Farm bill is chock-full of agribusiness pork

Apparently, Congress has not received the message from the voters. It is going to be “pork’ on steroids. Amazing that these same people will present themselves for re-election in 2014. For the House, all of them. So while they wail about the massive over spending that is a threat to the survival of our nation, the debt we are burdening the next generations that will be impossible to repay, it’s spend, spend, spend. So they roll food stamps into the farmers pork bill. Better to see you my dear. And we do. A nice piece over at Hot Air that let’s us know what is going down while the thieves in chief spy on our behaviors.

This behemoth and pork-filled bill is going to be directing a full decade’s worth of federal policy, but it’s going to fly on through under the radar to the tune of a trillion dollars paying for all kinds of miscellaneous programs, like expanding broadband in rural communities and cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay; it’s nothing short of a raging party funded by the taxpayer’s dime, and everybody’s invited!

The Heritage Foundation points out, this is all a lot of hemming and hawing over what is a much more expensive bill than the last go-around, plain and simple:

As the WSJ points out, peanut, cotton, and sticky-rice farmers are going to be some of the big winners of the price guarantees in the bill:

The federal subsidy in the House bill guarantees farmers of Japonica Rice that if market prices drop below 115% of the average price of all types of rice, they will get a government payment to make up the difference. …

The move shines a light on guarantees against drops in commodity prices that are in some ways replacing the much-maligned direct payments to farmers Congress is seeking to end. Subsidies for products such as corn, wheat and cotton cost taxpayers about $5 billion a year. Rice growers have received a total of more than $2.6 billion in subsidies since 1995, according to the Environmental Working Group…

The sticky-rice provision won strong support from, among others, two Northern California lawmakers from neighboring districts, according to congressional aides and people working with the rice industry: Freshman Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a fourth-generation Japonica Rice farmer who sits on the House agriculture committee; and Democratic Rep. John Garamendi, a rancher and pear farmer.

CIA’s deputy director to be replaced with WH lawyer, Morell retires

Avril D. Haines – Legal Adviser, Department of State now becomes the CIA deputy director. For some reason I though the CIA was supposed to worry about intelligence. Silly me. Might as well move someone from State over since its been hard to get the stories straight. Of course, it begs the question why the present fellow Michael Morell is getting out of dodge. I bet a couple of us have our suspicions.

NY Mag:

Retiring CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell Swears He Just Wants More Family Time

Michael Morell, the deputy director of the CIA who announced his retirement today, last found his name in the news after the White House released a trove of e-mails detailing how the much-maligned Benghazi talking points came to be. The documents suggest it was Morell who insisted on removing references to terrorism from the talking points, which U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used on the Sunday talk shows after the attack. That omission has helped fuel cries that there was a cover-up of the nature of the attack. But Morell insists his departure a month later has nothing to do with the fact he was left holding the talking points bag.

The CIA’s deputy director plans to retire and will be replaced by White House lawyer and agency outsider Avril D. Haines, Director John O. Brennan said Wednesday.

Haines, who will succeed career officer Michael Morell on Aug. 9, has served for three years as President Obama’s deputy counsel in charge of national security issues and as legal adviser to the National Security Council. Although she has never worked inside the intelligence agency, “she knows more about covert action than anyone in the U.S. government outside of the CIA,” Brennan said in his first interview since becoming CIA director in March. Sure, sure, sure, but it helps to have a lawyer around these days!

Washington Post

Biden Says Don’t Trust a Spying President

Where to even begin. But let us trot out a clip of Biden for old time’s sake, and spin on over to what has to be one of the more bizarre answers from our master of intelligence, Clapper, on why he lied to Congress. Even though he knew ahead of time the question before the hearing, and was given a chance to “modify” his answer after his “misstatement”.

We also now know that Clapper knew he was lying. In an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that aired this past Sunday, Clapper was asked why he answered Wyden the way he did. He replied:

“I thought, though in retrospect, I was asked [a] ‘when are you going to … stop beating your wife’ kind of question, which is … not answerable necessarily by a simple yes or no. So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying, ‘No.’ ”

Very original answer!

On Special Report with Bret Baier, a video of Joe Biden from May 12, 2006 was discussed. In this video, Biden told us to not trust a president who spies

Meanwhile back at Slate they are calling for Clappers head:

Fire James Clapper

The Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress about NSA surveillance. What else will he lie about?

Back at an open congressional hearing on March 12, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper replied, “No sir … not wittingly.” As we all now know, he was lying.

Read the whole thing at Slate if you want to have a chuckle.

Just a part from JAMES CLAPPER’S  “metaphor”: interview, well worth the full read to see how his head spins.

I understand that. But first let me say that I and everyone in the intelligence community all– who are also citizens, who also care very deeply about our– our privacy and civil liberties, I certainly do.

So let me say that at the outset. I think a lot of what people are– are reading and seeing in the media is a lot of hyper– hyperbole.

A metaphor I think might be helpful for people to understand this is to think of a huge library with literally millions of volumes of books in it, an electronic library. Seventy percent of those books are on bookcases in the United States, meaning that the bulk of the of the world’s infrastructure, communications infrastructure is in the United States.

There are no limitations on the customers who can use this library. Many and millions of innocent people doing min– millions of innocent things use this library, but there are also nefarious people who use it. Terrorists, drug cartels, human traffickers, criminals also take advantage of the same technology. So the task for us in the interest of preserving security and preserving civil liberties and privacy is to be as precise as we possibly can be when we go in that library and look for the books that we need to open up and actually read. You think of the li– and by the way, all these books are arranged randomly. They’re not arranged by subject or topic matter.

And they’re constantly changing. And so when we go into this library, first we have to have a library card, the people that actually do this work. Which connotes their training and certification and recertification. So when we pull out a book, based on its essentially is– electronic Dewey Decimal System, which is zeroes and ones, we have to be very precise about which book we’re picking out. And if it’s one that belongs to the– was put in there by an American citizen or a U.S. person. We ha– we are under strict court supervision and have to get stricter– and have to get permission to actually– actually look at that.

So the notion that we’re trolling through everyone’s emails and voyeuristically reading them, or listening to everyone’s phone calls is on its face absurd. We couldn’t do it even if we wanted to. And I assure you, we don’t want to.

IRS buying spying equipment including ‘concealed clock radios’

One would think the IRS would choose to keep a low profile what with all of the scandal going down. But no, they will not be deterred. Forget that Last week a second Inspector General report detailed nearly $50  million in wasteful spending by the agency on conferences, in which  employees stayed at luxurious Las Vegas hotels, paid a keynote speaker $17,000 to paint a picture of U2 singer Bono, and spent $50,000 on parody videos of “Star Trek.”

From the Fed Biz website here FBO.GOV

IRS Buying Spying Equipment: Covert Cameras in Coffee Trays, Plants.

Finishing out the order are four “Color IP Camera Concealment with  single channel network server, supports dual video stream, poe,  webviewer and cms software included, audio,” and two “Concealed clock  radio.”

The IRS  is ordering surveillance equipment that includes hidden  cameras in coffee trays, plants and clock radios.

The IRS wants to secure the surveillance equipment quickly – it  posted a solicitation on June 6 and is looking to close the deal by  Monday, June 10.  The agency already has a company lined up for the  order but is not commenting on the details.

“The Procurement Office acquires the products and services required to support the IRS mission,” according to its website.

“The Internal Revenue Service intends to award a Purchase Order to an undisclosed Corporation,” reads the solicitation.

“The following descriptions are vague due to the use and nature of the items,” it says.

“If you feel that you can provide the following equipment, please  respond to this email no later than 4 days after the solicitation date,”  the IRS said.

Among the items the agency will purchase are four “Covert Coffee  tray(s) with Camera concealment,” and four “Remote surveillance  system(s)” with “Built-in DVD Burner and 2 Internal HDDs, cameras.”

The IRS also is buying four cameras to hide in plants: “(QTY 4) Plant  Concealment Color 700 Lines Color IP Camera Concealment with Single  Channel Network Server, supports dual video stream, Poe [Power over  Ethernet], software included, case included, router included.”

H/T: CNS News

Maxine Waters: Dems will use Obama’s “Big Brother” Database

So Maxine Waters, not the brightest bulb in the room, had a clear vision of what the Obama regime was all about and knew they were collecting information on all of us and spilled the beans back in February. We knew he had his enemies list, but could we have imagined him going to the extent he has?  If this was not bad enough keep in mind, a Foreign company owns U.S. election software, with ties to Obama. Best part? The servers are located in Spain. Yes, our next election will be no more no less than a Banana Republic election. That is what we have become.

Published on Feb 11, 2013

“The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life,” Representative Maxine Waters told Roland Martin on Monday. “That’s going to be very, very powerful,” Waters said. “That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They’re going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can’t get around it. And he’s [President Obama] been very smart. It’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place.”

Obama signed Executive Order empowering Kill Switch over the Internet

On July 12, 2012 I posted the following story below. The Executive Order appeared in the Federal Register and there were 30 days for comment. There was little if any concern, and we bloggers were simply tin foil hat folks. I suggest one of the most dangerous moves Obama made. Now with the recent revelations, I thought this would be a good Sunday redo. So here we go:

Not much excitement about this apparently. So what he cannot do by Congressional action, he does by fiat. The interesting part is that his Executive Order was posted in the Federal Register.

Presidential powers over the Internet and telecommunications were laid out in a U.S. Senate bill in 2009, which proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet. But that legislation was not included in the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 earlier this year. I would ask, why must Janet Napolitano cut off private networks? I caught some discussion of this, and the rationale was that  “misinformation” may need to be curtailed. Where did I hear that before? Anyone still wondering where we are headed with this?

President Obama signed an executive order this week (July 12, 2012) that could give him control over the web in times of emergency.

According to The Verge, critics of the order are concerned with Section 5.2, which is a lengthy part outlining how telecommunications and the Internet are controlled. It states that the Secretary of Homeland Security will “oversee the development, testing, implementation, and sustainment” of national security and emergency preparedness measures on all systems, including private “non-military communications networks.” According to The Verge, critics say this gives Obama the on/off switch to the Web.

The order, known as the, “Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions,” exists to hand over full control of communications and the internet to certain government authorities in times of natural disaster and security emergencies.

The wording for the executive order is of course lengthy and uses politician language, but the part worth pointing out is in section 5.2.It is in this section that the order states that Homeland Security will be able to monitor and control all non-military forms of communications in times of extreme measures, which is essentially giving the White House the on/off switch to the internet, according to some critics.

You can read more about the executive order, which still has 30 days before it becomes a law, over at CNET and The Verge. If you want to check out the order in its entirety, go to the White House press page. From the Examiner

Government also collecting credit-card transactions

Hot Air: Here’s another question.  Exactly how many terrorists use credit cards to buy the kinds of products that would create those patterns?

Here is the whistle blower who tells us how this whole thing is planned out. Nothing accidental about this:

The filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans’ personal data. Two posts today.

As if the surveillance state didn’t have enough to do, what with tracking every call in America and scanning every Internet transaction. The Wall Street Journal reported late last night that the NSA has been cataloguing credit card transactions as well, rendering utterly void any concept of transactional privacy:

The National Security Agency’s monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency’s activities.

The disclosure this week of an order by a secret U.S. court for Verizon Communications Inc.’s phone records set off the latest public discussion of the program. But people familiar with the NSA’s operations said the initiative also encompasses phone-call data from AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., records from Internet-service providers and purchase information from credit-card providers.  …

NSA also obtains access to data from Internet service providers on Internet use such as data about email or website visits, several former officials said. NSA has established similar relationships with credit-card companies, three former officials said.

It couldn’t be determined if any of the Internet or credit-card arrangements are ongoing, as are the phone company efforts, or one-shot collection efforts. The credit-card firms, phone companies and NSA declined to comment for this article. More at Hot Air

On March 12 Ron Wyden who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee asked DNI James Clapper if the NSA collects data on millions of Americans. Clapper answer that no the NSA does not at least not wittingly collect info on American. In light of the report about the NSA collecting phone records from Verizon

Eric Holder and James Clapper at their best – nothing to see, move right along

Now that we know that our government is spying on us big time, I thought it was time to reassure ourselves that we having nothing to worry about. Yes we are in good hands. Yes indeed. A bit of a week in review with a touch of humor thrown in.

James Clapper
DNI James Clapper says that the NSA does not collect data on millions of Americans

Published on Jun 6, 2013

On March 12 Ron Wyden who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee asked DNI James Clapper if the NSA collects data on millions of Americans. Clapper answer that no the NSA does not at least not wittingly collect info on American. In light of the report about the NSA collecting phone records from Verizon

Then we have the ABC interview with a bit of humor: The Director of National Intelligence lacks some “intelligence”… (I mean “intel”, of course…) Diane Sawyer is confused.

Eric Holder is not so sure about letting Congress know if he is doing any spying – maybe ask General Petraeus?

Published on Jun  6, 2013

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) asked Attorney General Eric Holder whether his department’s expansive monitoring of the communications records of journalists extended to members of the Congress. Holder refused to answer the question in a public setting, prompting Kirk to scold him for not simply responding “no.”
Kirk began by referencing the developing scandal surrounding the revelation that the National Security Agency has been requesting the phone records of all of Verizon’s customers.
“You know, when government bureaucrats are sloppy they’re usually really sloppy,” Krik said. “Want to just ask, could you assure to us that no phones inside the Capitol were monitored of members of Congress that would give a future executive branch, if they started pulling this kind of thing up, would give them unique leverage over the legislature?”
“With all due respect, senator, I don’t think this is an appropriate setting for me to discuss that issue,” Holder replied. “I’d be more than glad to come back in an appropriate setting to discuss the issues that you have raised, but in this open forum..”
Kirk interrupted Holder. “The correct answer would be, ‘No, we stayed within our lane and I’m assuring you we did not spy on members of Congress,” he said.

NSA collecting phone records of millions – sent to secret Utah Spy Center?

Revealed: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Americans daily

Meanwhile     Hot Air :  Lindsey Graham -Hey I’m glad the NSA is collecting phone records

That’s the eternal rationale for the surveillance state: If you’re not doing anything wrong, you should have no objection. What happens when the definition of “wrong” changes after your information’s been collected? Why would any Republican make this argument right now, when Congress is busy investigating the government’s tax-collection agency for deciding something was “wrong” with the idea of tea partiers applying for nonprofit status?

Actual quote:

“I’m a Verizon customer. I don’t mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States. I don’t think you’re talking to the terrorists. I know you’re not. I know I’m not. So we don’t have anything to worry about.”

Is this where the records are going? To be stored forever? For more see  NSA spy Center holds Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

The EFF wants information because of its current lawsuit against the NSA (i.e. Jewel vs. NSA) that alleges the U.S. government operates an illegal mass domestic surveillance program. Three NSA whistleblowers—including William Binney—agreed to provide evidence that the NSA has been running a domestic spying program since 2001.

Filmed from Redwood Road, you can see the progress of the NSA’s Utah Data Center also called the NSA Spy Center.

Verizon forced to hand over telephone data – full court ruling

The US government is collecting the phone records of millions of US customers of Verizon under a top secret court order. Read the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order. • Read the Verizon court order in full here

 The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is suing the Justice Department for details of last month’s ruling by a secretive U.S. court that National Security Agency’s domestic spying program violated the U.S. Constitution, Jon Brodkin of arstechnica reports.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) found that “on at least one occasion” the NSA had violated the Fourth Amendment’s restriction against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Eric Holder: ‘Things are a little out of whack’

 …he responded, “there are things I want to do, things I want to get done that I have discussed with the president. Yes indeed. Maybe whack a few Americans before he goes. Does he really think we are this stupid? All the things he talks about are already in place. He chose to disregard his own policy. Interview with Eric Holder

A comment that sums it up quite nicely:

Holder is amazing. He has an amazing comfort level with lying. He has an amazing disregard for Constitutional limitations of power. He has an amazing talent for prosecuting the innocent and protecting the criminals. He has amazing ambition, wanting to create a police state (check), persecute his opponents (check), and promote the Muslim Bros. (check).

He’s done an amazing job. He should have an amazing retirement in a cell.

Eric Holder: I Have ‘No Intention’ Of Stepping Down As Attorney General  – 6/5/13

Holder told Williams, “I’m a little concerned that things have gotten a little out of whack. I think we can do a better job than we have.” We?? Transcript at end of post.

Published on Mar  6, 2013.  Holder says YES to whacking Americans at home.

I don’t know why Rand Paul or Sean Hannity are surprised by Eric Holder’s position on killing Americans at home or anywhere else when he and Obama has such disdain for the U.S. Note the similarities. Chilling.