Sorry, Obama, but you’re wrong. Here’s DCI John Brennan in March:
“When the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong,” Brennan said.
Here’s John Brennan this week:
After briefing committee leaders, Brennan “apologized to them for such actions by CIA officers as described in the [inspector general] report,” the agency’s statement said. Brennan also ordered the creation of an internal personnel board, led by former senator Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), to review the agency employees’ conduct and determine “potential disciplinary measures.”
And here’s the White House press secretary:
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama supports Brennan and disputed that the CIA director’s reversal on the clash with Congress had damaged his credibility. “Not at all,” Earnest said, noting that Brennan had initiated the inspector general review.
“He currently is operating in a very difficult environment to ensure the safety of the American public,” Earnest said. “He is somebody who has a very difficult job, who does that job extraordinarily well.”
That is the rankest bullshit. John Brennan has zero credibility left and he ought to be run out of Langley on a rail.
Look, Booman. He said “tremendous” amount. What was uncovered was just “a little” spying.
In all seriousness, at the very least he should resign. He shouldn’t have been confirmed. He should be in jail for his complicity and cover-up of torture.
I’d agree with this judgment of Brennan, especially if I thought it would do something to change the culture of the CIA.
Anyone think it would? Can a new director root out the lack of respect for American/International law and human decency?
I need to be convinced.
Time to fire Brennan and start cleaning house. And also start to undo the labyrinthine web of secrecy and surveillance that is strangling democratic governance in this country.
We don’t have the most powerful national security apparatus in the world, we have the most expensive national security apparatus in the world. And it has gotten so politicized that it is strangling sound decision-making. Give members of Congress full transparency to what they are doing.
Plausible deniability covers crimes, which even in the short run does not make us safer. And it puts the President in a position of being blackmailed or extorted depending on his support for the national security apparatus.
Enough.
Did you hear what Pelosi supposedly said today?
Jason Leopold is requesting a FOIA disclosure of Keith Alexander’s financial disclosure form. I think that someone should do the same for John Brennan.
In principle, the President is the only one who can block it and only if the person is a spy whose disclosure form would endanger current operations.
I know Jason pretty well. He doesn’t call himself a FOIA Terrorist for nothing! 😉
What I find interesting about all of this is nobody is asking what the CIA found out about all of the Congress. Seems everyone is outraged that the CIA did it’s job called gathering information. I do find they should be held accountable for any torture done.
But, it seems to me a whole lot of attention is being placed upon the act of spying and deflecting from what the CIA has learned about Congress.Knowing the CIA, I am sure it was a lot. Yet none is asking them for the information. I wonder why?
There aren’t enough cajones in Congress to change anything. Maybe Wyden and a few others, but nothing’s going to change with the current crew.
If anyone does start a movement to clean up, reorganize, much less prosecute the evildoers in the CIA, expect the NY Times, WaPo, Time, and all the cheerleaders for the fascist regime in Kiev and who backed Curveball and on and on back into time to step and defend the wrecking crew in Langley. Hell, most people can’t even imagine the truth, much less articulate it.
This is the consequence of the coup. As Faulkner once said…
“Cajones” are just boxes. “Cojones” are testicles.
Thank you. My Spanish is limited to pointing at things on the menu.
So that was an empty box of balls.
You did get it right, just by pointing.
Two points.
(1) CIA getting out of its sandbox was what finally turned a critical mass of Nixon’s defenders against him. But any outrage can only be an outrage once; the same thing cannot be an outrage twice.
(2) At this point the most deeply internalized pseudo-philosophy in America is that “accountability” is “the thing that prevents {whomever} from getting their job done” — the CIA, the county sheriff, the corporate officer, the small-business owner. None of them, and few of us, any longer know how (let alone why) they should operate in an environment of accountability. The whole concept has just gone by the board.
John Brennan has zero credibility left and he ought to be run out of Langley on a rail?
That is the rankest bullshit!!!
Obama now has zero credibility left and he ought to be run out of Washington DC on a rail.
But of course…that will not happen. The PermaGov takes care of its caretakers. Unless of course those caretakers turn against the system that hired them.
So it goes.
Next up to the plate?
Guess who.
And guess what.
You will support her. “Reluctantly,” after all of the better choices are thoroughly non-personed by the PermaGov-owned media.
Because “it’s the practical thing to do.” The political thing.
Look where practical politics have gotten us over the past 50+ years.
Practically nowhere.
That’s where.
WTFU.
AG
AG
We know, Arthur. You want a radical Republican in the White House. That’s the ultimate outcome of your Obama and Democratic Party hating and your affection for the radical Republican Rand Paul, who would do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to dismantle the national security state.
Or, taking you at your word, you want “impractical politics” to pick our Nation’s leaders. What would that look like, exactly?
You admired the Beatles’ prescience recently. Well, as John L. wrote,
“You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan”
Thank you!!!
Precisely that.
“Impractical Politics” should be the title of a book.
I can see it now.
Right up the bestseller lists!
Bet on it.
Where’s my ghostwriter when I really need him?
Oh.
Wait a minute!!!
I’m my own ghostwriter.
Nevermind.
It was “impractical politics” that succeeded in establishing this American experiment in the first place.
The thing that first drew me to Ron Paul were his “impractical politics”…his uncompromising honesty regarding what he believed was needed to change the direction of this country. No waffling, no code words, just the facts as he saw them, take it or leave it. People said that what he was doing wasn’t “practical,” that ongoing compromise on all sides is the way that things get done here in the United States of Omertica. He just kept on keeping on. People laughed at him. He didn’t stop. Then the media tried to non-person him. He just kept on going.
Ron Paul’s son is now the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. We are at Gandhi’s “fighting” stage. Will Rand Paul win the nomination? I dunno. If he does, will he win the presidency? Again, I have no idea. Rand Paul is 51 years old. Do you think he’s going to give up? I don’t. It’s genetic. Get used to it. If he loses the nomination or the election, yet another Permanent Government candidate will win. Then there will be 4 or 8 more years of the same disastrous PermaGov bullshit that we have seen for 50+ years. If the country survives that experience, maybe it will wake the fuck up. Or of course…maybe it won’t. Maybe a new fighter will emerge from the left. That would make me very happy, personally. So far, no go. Elizabeth Warren is already compromised by her “business as usual” courting of AIPAC as far as I am concerned. Maybe she will wake the fuck up as well. Plain talk about radical change will eventually cut through the media fog if it is continued long enough. She’s 65, so she had better get a move on soon. Anybody else? I don’t see it.
Thanks again, centerfielddj. I knew that you’d eventually contribute something besides kneejerk leftiness.
Good job.
Back to the drawing board, eh?
Keep on trying.
I so love these little colloquies of ours.
Later…
AG
Thank you for doing such a remarkably poor job of explaining how electing Rand Paul President and, in doing so, giving even more power to transnational corporations, Wall Street, financial institutions, religious fundamentalists, racists, and sexists, will improve things in this country.
Uh-huh. And replaced with who? Someone else who will pursue exactly the same policies, but with less public scrutiny?
And who, exactly, is their boss? President Obama. And before him, similar priorities under Dubya, and before him, Clinton, and before him, the former CIA director, Poppy. And so on. The only thing that has changed is that the precedents each has set have been expanded upon by each of their successors. And either President Clinton or any conceivable Republican nominee will make things worse still.
Accountability? Hahahahahahahaha. When murderers, torturers, and egregious shredders of the Constitution need answer only to people who share their priorities, “accountability” isn’t even a relevant concept. Occasionally we get a meaningless gesture like Brennan’s new board, chaired by former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Langley).
Yep. Heads are gonna roll. Just not those of anyone at the CIA or other intelligence agencies. Their critics? Way more likely.
Good point. Disband the CIA. Chop it up into a bunch of piece sans scatter it to the winds.
I remember a President saying that he’d do that. Which one was he?
The one that got shot.
.
From the CIA’s own web site:
Not only is this a violation of the law, it’s a violation of the separation of powers. The CIA seems to be lacking both in spycraft and in judgement. Does anyone know exactly what the CIA accomplishes other than hoovering up a shit ton of money? Wait, I know, they’re doing dynamite work, they just can’t tell us about it. Believe that and I’ll sell you a lovely suspension bridge, I just can’t tell you where it is.
While we’re at it, Keith Alexander needs to be indicted for theft and attempted sale of federal government intellectual property. As reported by Empty Wheel Alan Grayson is on the case as far as attempted sale “classified information. But that’s too narrow IMHO — it’s intellectual property that we the people paid for and not for sale in the private market for personal gain by SOBs like Alexander.
As reported by the Guardian last year
Yeah, Keith because taking the NSA goodies and selling them off to the highest bidders is a demonstration of “noble intent.”
Then there’s Poindexter who hired out his TIA to Singapore. Recycled CREEPs everywhere.
Well lookee here how quickly those “tough” guys in Poland stuck their hands out for an EU bailout.
The first of many such requests?
Sure hope the EU has set aside a few billion dollars to compensate their friends for the sanctions against Russia. Bet they forgot to ask for that from Obama when he twisted their arms to go along with his tough guy stance.
Well, gosh, let’s see.
DNI Clapper appeared under oath before Congress and baldly lied (i.e., perjured himself) in response to a direct and clear question from Sen. Wyden.
[wikipedia)
Wyden had informed Clapper in advance that he would be asking the question (so, sorry, no “just misspoke” defense available). (Edward Snowden has said this fact was his watershed decision point for going public with his revelations confirming what a self-perjuring liar Clapper is.)
Indefensibly, DNI Clapper still has his job.
This is as serious as anything that Nixon did, but instead of the President being the perpetrator, in this case the President is playing the role of the co-dependent spouse. If the White House does not get ahead of this issue quickly (I said this a year ago about the Snowden revelations), the historical verdict on the Obama Presidency will be that it suspended the Constitution.
That is not something that I want to see either for the President or the country. And it is only a dysfunctional Congress that keeps it from completely blowing up right now.
Again. Brennan must go and the President must clean house in the national security and intelligence agencies. They’ve become too corrupted with corporate case and a revolving door. And the Cold War authorities from the Truman administration must be rolled back so that US national security institutions are scaled to the actual threats instead of the other way around.
Dream on, Tarheel.
The words “…corrupted with corporate case and a revolving door” perfectly describe Obama himself. He cannot do this. He made promises…bet on it…not to do that. Those promises are what got him into the White House in the first place, and now he is literally stuck with them. I suppose he could take the big, big gamble and go all in, but really…when has he shown anything but extreme caution in matters of this sort? He is the gradualist’s gradualist, careful to a fault. He’s already halfway retired, looks to me. One foot out the door into that pleasant ex-President’s Land inhabited by every surviving ex-prez of the last 50+ years w/the possible exception of Nixon, and even Nixon lived a life of wealth and privilege after he took that helicopter ride outta DC protesting his “I am not a crook” innocence.
The presidency for a non-billionaire is like a jail term now, Tarheel.
The Big Boyz say “Now looka here, son. Do the time for us and we’ll take care of you and your family. Eight years? You can do that standing on your head!”
Which appears to be exactly how Obama is doing his stretch.
Time’s almost up.
Get through about 1.5 more years without getting Nixon-busted and he’s home free.
So it goes.
Sorry.
So it goes in the United States of Omertica.
Bet on it.
And if you do rat them out, they’ll also “take care of you and your family.
Bet on that as well.
Obama is.
He’s got one foot out the door already.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG
Every post AG makes is intended to empower the radical right-wing movement.
No.
Every post I make is meant to ’empower” Americans. If my posts empower the so-called “radical right-wing movement”…a group so amorphous that it can include total dunces like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, McCarthy clones like Ted Cruz and principled conservatives like Ron and Rand Paul…then that is the fault of the equally “so-called” left wing of the American political spectrum, a movement that hasn’t moved an inch…except maybe backwards and sideways…since Howard Dean got the proto-Ron Paul media treatment in 2004 and gave up trying.
WTFU.
AG
principled conservatives like Ron and Rand Paul
The delusions remain …….
One man’s delusion is another’s truth.
And vice-versa.
Only time can tell the difference.
Watch.
Right now, the worm is turning.
It is even turning on this site, clif. The leftiness delusions regarding Obama are dissipating in the face of his continuing failures. Who knows where the worm will turn next?
Stay tuned.
Are the Paulists opposing Obama because of principle or politics as usual?
They are actually opposing the entire PermaGov political structure, trying to turn the Republican Party into something other than a money funnel to and from corporate America.
Is that “politically” motivated? Seems like pretty dumb politics if political success is their motivation. Why not just dumb up and join the money train?
Looks to me like they are true believers.
“Principled” believers.
Are they right? Wrong?
Dunno yet. What they are proposing has not yet been tried in the modern world.
We shall see, soon enough.
Watch.
AG
You write great fiction.
Thank you.
But…the fiction of the past often becomes the truth of the future, clif.
Look at George Orwell’s “1984” for all you need to know on that account.
We shall see.
Soon enough.
Watch.
AG
the fiction of the past often becomes the truth of the future
VERY RARELY as the author of mein kampo found out.
And baby paul and his clueless followers aren’t playing in either authors league.
Americans noticing what is going on is one thing. Americans knowing which people can fix it and feeling empowered enough to think their vote counts in the coming surge of campaign cash from Koch-funded and other conservative post-Citizens United groups is another.
The battle is turnout and even the Democrats are stacking the deck against turnout.