Team Emanuel Shouldn’t Be Laughing

22 Comments

1. 

   Arthur Gilroy on July 14, 2014 at 9:13 am

   A small paraphrase:

   Without endorsing the findings of any particular poll, online or otherwise, I’d just point out to Team Obama and the Democratic Party that Eric Cantor’s staff isn’t laughing about their challengers’ prospects anymore. He’s out of a job. It could have been that Obama was President of the United States for life. It also could be that he is about to get drummed out of office for arrogance and incompetency.

   Rahm and Obama. Intertwined forever.

   Birds of a feather do flock together.

   Bet on it.

   Rahm.

   Obama’s sonofabitch.

   Remember?

   I do.

   AG

   • 

     seabe on July 14, 2014 at 10:14 am

     Amendment 22, how does it work?

     • 

       Arthur Gilroy on July 14, 2014 at 1:47 pm

       I know that, seabe. Don’t be obtuse. Don’t be humorless, either. Or are they one and the same? Probably. Whatever.

       AG

       P.S. Laws can be changed. Amendments are laws. Thus, amendments can be changed. Bloomberg did it in NYC. He bought a law so that he could run an extra term. Given what is going on in the world now, I can see the distinct possibility that somewhere in the relatively near future a U.S. president will be saying something like “Don’t change horses in midstream!!!”

       And that will be the end of the American experiment.

       It could happen.

       

       Bet on it.

       • 

         seabe on July 14, 2014 at 2:04 pm

         Of course laws can be changed. Many reps introduce bills to repeal the amendment. Unfortunately for your “joke”, laws and constitutional amendments aren’t the same thing. Good luck getting two thirds ratification in the states, even if somehow you got the bill out of committee. I’d support repealing it myself. I don’t like term limits. They’re undemocratic.  

         There is no humor in what you wrote; it follows a continuous pattern of right wing talking points, don’t think we don’t notice. If humor is where you were going, update your material.

         • 

           clif on July 14, 2014 at 3:23 pm

           Please do not confuse AG with any silly facts, it gets in the way of his propaganda spewing sessions.

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on July 14, 2014 at 5:26 pm

           Silly facts?

           Here’s a fact for you:

           The possibilities are endless. Life will try anything. Right now it is trying a form of technofascism, right here in the good ol’, red, white and blue U.S. of A.

           Check it out.

           How the CIA Partnered With Amazon and Changed Intelligence

           By Frank Konkel
           July 11, 2014

           The intelligence community is about to get the equivalent of an adrenaline shot to the chest. This summer, a $600 million computing cloud developed by Amazon Web Services for the Central Intelligence Agency over the past year will begin servicing all 17 agencies that make up the intelligence community. If the technology plays out as officials envision, it will usher in a new era of cooperation and coordination, allowing agencies to share information and services much more easily and avoid the kind of intelligence gaps that preceded the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

           For the first time, agencies within the IC will be able to order a variety of on-demand computing and analytic services from the CIA and National Security Agency. What’s more, they’ll only pay for what they use.

           The vision was first outlined in the IC Information Technology Enterprise plan championed by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and IC Chief Information Officer Al Tarasiuk almost three years ago. Cloud computing is one of the core components of the strategy to help the IC discover, access and share critical information in an era of seemingly infinite data.

           For the risk-averse intelligence community, the decision to go with a commercial cloud vendor is a radical departure from business as usual.

           In 2011, while private companies were consolidating data centers in favor of the cloud and some civilian agencies began flirting with cloud variants like email as a service, a sometimes contentious debate among the intelligence community’s leadership took place.

           As one former intelligence official with knowledge of the Amazon deal told Government Executive, “It took a lot of wrangling, but it was easy to see the vision if you laid it all out.”

           The critical question was would the IC, led by the CIA, attempt to do cloud computing from within, or would it buy innovation?

           Money was a factor, according to the intelligence official, but not the leading one.  The government was spending more money on information technology within the IC than ever before. IT spending reached $8 billion in 2013, according to budget documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The CIA and other agencies feasibly could have spent billions of dollars standing up their own cloud infrastructure without raising many eyebrows in Congress, but the decision to purchase a single commercial solution came down primarily to two factors.

           “What we were really looking at was time to mission and innovation,” the former intelligence official said. “The goal was, `Can we act like a large enterprise in the corporate world and buy the thing that we don’t have, can we catch up to the commercial cycle? Anybody can build a data center, but could we purchase something more?

            “We decided we needed to buy innovation,” the former intelligence official said.

           A Groundbreaking Deal

           The CIA’s first request for proposals from industry in mid-2012 was met with bid protests to the Government Accountability Office from Microsoft and AT&T, two early contenders for the contract. Those protests focused on the narrow specifications called for by the RFP. GAO did not issue a decision in either protest because the CIA reworked its request to address the companies’ complaint.

           In early 2013, after weighing bids from Amazon Web Services, IBM and an unnamed third vendor, the CIA awarded a contract to AWS worth up to $600 million over a period of up to 10 years. The deal, handled in secret, was first reported by FCW in March 2013, sending ripples through the tech industry.

           A month after the deal became public, IBM filed a bid protest with GAO that the watchdog eventually upheld in June, forcing the CIA to reopen bids to both companies for the contract. A legal struggle between Amazon and Big Blue ensued, and AWS filed a lawsuit against the federal government in July 2013, claiming the GAO sustainment was a “flawed” decision.

           In October, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thomas Wheeler sided with Amazon and overturned GAO’s decision to force the CIA to rebid the contract. Big Blue went home, AWS claimed victory under the deal’s original financial specs, and nearly 18 months after the procurement was first released, the CIA and Amazon went to work.

           It is difficult to underestimate the cloud contract’s importance. In a recent public appearance, CIA Chief Information Officer Douglas Wolfe called it “one of the most important technology procurements in recent history,” with ramifications far outside the realm of technology.

           “It’s going to take a few months to bring this online in a robust way, but it’s coming,” Wolfe said.  “And I think it’s going to make a big difference for national security.”

           —snip—

           Do you take it to be a coincidence that Amazon’s owner Jeff Bezos gained control of the most CIA line-spouting newspaper in the U.S., The Washington Post, during this same timeline?

           Please.

           “Fascism” can be broadly defined as an alliance between corporate and state interests that leads to the loss of state support regarding individual rights. This is happening right in front of our noses, with Obama working as the well-made puppet out front that is being used to distract the children from what is happening backstage.

           I believe that…if the current rate of decay continues…the U.S. will be a de facto dictatorship within a decade. This dictatorship won’t look like those of the past…William Burroughs’s vision below is more like what will happen. It’s already happening. Slowly.

           We have a new type of rule now. Not one-man rule, or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decision.

           They are representatives of abstract forces who have reached power through surrender of self. The iron-willed dictator is a thing of past.

           There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers.

           The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident. Inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push.

           –William S. Burroughs, “No More Stalins, No More Hitlers,” from Dead City Radio, Island Records, 1990; and Interzone, Viking Books, 1989.

           Rule by technocrats, who are themselves more and more ruled by “information.” Information that is cyber-based and thus perfectly neutral. The only problem is that “neutrality” of this sort is anti-human.

           

           

           Y’all think I am some kind of right-wing propagandist? I am coming neither from the left or the right, actually. Neither am I a propagandist. I am just telling you what is happening, sans any sugar coating. Take it or leave it. What’s going down will certainly continue no matter what any of us do or say.

           Have a nice day.

           Sgt. Friday will be along to interview you soon.

           Any day now.

           Aaaaany day now…

           Bet on it.

           AG

           P.S. “…abstract forces who have reached power through surrender of self.”

           Sounds like cyber-rule, to me.

           Abstract forces without a “self.”

           As in not human.

           Clomp clomp clomp.

           The Terminator in cyberclothes.

           Watch.

           

           Watch.

         • 

           clif on July 16, 2014 at 2:02 pm

           Lots of words and pictures to try to hide the fact you comment about changing the 22nd amendment was kinda dumb on its face;

           How’s that fer a fact  eh aur-thor?

2. 

   Steve LaBonne on July 14, 2014 at 10:10 am

   Oh lord, I hope so. I’ve loved Chicago since I was a grad student at Northwestern (but living on the Chicago side of the line)longer ago than I like to contemplate. I’ve always been proud to say that I voted for Harold Washington in the primary, when it really counted. It’s been painful to read about the city being effed over even worse by the current corporate whore crook Mayor than by the previous one, who at least left some important public amenities behind. That great city deserves so much better.

3. 

   rikyrah on July 14, 2014 at 11:15 am

   Rahm is down to EIGHT PERCENT APPROVAL AMONG BLACKS.

   He’s down to  TEEN PERCENT APPROVAL AMONG LATINOS.

   I’m still waiting for an apology from those that voted for him the last time.

   • 

     Tien Le on July 14, 2014 at 11:47 am

     Wasn’t there ridiculously low turnout for that race? That’s my memory of it.

   • 

     Phil Perspective on July 14, 2014 at 5:22 pm

     Why?  Rahmbo raised way more money than anyone else last time.  Which effectively sidelined any other serious candidates.  Not to mention his high name recognition being CoS and all.  I really hope Karen Lewis is the one that kicks Rahmbo in the balls and tells him to bite it.

     • 

       The Voice In The Wilderness on July 14, 2014 at 5:58 pm

       Toni Preckwinkle is more likely to beat him, but she is playing cat and mouse about running.

       • 

         ILuvChez17 on July 15, 2014 at 3:35 pm

         She’s out.

4. 

   Marie2 on July 14, 2014 at 12:39 pm

   Emanuel laughs at all the “little people” that don’t share his opinion of himself.

5. 

   TarheelDem on July 14, 2014 at 12:48 pm

   Seems that Rahm forgot that lots of people are not on board with his ethnic cleansing and gentrification scheme for redeveloping Chicago as one big huge gated community.

   I would love to see the corrupt machine broken again.  Not that it would go away entirely.

6. 

   neonnautilus on July 14, 2014 at 3:04 pm

   Rahm was Obama’s first big mistake.

   [I hate to keep harping on this, but it seems I’m not able (allowed?) to rec a comment.  People have kindly told me how – there’s a gray box at the bottom of each comment etc., but I have no gray box when I read comments.  I am registered and I am signed in.   Any suggestions would be appreciated.]

   • 

     Marie2 on July 14, 2014 at 4:50 pm

     Can you reply to a comment?

     • 

       The Voice In The Wilderness on July 14, 2014 at 5:56 pm

       Yes he can and has.

       Neon, what device and OS are you using?

       • 

         The Voice In The Wilderness on July 14, 2014 at 6:00 pm

         I take that back. All his replies are to top posts.

   • 

     The Voice In The Wilderness on July 14, 2014 at 6:03 pm

     Neon, if you can reply to this. If you can’t, reply to the originating article saying you can’t. In either case, tell me what device (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop) and OS (Android, Windows (+flavor), Linux (+flavor), MacOS, etc.) you are using. Also what browser.

     • 

       neonnautilus on July 15, 2014 at 3:08 pm

       I’m on my PC.  

       • 

         The Voice In The Wilderness on July 15, 2014 at 9:28 pm

         Presumably some version of Windows.

         I’m on Windows XP, primarily Firefox 24.5.0

         I tried Internet Explorer 8. The Booman Tribune is just a big white blank. The whole page.

         I tried Opera 22.0. Display including the rating box is the same as Firefox.

         I tried Midori 0.5.8   Display looks different from Firefox and the dropdown box is a different style but recognizable. Positioning the mouse and pressing the left button shows the menu. Moving the mouse selects a choice. Clicking sets it.

         I don’t have Chrome to check it out. The IE8 result may mean that something needs to be enabled in your browser. And you do need to be logged in.  

         Maybe some web guru can help (Please! Hint! Hint!)