The big US internet technology companies protested loudly that the mass spying by the NSA on the people using their systems was done without their knowledge or consent. One could be excused for being skeptical of their claims of innocence and now a top lawyer for the NSA confirms our doubts, saying on Wednesday that Silicon Valley companies knew all along that the NSA was spying on their systems.
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Jon Stewart of The Daily Show never gets tired of the opportunity to make fun of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s facial resemblance to a turtle and to try out his voice at how a turtle might talk. McConnell’s latest campaign commercial has provided Stewart with another golden opportunity to poke fun at his stiffness.
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Cleveland is your ordinary mid-western town in a state (Ohio) that is not known for its liberal views on social issues. But I must say that when it comes to LGBT rights, it has shown itself to be well ahead of some cities that have ostensibly more liberal reputations.
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The issue of Ukraine and Crimea and Russia has dominated the news in the last week, with much of the US media portrayal consisting of repeating US government assertions that this is an example of Russia throwing its weight around and interfering in the internal affairs of another nations, as if the US never does such things. The reality is that the US is constantly interfering in the internal affairs of other countries either overtly by sending in troops or covertly by supporting destabilizing efforts against governments it does not like.
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Abby Huntsman, daughter of failed Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman. has like many children of well-known politicians, parlayed her family connections and fame into a career as some sort of media personality. And as is the case with media personalities, they feel free to make assertions on policy matters with little attention to facts.
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Via Marcus Ranum, I read this report about Mark Zuckerberg writing on his Facebook page that he had called president Obama to complain about the way that the NSA’s activities have harmed the internet and thus companies like his.
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Those above a certain age will remember Anita Hill and the explosive confirmation hearings over Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1991. I recall following those events and right from the beginning I believed her story and felt that Thomas was a sleazy character personally with extreme views and should never have been confirmed to the court.
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Stephen Colbert looks at the concerns expressed by Fox News that president Obama appearing with Zach Galifianakis on a web comedy show demeans the presidency. In their weird little minds, starting illegal wars, torturing people, engaging in a vast global spying program, waging cyberwars and the like do not harm the presidency but appearing on a show widely watched by young people (over 13 million people have so far seen the 6:30-minute clip) to promote his health care plan is somehow hugely damaging.
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The CIA is shocked, just shocked, and even saddened that anyone would suspect them of doing something wrong and say that some low-techies may be responsible for whatever spying may have been done on the staffers of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, though they are not acknowledging that such things happened. Maybe the CIA does not hire interns, the usual underlings who are blamed for anything that goes wrong.
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Long-time peace activist Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK describes the terrible experience she had in Cairo while trying to get to Gaza to attend the International Women’s Day celebrations there as part of a 100-member international delegation that included “representatives from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Canada and the United States” and “who ranged in age from 18 to 84, included Nobel Peace Prize winners, doctors, writers and students.”
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