money?"
Howsa about: Who gives a fuck what his motives are? Are the revelations ABOUT THE PROGRAM true? How close to true are they? These, and questions like them, matter. Why he did it matters very little.
"Robert, you can't possibly believe that China's justice system is as fair or more fair than the United States."
That's not what I said at all.
I said we have proved ourselves as being as harshly punitive to our own citizens as China can be to theirs, if not more so.
That last qualifier has to do with the percentage and sheer number of our own citizens that we incarcerate, which outstrips China by far, astonishing when one considers China's vastly greater population.
In other words, our "justice system" is hardly just.
(For the historically illiterate among the commenters...Mao has been dead for a while.)
The United States executed 43 criminals in 2011. China claims to done 2000. I think they are being modest.
They also harvest organs from criminals and harshly punish, people for doing exactly what we are doing on this blog. Cook would be in prison, if not dead if he was in China doing what he does here.
Now wait a minute. I just found out that Snowden only started work for Booz-Allen in April this year. He was in training for a couple of weeks and then sent to Hawaii for 4 weeks. Prior to that he was a CIA employee.
This is really fishy. I know he would leave CIA for more money, but given what he knew up to that point, WHY would he reach the tipping point after moving to Booz-Allen?
Frankly, all the information released so far is very consistent with what most people have suspected to have been going on, i.e., US collecting massive data, US spying/hacking China. So, nothing really damaging.
Has this been orchestrated to take attention away from the IRS and other scandals as well as clear the way for the Immigration Amnesty? Have we been played?
Guess what happened to the tainted milk manufacturers in China? They were executed. How do we here in the US deal with manufacturers whose products kill people?
Simon said...
Simon, one more thing on the Whiskey Rebellion and treason, this is the era that produced the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Good point. Still, it seems to me that the text doesn't make it an element of the crime that the enemies must be "at war" as that term has traditionally been understood (and we are assuming dubitante that Al Queda isn't at war with us by that standard), and we have so few cases in which prosecutions have been brought that it's evaded wide-ranging judicial exposition.
The other thing to keep in mind is all that happened before judicial review, so there may have been a lot added.
(I'd give more exposition, but the limb on which I am is starting to crack)
One thing to keep in mind is that even the Rosenbergs weren't charged with treason.
Mao lived longer than Jim Crow. It was estimated by Jung Chan that 70 million Chinese died as a result of Mao's lunatic policies. That might be low ball. If a doctor is sent to the countryside to spread manure in rice paddies and his patients die from tractable diseases, do you count said deaths in Mao's totals?......I remember reading Theodore White's account of the civil war in China. White was a good liberal with a Harvard education. He sided with Mao. Chiang and his followers were corrupt fascists; Mao and his followers were egalitarian idealists. Mao won, and Chiang fled to Taiwan. This was partially because Mao got lots of support from the USSR and Chiang, because of the biases of men like White, got limited support from the USA. Jump cut to sixty years later. Taiwan is a democracy with a higher standard of living than western Europe. China is whatever it is, but certainly not a democracy with a western standard of living....I think history has shown Theodore White and the other liberals of that era to be wrong in their evaluation of the relative merits of Mao and Chiang. But don't expect people like Cook to admit such facts anytime soon.
According to an article in the New Yorker, fifty percent of the women in South Africa claim that they have been raped. Some twenty five percent of the men in South Africa admit to having been involved in a rape. These figures come from a poll. Since this is something that people ordinarily do not reveal about themselves, the figures are either underreported or the citizens of South Africa have reached an extremely callused attitude towards rape.....My point is that if South Africa caught and jailed rapists, their prison population would far exceed ours.
How about these dots- Snowden apparently only worked for Booz and the NSA for three months before defecting, I mean, whistle-blowing. How likely is it that he would come to such a momentous decision in three months - hell, that's not even enough time to get to know the names of all the people he was working with. Something smells a little bit fishy here.
"How do we here in the US deal with manufacturers whose products kill people?"
We reelect them. ~ Bengazi, Fast and Furious, Obamacare.
We reelect them. ~ Bengazi, Fast and Furious, Obamacare.
Mark Levin (listen to him when stuck in the car) claimed his organization, Landmark Legal Foundation, has some increased costs in it's healthcare.
Last year, $280K, this year, $450K (or thereabouts).
It's amazing to me that Nancy Pelosi continues to claim the value of healthcare is going up compared to the cost.
Inga said...
Guess what happened to the tainted milk manufacturers in China? They were executed. How do we here in the US deal with manufacturers whose products kill people?
The She Devil of the SS forgets (maybe) that Red China is the bloodiest-handed regime in the history of the world.
How many want to do it their way?
Dante said...
We reelect them. ~ Bengazi, Fast and Furious, Obamacare.
As I've been saying, did we?
Mark Levin (listen to him when stuck in the car) claimed his organization, Landmark Legal Foundation, has some increased costs in it's healthcare.
Last year, $280K, this year, $450K (or thereabouts)
61% increase?
That's low.
I think R Cook must be talking about all the pot smokers in US prisons. What happens to drug offenders in China?
I read a really neat thing on the internet before it was purged. A Chinese guy went into some embassy, and dropped off a diplomatic pouch. In it where all the technical specifications for the entire nuclear arsenal.
The only bad thing that can come from US espionage of China is they will have a real excuse to continue their own.
But, maybe this isn't so bad, as it will make people realize there is an "Us" and a "Them."
My insurance company estimated ours company's cost would increase about 150% in 2014 - closer to triple than double. We more than doubled our employee count in the last 3 years and we are growing even faster this year, but I stopped hiring people after Justice Roberts displayed his creativity. We have not added a single person since then, but our sales is up a third. We have been investing in labor saving (job eliminating) equipment instead. We have to do this to save the jobs we have. Unfortunately most equipment is foreign made these days, so no jobs added from my investment either. It's not just the added cost that requires this, but the clusterfuck of a law that has everyone totally uncertain about what it will mean or how it will work. Even the "experts" have no idea. Uncertainty is a huge job killer. It's just dumb and so is anyone who supports it. You got lied to - bold, in-your-face lied to.
bagoh20 admitted: We have not added a single person since then, but our sales is up a third. We have been investing in labor saving (job eliminating) equipment instead.
This was not the intended effect of Obamacare: you were supposed to hire more and actually pay more healthcare costs of your employees. Obama asks you: haven't you profited enough?
How do we here in the US deal with manufacturers whose products kill people?
Tax them and their customers. Enrich the attorneys handling the cases beyond reasonable measure. Think tobacco.
"The United States executed 43 criminals in 2011. China claims to done 2000. I think they are being modest."
You offer this as evidence of how much worse China's justice system is than ours, yet many Americans would surely consider China's higher rate of executions as a metric we should aspire to.
Send in the drone, but don't go kinetic.
Use the syphilis ray.
First, a question: Why are all of these scandals happening NOW?
My thought was that this Admin has upset a lot of govt people by pursuing whistleblowers so harshly. Whistleblowing is a respected and protected practice in much of the govt.
I'm guessing that when Benghazi and the IRS story dropped, Snowden and others realized this was the one moment when the Admin was vulnerable and they could get media coverage. If all of these had dropped singly (like Fast & Furious), the media would have ignored it.
Now that there's blood in the water, expect even more leaks. Obama is going to smear this Snowden guy to kingdom-come, because if he can't discredit the guy as a traitor, it will only encourage others.
"yet many Americans would surely consider China's higher rate of executions as a metric we should aspire to."
I would like everyone who has robbed an innocent person and all their family and friends of his life unlawfully for no reason whatsoever other than cruelty, yes, to be executed. The number executed should equal the number who have earned it no matter what that number is. It's fair, it's compassionate, it's just, and it's right.
But that's not the point, You said China was equal to the U.S. in justice. Those 2000 admitted executions are for many crimes not proven in an impartial court, and often not even capital by our standards here, so your claim is clearly hyperbolic bullshit in the way you meant it.
I might agree if we counted all the unexecuted murderers in the U.S. as the injustice they really are to the victims. Then we may actually be less just, but I'm sure that's not what you meant.
Those 2000 admitted executions are for many crimes not proven in an impartial court, and often not even capital by our standards here.
For example, in 2012 "a 28-year-old woman was sentenced to death for defaulting on a $56 million loan".
"Why are all of these scandals happening NOW?"
I think a combination of things coming together:
1) The shine has worn off of Obama.
2) The criticism of the media being lapdogs and sycophants, and especially it's obviousness, is taking a toll. Some want their respect back.
3) The bandwagon has changed direction.
All these scandals would have already erupted if done under a Republican. We just had to wait for the media to want to say something.
too many dots for my feeble mind to connect--perhaps if I had a computer program....oh wait, we do.
Leaker Snowden tells Chinese newspaper that the U.S. government hacks into Chinese universities, businesses and politicians.
US dissident Snowden tells Pravda newspaper that the U.S. government has spies in Soviet universities, businesses and politicians.
The more things change... grass is always greener... its getting late.
Hey, some programmatic Progressive here recently postulated that Obama's policies should be judged not by their epistemology but their perspicacity.
Snowden wins that argument hands-down.
You offer this as evidence of how much worse China's justice system is than ours, yet many Americans would surely consider China's higher rate of executions as a metric we should aspire to.
A better defense of the Second Amendment I have not heard.
Thanks, Cookie.
And Ms. Althouse, I will take a few years of Wild West over a few years of Stasi any day of the week.
Because I'm not good with being an otherwise-powerless enabler.
So now we have some data — enough dots to connect?
You want dots connected?
We are about to grant amnesty to millions of people who came into this country illegally out of a overdeveloped sense of moral rectitude and downright blind kindness.
And Snowden is so short sided, so wrapped up in his little world, he goes to the one country that would never do something like that in a million years and tells tem they are better than us?
We should go after Snowden and prosecute his ass... yesterday.
Lem, I'm not saying you're wrong.
But really, what Snowden's unleashed stinks like a three-day-old skunk pizza, and we really didn't need that bottled up.
Sorry, I'm on Batman's side on this one.
And Ms. Althouse, if every branch is rotten, every one, but you have citizenry that still believes in the Constitution, what is left but individuals willing to take a stand and say "This is where it stops."
After all, you voted for a guy who claimed that history would show his election was where the rising tides were turned.
I've made up my mind before that there was nothing to this story other than a confused young man... but now with that shit about "throwing myself at the mercy of Hong Kong" bullshit, I want us to make his fears come true.
Seriously, Snowden has done more to change history than Obama, considering that Obama has healed nothing, changed nothing, and proposes nothing that changes the arc of history in any way.
(Obamacare is not a valid rebuttal. Obama let the Congressional leadership do what it would on that monstrosity. Voting "Present" doesn't count.)
...what Snowden's unleashed stinks like a three-day-old skunk pizza, and we really didn't need that bottled up.
I think people are letting their imagination run away along with Snowden's.
When we imagine the worst, we cook up global warming and just about every other religion we have conjured up.
All these scandals would have already erupted if done under a Republican. We just had to wait for the media to want to say something.
How about the simple explanation: mission accomplished, Obamacare is a reality.
...changes the arc of history.
Oh boy.
Lem, Snowden burns on the pyre he built for himself.
Clap clap clap.
Let's look at what he left in his last will and testament, shall we? In the end we all die, but some things we leave have value.
Lem, "oh boy" me all you will, but buy me a drink if this doesn't fundamentally change how the government collects data on people like us in the near term.
I like good bourbons. I'll buy you a drink if I feel the need to take the battery out of my cell phone before meeting you.
In the end we all die, but some things we leave have value.
And it is also up to every generation to choose for themselves how they shall govern themselves.
We are only given the barest of blueprints.
I don't drink anymore, but what do we know about this program with any level of certainty... we have the word of a liar on the one hand... and the congressional oversight and judiciary oversight and two presidents from two politically different parties and common sense on the other.
I go with common sense... at least for now.
I just posted something and its gone.
I'll post again from memory...
What do we know about the program with any level of certainty?
The word of a liar on the one hand... and the word of bipartisan congressional oversight, judiciary oversight, two presidents from different parties and common sense on the other.
I'll go with common sense until I have more/better information.
Comments are disappearing... let me try one more time.
What do we know about the program with any level of certainty?
The word of a liar on the one hand... and the word of bipartisan congressional oversight, judiciary oversight, two presidents from different parties and common sense on the other.
I'll go with common sense until I have more/better information.
You offer this as evidence of how much worse China's justice system is than ours, yet many Americans would surely consider China's higher rate of executions as a metric we should aspire to.
What's the point of keeping people alive for decades @ $60K per year, when it's cheaper to off them? For the odd person who is executed incorrectly, I'm OK so long as the chances are less than being struck by lightening, about 400/year in the US.
After all, your chances of dieing in childhood are 2%, your chances of dieing from diarrhea are 3.15%, and your chances of dieing from birth are 1% (be you a man or woman, though no men die).
So, at maximum there are 40 of 313,000,000 deaths, or .00001% of deaths by execution, and that's what you are worried about. You can multiply that by a thousand, and it's still below childhood death, and I would bet it would clean up the country a whole lot.
Just so long as the wrongful deaths are less than the chance of dying by lightening strike, 40 per year.
I'll post again from memory...
What do we know about the program with any level of certainty?
The word of a liar on the one hand... and the word of bipartisan congressional oversight, judiciary oversight, two presidents from different parties and common sense on the other.
I'll go with common sense until I have more/better information.
This comment keeps disappearing.
The "barest of blueprints" thing I agree with. A quote? If not, a real gem.
But give me a map any day, and Snowden is giving us maps. And yes, I'm currently worried more about Washington than I am about Hong Kong.
Yeah, my comment to your comment disappeared too.
Funny that.
Lem, we are so totally fucked.
I may have read it somewhere but I don't remember. It's likely I didn't come up with it... but thanks for recognizing it.
Obamacare is orders of magnitude more injurious to our freedoms than this NSA program could ever hope to be. But just like the NSA program, its legal. It has gone thru the legal process.
And this is from a tea partier... if anybody should be pissed here its me.
I am not joking.
In a "No Knock" situation, what do I do?
I was in a heated discussion with Lem and suddenly our comments were disappearing.
I realize that the odds favor that this was just blogger weirdness, but FUCK IT THERE ARE KIDS HERE.
Lem, we are so totally fucked.
Of that I'm sure.
Yea... it looks like we wont be able to continue.
Night, if you get this.
Lem, good to see you back on board.
It's a pattern. Obamacare, IRS, OSHA, FBI, NLRB, etc.
Those are the not-black-budget things we know have been abused.
Mix in the black-budget stuff and really the idea of an informed citizenry is at best quaint.
By the way, I love Obama, and should I have another child I will name it Obama.
We have certainly proved ourselves to be as harshly punitive to our own citizens as China is to theirs, if not more so.
That's a supremely idiotic thing to say. Wake me when the US government starts ordering parents to kill their own children.
That being said, Hong Kong is still heavily British in its laws and culture, and hasn't been fully corrupted by the Chinese yet. A person on trial there stands a decent chance, especially if the party officials on the mainland have no reason to pressure the courts for a guilty verdict.
Is being "at war" a prerequisite for a treason indictment?
For one of the two treason definitions (levying war), yes.
For the other, no. However, to meet that definition you have to not only take action that renders aid and comfort to the enemy, but explicitly take action to align yourself with them.
Unless someone's got evidence of a cancelled cheque from Osama bin Laden or a video of Snowden calling for Islamic jihad against the infidels, well, good luck arguing he's aligned himself with al Qaeda. "You're either with us or with the terrorists" is rhetoric, not the law of the land. :)
Also, given that Obama's "the war on terror is over" schtick, he could make a pretty good case that he didn't think terrorists were officially state enemies (as opposed to mere criminals) anymore.
The "demonization machine" cranked up for Snowden still has a major task.
Given the Demos' reaction to the House Intel Committee briefing, most of what he's been saying is accurate and it scares them white, as it were.
If what he says about the surveillance turns out to be true, any polishing of his resume is just that.
AnUnreasonableTroll said...
Very hard to argue with anything Anne Coulter has to say here. Why are you guys so keen on amnesty again?
When Troll tried to conflate Congressional RINOs to Conservatives, he called attention to an article that has a couple of interesting paragraphs, to wit:
Contrary to everyone's expectations, 10 percent more blacks voted in 2012 compared to 2008, even beating white voters, the usual turnout champions. Eligible black voters turned out at rate of 66.2 percent, compared to 64.1 percent of eligible white voters. Only 48 percent of all eligible Hispanic voters went to the polls.
No one saw this coming, which is probably why Gallup had Romney up by 5 points before Hurricane Sandy hit, and up by 1 point in its last pre-election poll after the hurricane.
Only two groups voted in larger numbers in 2012 compared to 2008: blacks aged 45-64, and blacks over the age of 65 -- mostly elderly black women. Emphasis mine.
Funny, all that "unexpected" (there's that word again) turnout in all those precincts where 100% of the vote went for the Messiah - a statistical impossibility, especially since 4 million fewer people voted for him than '08.
Makes you wonder if something funny was going on.
PS Reminds one of the vote fraud scandal in FL where absentee ballots were sent out unsolicited like mail from Publishers' Clearing House.
Robert Cook said...
You offer this as evidence of how much worse China's justice system is than ours, yet many Americans would surely consider China's higher rate of executions as a metric we should aspire to
So in other words, the US doesn't treat its citizens in any manner comparable to China as you suggested, the US populace is just fully of with whom you disagree.
Jay,
If I parse your difficult-to-comprehend statement correctly: no.
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