Yet another day of too damn hot and muggy. It was 78° at about 4:45 this morning already, and it’s supposed to be up into the 90s again today (it was 94 yesterday, though I suppose I shouldn’t complain because it was 101 the year before). Even the pool water was 90° last night when I got home. You gotta remember, we’re just not built to deal with this heat the way you folks in Arizona and Florida and other warm weather places are. This is really gonna blow if this is just how it’s gonna be from now on. :hot:

Just as I was getting home last night, a quick thunderstorm blew through and cooled everything down to about 80° and killed some of the humidity, so that was nice. They say we’ll have one more day of this crap tomorrow (supposedly the hottest day yet), and then some relief for the weekend. We shall see.

So Jim Sensenbrenner wants to revise the PATRIOT act (he also wants to restore the Voting Rights Act – odd behavior for a Republican).

Wisconsin congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Menomonee Falls), one of the leading authors of the Patriot Act, said…on Sunday that his brainchild must be amended in light of the controversy surrounding widespread data collection by the National Security Agency.

“We need to amend the FISA Act,” he said. “We need to amend the Patriot Act business records section so this type of snooping is only targeted at people who have been identified as foreigners who are trying to do us harm.”
[…]
Sensenbrenner says the laws should mandate that subpoenas and warrants are required to collect information on U.S. citizens.

Also, thanks in large part due to the NSA leaks by Edward Snowden, several privacy lawsuits filed by the EFF are now able to move forward (not that I’d hold my breath on winning them, but it’s a start). And, rather amazingly in my opinion, a fairly wide majority of Americans consider Snowden a whistleblower and not a traitor.

American voters say 55 – 34 percent that Edward Snowden is a whistle-blower, rather than a traitor, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

In a massive shift in attitudes, voters say 45 – 40 percent the government’s anti-terrorism efforts go too far in restricting civil liberties, a reversal from a Jan. 10, 2010, survey when voters said 63 – 25 percent that such activities didn’t go far enough to adequately protect the country.

Almost every party, gender, income, education, age and income group regards Snowden as a whistle-blower rather than a traitor.

It certainly seems like Snowden’s revelations have both sparked discussion, changed people’s opinions, and are making a real difference in the courts.

So why are so many “Progressives” vilifying him? Case in point, the snotty and condescending “open letter” that Melissa Harris-Perry wrote to Edward Snowden.

…by engaging in this Tom Hanks-worthy, border-jumping drama through some of the world’s most totalitarian states, you’re making yourself the story.

We could be talking about whether accessing and monitoring citizen information and communications is constitutional, or whether we should continue to allow a secret court to authorize secret warrants using secret legal opinions.

But we’re not. We’re talking about you!

So it’s Snowden’s fault that you brain dead media types aren’t covering the actual story? Well, here’s an idea, Melissa, why don’t you fucking cover all the things you claim would be talked about if only Ed Snowden came home to be thrown into a hole somewhere and disappeared for a year or two the way Bradly Manning has been?

I think for once We the People are way ahead of you media types – and especially the Obama apologists and sycophants (including nearly all the talking heads at MSNBC) whose reactions to all this NSA stuff have really been stunning.

What is it? If my “team” does it, it’s OK?

Apparently it is, as Glen Greenwald found out.

Have you felt as though the criticisms lobbed at Snowden have been extended to you? Obviously from people like Peter King, but elsewhere, too?

Sure, there are people on the right who have done that, like Marc Thiessen, who wrote a column in the Washington Post saying that I had committed multiple felonies, kind of echoing Peter King. But interestingly the most vicious and vehement attacks on my reporting have come from Democrats. Democrats and progressives are the ones who were my loudest cheerleaders when I was writing this stuff about the Bush Administration, and they’ve become the primary source of hostility and contempt now that I’m writing the same exact stuff about Obama.

Is it disheartening to see such a 180-degree turn from former supporters?

I remember I would go around in 2007 and 2008 giving speeches about the Bush Administration, and people would sometimes say to me, “Don’t you realize that once Democrats get into office they’re going to do these same things, and all your allies who are now cheering for you are going to support those policies?” And I would say, “I don’t believe that’s true” — like their dignity would not allow them to spend eight years shrieking about the horrors of these policies, only to turn around and support them because a Democrat was doing it. I turned out to be totally wrong.