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So guess who takes the fall

Certainly not their bosses.

An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has found that its officers improperly penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee in preparing its report on the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program.

In a statement issued Thursday morning, a C.I.A. spokesman said that agency’s inspector general had concluded that C.I.A. officers had acted inappropriately by gaining access to the computers. ...NYT

This is one of the "gee whiz" moments in which it turns out the Senate Intelligence Committee learns it was right all along but is willing, apparently, to let two "improper" officers take the fall rather than stir things up at this already incompetent agency.  Oh, there'll be a inquiry.

The statement said that John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director, had apologized to the two senior members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and that he would set up an internal accountability board to review the matter. The board will be led by former Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana. ...NYT

There should be uniform punishment for obstruction of justice. That might include several "accountability boards" over the past decades. 

How is Brennan's response potentially "obstruction of justice"?  Because rather than reveal what needs to be known by the American people, he plays cover-our-ass games.  "Accountability" it ain't.  After all, Mark Mazzetti reports in the Times, Brennan lied. 

Unfortunately, the White House is defending Brennan.  Making Democratic senators pretty angry.  The White House needs to come up with a more useful response.

The Homeland Security game has been a con game all along -- a disorganized and corrupt game.  Let's not blame Brennan's cover-up on Bush/Cheney.  But let's be clear that from Patriot Acts to what we've learned thanks to Edward Snowden and now from the CIA, we have ample evidende that we need a complete overhaul of our intelligence gathering.  Less politicking, less corporate complicity, fewer eyes watching random Americans -- and less rightwing paranoia, please.

Balls

I can speak only about home territory, the state of Texas.  But there may be a variation on the theme in every state of the union.  One can only hope. 

Here in the Lone Star State, the first thing you say about the new doggy or kitty your neighbor has adopted, after the "so cute!" comments is, "Has s/he been spayed/neutered?"  A local vet here has a sign up reading "Balls!  Who needs 'em!"  Towns have fenced doggy parks... not open to pets that haven't been neutered.

But presidents?  Maybe we should ask whether the White House could impose a similar rule.  Adam Gopnik examines the macho hysteria that has ruled our politics since god knows when.  He cites political historian K. A. Cuordileone:

Cuordileone quotes Lyndon Johnson in his retirement on the catastrophe of Vietnam, when he was still obsessed with the idea that, if he had withdrawn, his enemies—by whom he meant, notably, Robert Kennedy, a founding member of the real-man cult—would know that Johnson was, in his  own words, “a coward. An unmanly man. A man without a spine.”  She goes on to writes that Johnson’s words show a “deep psychological investment in masculine self-image,” one that “has the power to subvert circumspection, logic, prudence, morality and even national self-interest in matters of national decision making, and create the illusion that there are no alternatives.” ...Gopnik,NewYorker

The worst thing about this is that we are childish enough to believe that machismo makes a politician or an entire nation more "credible."  We operate that way around the world to the extent that nice people in other countries look at us and make that finger-in-throat gesture meaning, "You're making me sick."  And it's true.  We are accused of spreading sickness wherever we go.  And we do.

This business of looking manly even developed its own theoretical rationale, the concept of “credibility”: if we are willing to act violently in pursuit of a peripheral interest, everyone can be certain that, when a vital interest is at stake, we will be still more violent. “Credibility” is defined as the willingness to kill a lot of people now for a not very good cause to assure the world that we’ll kill a lot more people if we can find a better one. This is the logic that led to wild overinvestment in peripheral struggles like Iraq, and is, in the view of many of its proponents, too subtle for the feminine mind to grasp. ...Gopnik,NewYorker

So when the right accuses Obama of being a girly-boy?  Well, for a start, they've been insulting him since he first came on the scene.   Sure, there's racism there.  But I think a lot of it is resentment.  Many Republicans were clearly disillusioned by their White House.  By the end of the Bush/Cheney debacle, they were showing real signs of embarrassment.  Meanwhile, a well-spoken, handsome law professor was getting tons of applause and cheers during his campaign.  It was about more than racism.  It was a stab in the side of the right. 

We've reached the point that we're so bathed in resentment and fury that we've forgotten what we need and want.

We don’t need tough guys. We need wise guys. We’ve tried tough guys, and it always ends in tears. Tough guys you know right away because they’re never scared of a fight. Wise guys you only know in retrospect, when you remember that they quietly walked away from the fight that now has the tough guy in a hospital. Wise women do that, too. ...Gopnik,NewYorker

The glories of education in America...

From the Salt Lake Tribune the other day, in case you haven't caught up with this hot hot story:

Homophones, as any English grammarian can tell you, are words that sound the same but have different meanings and often different spellings — such as be and bee, through and threw, which and witch, their and there.

This concept is taught early on to foreign students learning English because it can be confusing to someone whose native language does not have that feature.

But when the social-media specialist for a private Provo-based English language learning center wrote a blog explaining homophones, he was let go for creating the perception that the school promoted a gay agenda.

Tim Torkildson says after he wrote the blog on the website of his employer, Nomen Global Language Center, his boss and Nomen owner Clarke Woodger, called him into his office and told him he was fired.

As Torkildson tells it, Woodger said he could not trust him and that the blog about homophones was the last straw.

"Now our school is going to be associated with homosexuality," Woodger complained, according to Torkildson, who posted the exchange on his Facebook page.

Torkildson says he was careful to write a straightforward explanation of homophones. He knew the "homo" part of the word could be politically charged [OMG!] but he thought the explanation of that quirky part of the English language would be educational.

Nomen has removed that blog from its website, but a similar explanation of homophones was posted there in 2011 with apparently no controversy. ...SaltLakeTribune

So what happens when you give homogenized milk to your children -- particularly in Utah?  Or recommend homoeopathy for that aching back?  Or use a homonym when making a speech? Will you be banished for being a homousian when it comes to discussions of the Trinity?

Did Obama really do this? If so...

Keith Alexander was the head of the NSA until late March and now he's angling for a new job.  Kind of looks as though he's angling to take his, um, expertise to a new corporate boss for the modest salary of $1,000,000 a month. 

Could be worth that:  think about what he knows...

Keith Alexander, the recently retired director of the National Security Agency, left many in Washington slack-jawed when it was reported that he might charge companies up to $1 million a month to help them protect their computer networks from hackers. What insights or expertise about cybersecurity could possibly justify such a sky-high fee, some wondered, even for a man as well-connected in the military-industrial complex as the former head of the nation's largest intelligence agency? ...ShaneHarris,ForeignPolicy

Keith Alexander is in a position, thanks to his experience on, um, our nickel --serving us in a government agency -- to let many cats out of dozens of bags.

The answer, Alexander said in an interview Monday, is a new technology, based on a patented and "unique" approach to detecting malicious hackers and cyber-intruders that the retired Army general said he has invented, along with his business partners at IronNet Cybersecurity Inc., the company he co-founded after leaving the government and retiring from military service in March. But the technology is also directly informed by the years of experience Alexander has had tracking hackers, and the insights he gained from classified operations as the director of the NSA, which give him a rare competitive advantage over the many firms competing for a share of the cybersecurity market.

Rep. Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat, expressed his worries in a letter. "I am writing with concerns about the potential disclosure of classified information by former National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander,” he wrote. “Disclosing or misusing classified information for profit is, as Mr. Alexander well knows, a felony. I question how Mr. Alexander can provide any of the services he is offering unless he discloses or misuses classified information, including extremely sensitive sources and methods. Without the classified information that he acquired in his former position, he literally would have nothing to offer to you.” ...ConorFriedersdorf,TheAtlantic

One investigative journalist made a Freedom of Information Act request to look at Alexander's income and investments. 

For decades, American officials have been compelled to file paperwork regarding  their income and investments. The idea is to lay bare all financial conflicts of interest, making corruption less attractive to attempt and more likely to be caught. Would the NSA release a copy of Alexander's financial disclosure forms? ...ConorFriedersdorf,TheAtlantic

Nope.  It wouldn't.  It stonewalled.  Or, more properly, the only person who could stop the release of those records did just that.  President Obama stepped in and refused access to the former NSA directors financial records.   It's a crack in the system and he shouldn't use it.  

The investigative journalist, Jason Leopold, made an official complaint.

"The letter denying Mr. Leopold’s request for financial disclosure statements did not indicate that the President had in fact made a finding that, due to the nature of the office or position of the Director of the National Security Agency, the identity of the individual or other sensitive information, compromise the national interest of the United States. Instead, the letter simply cites the exemption provision of the statute. It is  not the case, however, that 5 USC app. § 105(a)(1) automatically exempts every employee of the NSA from the public disclosure requirement, and hundreds of NSA employees annually file publicly available financial disclosure forms. Absent evidence of a waiver, public disclosure is required." ...ConorFriedersdorf,TheAtlantic

Are we still expected to accept this as, uh, "transparency"?

President Obama on Thursday hailed his administration for its transparency.

“This is the most transparent administration in history,” Obama said during a Google Plus “Fireside” Hangout.

“I can document that this is the case,” he continued. “Every visitor that comes into the White House is now part of the public record. Every law we pass and every rule we implement we put online for everyone to see.” ...TheHill,2/14/13

Sheesh!  A door with a one-inch peephole is more "transparent" than that. 

Israel has new allies

As many western nations are horrified by the latest bombings in Gaza, Israel has some unexpected new friends.

After the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last year, Egypt has led a new coalition of Arab states — including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip. That, in turn, may have contributed to the failure of the antagonists to reach a negotiated cease-fire even after more than three weeks of bloodshed. ...NYT

One American expert and Middle East negotiator, Aaron David Miller is quoted as saying that Netanyahu is slightly less unpopular than "political Islam."  Miller goes on to say:

“I have never seen a situation like it, where you have so many Arab states acquiescing in the death and destruction in Gaza and the pummeling of Hamas,” he said. “The silence is deafening.” ...NYT

The "Arab Spring" has morphed into a new conservatism.

The dynamic has inverted all expectations of the Arab Spring uprisings. As recently as 18 months ago, most analysts in Israel, Washington and the Palestinian territories expected the popular uprisings to make the Arab governments more responsive to their citizens, and therefore more sympathetic to the Palestinians and more hostile to Israel.

But instead of becoming more isolated, Israel’s government has emerged for the moment as an unexpected beneficiary of the ensuing tumult, now tacitly supported by the leaders of the resurgent conservative order as an ally in their common fight against political Islam. ...NYT

Washington's fears about its own hold on power on the international scene have once against clouded its understanding of what's really happening.

The impeachment thing

There is no impeachment thing.  Both sides are using it as a vote-catching threat.

All this impeachment bluster also may be laying down the terms of engagement for another battle, should Obama soon — as many expect — take executive action to protect millions of illegal immigrants from the threat of deportation.

Republicans are saying that such a move would far exceed the president’s constitutional authority. But whether they will go so far as to begin impeachment proceedings remains to be seen.

“This is the ultimate test of Lucy and Charlie Brown,” Gingrich said, referring to the famous trick that one Peanuts comic character pulls on another. “The president is playing Lucy, and saying, ‘Look at the football,’ and seeing if Charlie Brown is dumb enough to come and kick the football.”  ...WaPo

It's smart on the part of Dems to keep this going.  It could turn out to be real motivation for voting.  That's a short term blessing, though.  The question about when we might return to sanity remains unanswered.

Meanwhile, how about Boehner's lawsuit?

Many legal experts question whether the courts would even take the suit. Republican strategists acknowledge privately that filing it would be merely symbolic and designed as a safety valve, to release some steam among the most strident in their party’s base. ...WaPo

Which is what this is really about.  Not Democrats, not Obama, but about the internal cracks in the Republican structure.  The lawsuit's nothing more than rubber cement, hastily applied and trying to make it look as though the Republicans have their act together.