So the big question is: where is Edward Snowden? My personal hope is that he pops up suddenly in Iceland or Ecuador, having escaped the US and media manhunts. As long as he doesn’t wind up “renditioned” or disappeared by the CIA and/or NSA (I think they’d prefer a show trial, though I guess if they just made him go away they could drag out all sorts of false information on him). What saddens me is the reaction to him by many so-called progressives. You know damn well that if this was Preznit Bush, they’d be calling for his impeachment, but as it is they’re turning their bile and vitriol on Snowden. Is it just a matter of “when my team does it, it’s OK?” I don’t get it, personally. While I’m not surprised by all of this (and all that we have yet to head about), I still find it appalling. I mean, there’s hypocrisy on the other side too – the rightwing nut jobs have suddenly discovered their affinity to the right to privacy – but I expect it from them.

I also expect the not-liberal media to suck, and I’m sure everybody has heard Gilligan Gregory ask Glen Greenwald why Greenwald shouldn’t be charged with a crime (and now Andrew Ross Sorkin is out there saying he’d “almost arrest” Greenwald). I guess if Gregory was an actual journalist less concerned with getting a good table at the White House Correspondents Dinner, he might not have needed to ask. A legitimate question might have been “that fucking idiot Congresscritter Peter King says you ‘must be prosecuted.’ How to you respond to that?”

Speaking of idiot Congresscritters, a Republican (or course) State Representative from Texas (of course) said there needn’t be any exemption for rape to a proposed restrictive abortion bill, because “in the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits, where a woman can get cleaned out.” Apparently Rep Jodie Laubenberg (who I would like to point out is a female – apparently being clueless about women’s issues isn’t just for male Republicans) thinks a rape kit includes a power washer and a scrub brush).

Have these people never seen Law and Order?

Remember that big IRS scandal where the IRS was targeting those poor teabagger political groups for being, well, for being political? Turns out “that besides “tea party,” lists used by screeners to pick groups for close examination also included the terms “Israel,” ”Progressive” and “Occupy.”” So it sounds like the teabaggers aren’t quite as special as they thought they were, and the IRS was looking at groups from both sides (or at least from both sides where they were stupid enough to put their political affiliations in their names).

I still say, if their purpose is political, then they shouldn’t be tax exempt. But then, nobody’s asking me.

There are some of us out there who aren’t crazy about the NSA snooping on our every movement, and we’ve taken steps to give ourselves at least a little bit of online privacy by encrypting our e-mails or using anonymizers like Tor. Turns out, the NSA’s got you covered there, too.

Bad news for fans of anonymizing Tor networks, PGP and other encryption services: If you’re attempting to avoid the National Security Agency’s digital dragnet, you may be making yourself a target, as well as legally allowing the agency to retain your communications indefinitely — and even use them to test the latest code-breaking tools.

Those revelations come via leaked documents that detail the operating guidelines for secret NSA surveillance programs authorized by Congress in 2008. Those documents include a one-page memorandum from a U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) judge, saying that the guidelines don’t violate Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

Mayors want control of pot.

Hundreds of mayors from around the nation voted Monday to urge the federal government to give states leeway in establishing marijuana policies.
[…]
“Voters in states and cities that wish to break the stranglehold of organized crime over the distribution and sale of marijuana in their communities by legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana should have the option of doing so,” Mayor Stephen Cassidy of San Leandro, Calif., said in a statement after the passage of the resolution.

Of course, the best part of that AP story is the mention they give the failed attempt to broaden background checks for purchasing guns.

“The Democrat-controlled Senate voted against legislation in April that would have expanded background checks for firearm purchases to gun shows and online sales.”

Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I seem to recall that the Senate voted in favor of expanded background checks (54-46 with Harry Reid voting against as a procedural move in order to have the ability to bring the measure up for a vote later). It’s just that the Senate is not controlled by Democrats, because it takes 60 votes to control the Senate (if Democrats are in the majority, anyway).

Can you believe hockey over already? I mean, it isn’t even July yet!

It may not be July, but it’s been hot around here lately. Not Arizona or Texas or Oklahoma hot, of course, but up in the 90 degree range, and very humid. Nice for swimming, but not for much of anything else. I think I’m going to try and find a floating desk for the days I work from home.