The lies drone on

A secret internal document prepared for Pakistan’s government indicates that as many as 400 innocent civilians, many of them children, have been killed in drone attacks over the past nine years.

Of course, the U.S. government insists that it’s only killed 50 or 60 “non-combatants,” which is somehow supposed to make it better. The thing about this latest report is that it was never meant to go public, so there was no reason for the Pakistani officials who prepared it to fudge the numbers up.

What warped rational is there for this kind of activity? So what if we kill a few dozen children, we got our SUSPECTED terrorist, who was never found guilty of anything in a court of law? If a murder suspect were hiding out in a childcare facility in Milwaukee, would we drop a bomb on the building to stop him?

Why is it okay to murder innocent Pakistani’s in our zeal to stop people we think might be terrorists? Why isn’t the UN loudly condemning this action? Why is the Pakistani government allowing it to go on or do they know that they really don’t have the power to stop it?

Our government is acting like an international thug, going wherever it wants to do whatever it wants regardless of the law or signed treaties. And to top it all off, they want to punish anyone who exposes their lies and atrocities to the world.

How have we come to this, but more importantly, how do we stop it?

Fall Lake - An excerpt

Chapter 1

July 1953

Fall Lake, Minnesota

The two-tone Olds 88 clung to the heat-softened blacktop as it hissed along a narrow rural Northern Minnesota road. Two children in back, two parents up front, the Holzinger family was into hour seven of the eight-hour drive from their home in Waterloo, Iowa to their destination, Fall Lake, Minnesota, and tempers were fraying like an old knit scarf.

“Dad, what’s human sacrifice mean?”

            “Human…what?”

            “Mom, Dennis is reading that comic book again.”

            The sharp-featured and even sharper tongued Eve Holzinger rested her elbow on the top of her seat and turned around with a scowl. “Didn’t I tell you to throw away that piece of trash?”

            “It’s called “Weird Tales,” just like him,” said his sister Nancy.

“Mom, it’s Captain Marvel,” complained the nine-year old boy.

            “I don’t care if it’s Captain Jesus Christ, hand it to me right now.”

            The driver, 40-year old Peter Holzinger, glanced tiredly over at his wife as she retrieved the offending material from Dennis. “Eve, we’re on vacation.”

            “I don’t know why you keep telling me that,” shot back the irritated Eve. “Why don’t we just all take our clothes off and dance in the road. We’re on vacation.”

            Twelve-year old Nancy groaned from the back seat. “Mom, please.”

            A gaunt, bony man with a shiny pate and tired brown eyes, Peter shook his head in quiet resignation. Subservient to a fault, discouraged enough to keep a loaded handgun in the back of his sock drawer, Peter clung to the towrope of life simply hoping that he wouldn’t fall off before he got to the end. With each passing day, however, he felt his grip weakening.

            “Honestly, Peter. If I have to spend another half-an hour cooped up in this car I am going to scream.” Eve checked the small vanity mirror in her visor, a ritual she had performed every twenty minutes since they pulled out of their driveway in Waterloo, nervously poking fingers into her wavy brown hair to try and achieve a look that that was “guaranteed to turn heads” by Elizabeth Taylor. A furtive smile curled her lips momentarily as she thought about the only head she enjoyed turning; the perpetually tan VP of Marketing Dwight Hawkins.

            “We’re close, Eve. Very close.”

            “That’s what you said two hours ago.”

            “Dad,” shouted Dennis, kicking the driver’s seat.

            “What,” Peter barked.

            “When are you going to teach me to shave? You promised.”

            Peter closed his eyes for the split second it took to consider and reject steering the car into oncoming traffic, and he unclenched his grip on the steering wheel and refocused on the road ahead of him and the joy of spending the next week with his family in a trailer the size of a phone booth.

            An hour-and-a-half later, Peter pulled the car onto a gravel road blocked by a metal gate with a padlock. To one side of the gate was a large sign that read, “Glenn Creek subdivision. Lots for sale now.” “This is it,” Peter said with a sense of accomplishment. He put the car into park, got out and walked to the gate.

            “Thank God,” said Eve, fanning herself with her hand. “I was going to throw up if we had to drive another mile.”

Peter fished around in his pocket and pulled out the key for the padlock. Beyond the gate the road wound through a dense stand of maples and scrubby pines until it opened up to a large treeless space the size of several football fields. The ground had been leveled by a grader and small sticks poked up from the dirt to indicate lot boundaries.

“Here we are,” said Peter, smiling for the first time. He pulled to a stop near the western edge of the field and everyone got out of the car.

“This is where we’re camping?” asked Nancy incredulously. “I thought there were going to be mountains and waterfalls and stuff.”

“No one said anything about mountains or waterfalls,” said Peter. “But there is a lake.” He explored the wooded edge of the field until he found the beginning of a path cutting through the brush. “Here. This is exactly where Bill said it would be. Come on.”

“I’m shocked,” remarked Eve. “My brother the real estate mogul hasn’t been right about anything since the fifth grade. You go on. I need a cigarette.”

Nancy and Dennis followed Peter along the overgrown path, pushing away weeds and branches and swatting at mosquitoes with every step, until they finally emerged from the brush onto a thin, sandy beach leading to the dark blue-green water of Fall Lake.

“Whoa,” yelled Dennis. “This is unreal.”

“Coolsville,” added Nancy in a rare display of positive emotions.

“Coolsville,” repeated Peter to himself. Framed by dense green deciduous and evergreen woods, the lake stretched out to the north like a broad river, its glassy surface reflecting a blue sky and marshmallowy clouds floating overhead. Enveloped by the smells of lilacs and pine, the three Holzingers went to the edge of the water and breathed in the beauty of the moment silently. This was almost worth the agony, thought Peter, dipping a hand into the cool water and rubbing it on his face.

Later, the trailer tent now set up, a small fire burning a short distance away, Peter and Eve relaxed in their camp chairs while the kids played at the lake. Eve had mixed a thermos of martinis before they left, and they sipped from plastic cups and smoked cigarettes as the late afternoon sun slowly dipped behind the tree line. Just behind the congenial conversation, like scenes playing out just beyond the firelight, Eve imagined her next lunchtime tryst with Dwight, while Peter contemplated the possibility that this was the last family vacation they would ever have. The outer tranquility and inner turmoil were short lived, however, as Nancy and Dennis stomped back from the lake arguing loudly.

“Hey,” shouted Eve. “Knock it off.”

“What are you two arguing about?” asked Peter.

“We came back because Dennis got scared,” announced Nancy loudly.

“I heard voices. People talking,” responded her angry brother.

Peter turned toward his son. “Voices?”

“Yeah. It sounded like people whispering or something.”

Nancy pulled out a Coke from the cooler and opened it. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“Wind blowing through branches, water lapping up on the shore, the sounds are different here than they are at home.” Peter was trying to help his son out.

“Yeah, sure,” said Dennis, clearly unconvinced. “Nobody believes anything I say.”

“Tomorrow we take the boat down to the lake and catch some walleye or trout. How’s that sound?”

“You all have a grand time,” said Eve. “I’m going to sleep as long as I can and then get some sun. Oh,” she continued, pointing at Peter. “You clean everything you catch. Understand?”

“Yes, dear. I’ll gladly gut the fish.”

It was a struggle getting the heavy aluminum rowboat down to the lake the next morning, but with Peter on one end and Nancy and Dennis arguing at the other, they managed to get the craft into the water without a serious injury. Peter loaded up the boat with fishing poles, a tackle box, a net and lunches, and finally children, before pushing off into Fall Lake. He grabbed oars and enthusiastically rowed away from shore, noting to himself with a smile that he hadn’t felt this alive in years. As the boat glided across the dark water, the three talked idly, debating whether “Make Room For Daddy” or “I Love Lucy” was funnier and why no team will ever beat the Yankees in the World Series. Muscles now beginning to protest, Peter drew in the oars and rested as the boat quietly slid along the surface.

“This is heaven. Isn’t it?” asked Peter, not expecting a response. “A nice crispy green dollar bill to whoever catches the biggest fish today.”

“No contest,” Nancy assured everyone. “I always catch the biggest fish.”

 “Always?” protested Dennis. “One time you got lucky.”

Peter was reaching for the tackle box when they heard the first thud on the bottom of the boat.

“What was that?” asked Dennis.

“I’m not sure,” said Peter. “Uh, sometimes tree branches fall into the lake and the boat can—“

There was a second, louder thud, and everyone jumped. Peter leaned over the side of the boat and inspected the black water.  “I don’t see anything.”

“I’m scared,” announced Nancy. “I want to go back.”

“Yeah. Me too, Dad.”

Peter looked concerned but not alarmed. “It’s a lake full of small fish. I really don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”

Then a new sound; metal on metal. Something was slowly scraping along the bottom of the boat, from underneath. Nancy screamed and Peter quickly set the oars back into the water.

A cigarette dangling from her rose-red lips, Ellen smoothed suntan lotion along her legs until she was glistening like a basted turkey. She had brought out one of the sleeping mattresses and laid it on the short grass next to the tent for maximum sun exposure, and, capping the bottle, she lay back, removing her cigarette and adjusting her body. Her idea of vacationing was a far cry from her husband’s. There was no hiking or cleaning dead fish or cutting firewood for this girl. Sun, cigarettes and a siesta — that’s what vacations are all about.

The afternoon slid by quietly for Eve until the sun grew uncomfortably hot and she had to find other things to occupy her time. She read a magazine, made herself a sandwich, did her fingernails; but soon the silence grew tiresome, and she became bored and grouchy. After getting dressed, she decided to go down to the lake and see if she could locate her family. Maybe she’d even go out in the boat with them for a while.

 Even Eve was impressed as she emerged from the shadowy woods and saw Fall Lake for the first time. We should be camping down here, she thought to herself as her eyes roamed over the bucolic scene. At the waters edge, she lit another cigarette and became engrossed in the gentle, tension-relieving sound of water lapping up against the sand. She saw no signs of a boat, however, and decided to walk north along the shore until she found Peter and the kids. When she turned to her right to begin her journey, her eyes caught sight of something in the tall reeds near her that looked out of place. Pulling back the giant tendrils, her heart stopped. There sat the Holzinger’s rowboat. The rods and cooler were resting on the metal bottom, but no husband or children. It bobbed gently in the water as if it had been abandoned. Then she heard a voice calling, screaming.

“Mom. Help me. Help.”

There was no question in her mind it was Dennis yelling for her. She squinted and scanned the lake’s surface, finally locating a small dark figure bobbing up and down and splashing in the water about three hundred yards into the lake.

“Dennis?” she yelled back, her cigarette dropping from between her fingers. “Dennis?” It only took an instant for her to realize that there had been an accident and her children and Peter were in freezing lake water. Eve grabbed the nose of the boat and jerked it in closer, at the same time jumping in clumsily and grabbing the oars. Frantic, she wielded the oars like propeller blades, slapping wildly at the water until she was pointed in the direction of the voice. “I’m coming,” she yelled over and over again as she rowed furiously out into the lake. The voice called out one more time, fairly close to her location, but when she pulled the oars out of the water to listen, there was only the sound of blackbird jeering from the shore. No splashing. No calls.

Hysterical, Eve got on her knees, leaning against the metal sidewall of the boat, looking into the blackness and listening. “Please God,” she said to herself. “Please let them be okay.” She lowered herself even farther over the edge, the boat tipping on its side, trying to pierce through the gloomy depths for any signs of her family. Crying, panting, praying, Eve continued searching in the water, but the only face she saw was the pale wobbly reflection of a terrified woman who had lost everything of meaning in her life.

Eve’s sobs echoed from shore to shore, and the small craft bobbled aimlessly in the middle of Fall Lake a cork. 

Order Fall Lake now

The reviews are coming in for Fall Lake

“I wish I’d written it.”

Stephon King

“Made me ashamed to call myself a writer.”

Dan Koontz

“I soiled myself.”

K.L. Middling

“This was a novel I could really sink my teeth into.”

Anna Rice

“It made me go out and buy a night light.”

V. D. Andrews

My first novel "FALL LAKE"

So I've self-published my first novel "Fall Lake" as an ebook. Here's a brief synopsis of the book:

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes. One of them is evil.

When emotionally scarred Gabriella Romano returns to her childhood home on Fall Lake, Minnesota with her daughter, she soon discovers that the tragedy and horror surrounding the lake’s history, and her own dark secrets, are converging to pull her and everyone she loves into a living nightmare.

Gabriella’s return to Fall Lake stirs up dark memories of a tragic past related to the death of her disturbed and menacing sister Bethany some twenty years earlier. Through flashbacks, we learn that death and sorrow have long been linked to Fall Lake, and that the evil remnants of historic events are inextricably woven through the lives of Gabriella and her family and friends. A childhood friend dies in a fall from his apartment window. Another friend is haunted by visions of the nefarious Bethany. Gabriella also grows concerned about changes in her daughter Selena and her daughter’s enigmatic new playmate, Sarah. When someone close to her is killed by a runaway semi, Gabriella is forced to acknowledge that her sister’s spirit has returned to seek vengeance for a death in which Gabriella was involved. Estranged husband Alex, fearing for the safety of his daughter and his wife, drives north to seek reconciliation, but he too, is caught up in the evil environment that surrounds the lake. On a bleak, frigid winter’s day in Northern Minnesota, Gabriella fights for her life and the life of her daughter and husband as the ghost of Bethany attempts to fulfill her murderous agenda on the ice of Fall Lake.

If you're interested, you can click on the link to your right for purchasing information.

America: From beacon of democracy to world’s biggest bully

The Obama administration and members of Congress continue to harp at countries who might harbor Edward Snowden with vague “oooh, you’re-really-gonna-get-it” threats. As an American citizen, I find the actions of my government humiliating and degrading because I know that all of this bluster is for one purpose and one purpose only; to frighten any other potential leakers into silence.

This is, after all, how a bully works. He rules by threats and intimidation. “If you tell the teacher what I did, I’m gonna kick your ass after school.” Sound familiar? What is the U.S. going to do to a dirt poor country like Bolivia if it takes in Snowden? Hurt its economy even further? In one breath Obama minimizes Snowden by calling him a, “29-year old hacker,” but in the next breath he acts as if the young man is Hitler’s clone.

Have some dignity, Obama. You got caught with your taps down. From the government’s standpoint, what’s the huge issue here? There isn’t even a great groundswell of public indignation over the revelations, which is truly unfortunate. Just do what you’ve always done and throw out those buzzwords — al Qaeda, terrorism, threats to our security, blah, blah, blah — and it will all settle down in no time.

But leave Bolivia alone. Okay?

Tomorrow's headlines today

Lichtenstein offers Snowden asylum. US prepares for invasion.

Dennis Rodman receives Nobel Peace Prize

Depp’s next role to be a gay beluga whale in ocean epic

President’s announcement initiating martial law interrupts Dancing with the Stars. ABC receives tens of thousands of complaints.

Testifying before the congressional Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s pants spontaneously combust

Stone’s latest backstage rider includes oxygen tanks, a box of Depends and four mobility scooters.

Check out my new novel Fall Lake. The link is below my photo.

The surveillance state: An American vampire

It must feed.

Like a vampire, the surveillance state (SS) abhors sunlight, performing its business under cover of darkness were it can peek surreptitiously into people’s lives undisturbed by oversight or prying villagers. Its lifeblood is information, secrets, the private parts of your life that no one else has access to. Its hunger is insatiable. Not satisfied with focusing solely on “the enemy,” its pale fingers reach out farther, to those who had never considered being terrorists or, for that matter, committed any crime. Let’s suck information from them all, it said, eyes wild with the thought of such unchecked power.

By day, the SS is nearly invisible, and when noticed, those under its pall provide it with the necessary cover to remain beyond accountability and unchallenged. Its coffin is protected from discovery by ancient incantations involving “national security” and “state secrets” used to lull the initiated into acceptance and obedience. Occasionally, an intrepid vampire hunter will peel away the layers of protection and expose the hideous monster that exists in the corners of the windowless government rooms, yet the vampire’s powerful protectors always seem to find a way to turn the hunter into the villain before permanent damage can be done.

The SS lives and grows in the dank, black night of despair and fear. It thrives on our terror, becomes stronger as we grow weaker, stands taller the more we cower in the corners of our villages. We can’t believe it has become so powerful. How did we allow this to happen? Although all signs point inward, we refuse to acknowledge our part in the process, and lower the blinds while turning up our TVs louder.

So it will feed and grow, as long as we let it. And there will come a day, perhaps not that far off, when it will be strong enough to emerge from the darkness because it will no longer fear anything or anyone.

Despite their rhetoric, Republicans really want a government on steroids

Don’t ever let a Republican get away with telling you he wants the government to stay out of people’s lives.

Although they constantly complain about America being a “Nanny State,” their proposals and policies are all about creating a “Daddy State,” the judgmental, authoritarian daddy of 1950s sitcoms.

House GOP members

• want to drug test food stamp applicants and recipients of other federal programs
• support the most intrusive surveillance techniques of the CIA and NSA
• want the government to decide whether a woman can have an abortion or not
• support injecting religious beliefs into public school curricula
• approve of discriminatory practices against gays and lesbians

As they demonize government out of one side of their mouths, the other actually supports a government on steroids that pokes itself into every facet of your private life. Republicans don’t really hate government, they only hate government they don’t control.

We wear our tinfoil hats proudly today

Conspiracy theorists of the world arise. Come up from your parent’s basements. Step away from the computer and your latest letter to the editor. Take a break from stalking your congressman.

Now bask in the warm glow of this victorious moment (although put on some sun screen if you burn easily).

You were right!!!

The government IS spying on you. And that’s not all. A new documentary has been released that confirms what you believed all along: The crash of TWA flight 800 was no accident. And officials may be on the verge of finding Jimmy Hoffa’s body. (UPDATE: No body was found. Of course, they could be lying about that.)

These are glorious days for us indeed. Now you can hold your head up high at this summer’s family picnic and tell Uncle (you-can’t-really-believe-that) Al to go eat a pickle. This Christmas you won’t have to sit in a corner drinking in anger at your family’s collective ignorance of the nefarious goals of the Trilateral Commission.

You were right.

Breath in the sweet aroma of vindication.

But don’t become complacent. We still have work to do. The reptilian Bush clan is still active and may try and put another member in the White House.

Stay vigilant, my friends. Stay vigilant. 

You don’t know what you’ve got ‘tll it’s gone

A very discouraging article in today’s Star-Tribune: Minnesota Poll Finds Acceptance of NSA Data Collection Program. The “poll finds that 57 percent of Minnesotans approve of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) court-authorized dragnet of phone and Internet data to spot possible terrorist activity. Only 33 percent say they disapprove, while 10 percent are unsure.”

It’s interesting to read the comments of some of the people who support the eavesdropping, which run the gamut from fatalism (“It’s par for the course.”) to unquestioning loyalty (“I trust the President.”).  Even more surprising to me is that there was significantly higher support for the snooping among Democrats than Republicans. Huh?

The government is clearly winning the propaganda war on this one, and Obama’s “trust me” speeches seem to be enough to lull many Americans into complacency. I guess after 12 years of fear mongering about the threat of terrorism, it seems that our citizens will accept almost any form of government intrusion. At the same time, all of our sophisticated surveillance technology couldn’t stop a couple of yahoos from blowing up bombs in Boston.

I don’t think you’ll find anyone on my side of the fence arguing that there is no threat from al Qaeda or even home grown terrorists. And no one, myself included, would suggest that we dismantle our surveillance programs entirely. The issue, especially after Snowden’s revelations, is that government is ignoring the basic Constitutional rights of Americans to privacy by tracking everyone, regardless of suspicious activity or not.

The attitude of many people is, “Why should I worry? I don’t have anything to hide.” If that’s true, why do you have curtains on your windows? Why do you have password-protected information? Why do you close the bathroom door? We all have privacy concerns even though our actions may be totally legal, and, according to the Constitution, we have a right to expect the government to respect that privacy. As I’ve said before, Obama might be an honest and just President, but what will the next President be like? How will that person use the vast surveillance powers at his or her disposal?

I’m afraid Minnesota Nice is translating into a complacency that I find unsettling, and we tend to be a more liberal state than most. Where does democracy end and totalitarianism begin? I don’t know either, but it all reminds me of a line from Joni Mitchell’s great song, Big Yellow Taxi:

Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you've got

Till it's gone

How skeptical liberals become devoted soldiers in the war on terror

I wanted to follow up on yesterday’s post where I questioned how ostensibly liberal politicians like Franken and Obama and so many other Democrats ultimately drank the Kool Aid when it came to national security.

Of course, I am not a Washington insider, but I think I can make some reasonable assumptions about what happens to newcomers when they enter the vortex that is D.C. politics.

The seeds of the national security state were planted by a frightened and reactionary Bush Administration immediately after 9/11 and have sprouted into myriad agencies and programs related to homeland security and surveillance.

Now imagine you are the director of a large surveillance program. It could be at the CIA or NSA or some other government branch. You’re called to a top-secret briefing for congressional members on your latest activities and accomplishments. You know that there will be many new representatives at your presentation. So what is your primary objective? To present a sober, realistic picture of the department’s successes and failures? No, silly. YOU MUST JUSTIFY YOUR EXISTENCE.

Exactly what is the best way to justify your existence? It’s to present your division as an essential bulwark against the threat of terrorists who are hiding in every American neighborhood plotting their next deadly assault. In other words, you are going to scare people into believing your services are essential to the safety of America. There may be some truth in what you say during your presentation, but whatever the real situation is on the ground, however many times it’s been shown that massive data mining is an ineffective approach, your argument is going to be that the world is a very dangerous and scary place with threats lurking everywhere, therefore your division’s work is absolutely necessary.

In other words, as an expert in your field, your job is to scare skeptical liberals into becoming devoted, unquestioning soldiers in the war on terror, thus securing your position in the vast machine powering the surveillance monster. Up to this point, it has been a highly successful approach.

With recent revelations of the immense scope of the NSA surveillance program, it remains to be seen what effect the outrage of normal citizens will have on those “liberal” politicians on Capital Hill. I fear it won’t be much. No one ever likes admitting they were wrong. I will be very surprised if any of the Kool Aid drinkers turns around and says, “Wow, sorry. I made a mistake.” This is Washington, D.C. after all.

What’s happened to Al Franken?

To hear Minnesota Senator Al Franken defending the NSA domestic spying program is very dispiriting. The one time progressive Democrat has stepped over to the dark side, just like Obama. I sent a letter to Franken expressing my disappointment in the representative’s response to the NSA revelation. If I know anything, it is that if the former SNL member were a private citizen right now, he would be front and center criticizing the government’s surveillance overreach.

It’s interesting to me how much the insular Washington scene has changed Franken and Obama. It’s as if they were recruited into a cult that separates members from family and friends and in this case, average Americans. The big picture is shrunk to a narrow perspective. They’ve been hypnotized by charts and graphs and serious people who convinced them that what they’re doing is for the good of the country. The fact that they are let in on “secrets” makes them believe that they know better what’s good for the country, and they adopt a patronizing, “If you only knew what I know” attitude towards citizens who challenge them.

I had great hopes when Franken was first elected to the Senate that he would carry forward the lonely but necessary efforts of Paul Wellstone to challenge the status quo and work toward peace and a progressive agenda. Unfortunately, Franken has disappointed by asking us to blindly trust the government as they shred the Constitution in the name of security.

Check out my new novel Fall Lake. The link is below my photo.

Ben, you nailed it

Joe Klein to America: Go back to sleep

Here they come. The Serious People, like Time’s Joe Klein, are stepping into the NSA fray to tell us all to calm down, cool our jets and go back to sleep. You should trust the government, especially this administration, to do the right thing, he argues. This little kerfuffle is not as bad as the wackos on the left and right make it out to be so stop your grousing and let our leaders keep on spying and prying to prevent a problem that is less common than getting stabbed by a unicorn.

One thing that our Founding Father’s knew from first-hand experience that we seem to have forgotten is that too much power concentrated in the hands of too few can lead even well-intentioned leaders into dark waters. Our three branches of government, each intended as a check and balance to the other, was a brilliant solution that worked pretty well for a couple hundred years. But then came 9/11 and the scales tipped drastically toward the executive. Scared, foolish authoritarians like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld took advantage of the situation to secure vast new powers for the executive branch that could be shrouded in secrecy. Unfortunately for all of us, Obama was sucked into the Fantasyland rationales for keeping the surveillance state going and even expanded it.

The key word here is “trust.” Klein and others who see themselves as the voices of reason insist that we trust the government to do the right thing. I would argue that this is directly opposed to the beliefs of the Founding Fathers and the pillars on which this democracy was formed. We have the system of government that we have precisely because the founders knew that concentrating power in the hands of a few inevitably leads to problems. For a time in the twentieth century we had an active news media that tried to keep the government honest, but that hasn’t been the case for at least thirty years. What we have now are the few whistleblowers courageous enough to risk their lives to step forward with the truth about what our leaders are doing in our names.

Democracy only works if citizens have a healthy skepticism of the motives of those in power and, like a safety valve, have some mechanism for challenging our elected leaders on their decisions and policies. Those who argue that Americans should calm down and put their trust in the government harbor a serious misunderstanding about the relationship between citizens of a democracy and their elected officials. We don’t just have a right to question our leaders, we have a duty to keep them honest. The horrific reality today is that those people who are fulfilling their roles as citizens of a democracy, the whistleblowers, are labeled enemies of the state and thrown into prisons.

But don’t worry your pretty little heads advises Klein. Everything’s under control. Night, night.

Why we can’t take national elections for granted any more

In the June 7 The Atlantic, writer Conor Friedersdorf’s article All the Infrastructure a Tyrant Would Need, Courtesy of Bush and Obama goes into depth on a subject I wrote about recently; future presidents.

The secret surveillance policies set up by Bush and expanded on by Obama, with the approval of Congress, are ripe for abuse. The Obama administration could very well be filled with honest, scrupulous men and women (although everything is so secret we have no of knowing that), but what about the next administration? If you consider the yahoos and nutjobs who regularly get elected to Congress, this is a legitimate concern.

Many of us as citizens want to think that in America, despite it’s frequent failings, the government has our best interests at heart. That it would never use its immense power for evil. And maybe that’s true for Obama, but what about the next president? As Friedersdorf makes clear, the secret policies that have been put into place give future presidents far more power to invade the personal lives of Americans than any previous Commander-in-Chief ever had.

Although terrorist attacks on American soil are extremely rare, we have allowed our government to set up a surveillance system that makes 1984 look like tin cans with strings. Think about the implications the next time you walk into a voting booth.

The President asks us to trust him, yet everyday there are new reasons not to

After the revelations came to light of the NSA’s massive domestic surveillance program, the President and other’s in his administration and in Congress are in full damage control mode, claiming that they are not reading the emails of Americans, everything they’re doing is legal, blah, blah, blah.

My question is, why should we believe you, Mr. President? Everything this administration does is implicitly followed by the phrase, “Trust us. We know what’s right.” Why should we trust you? In 2007 you said this:

“That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do no more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient.”

Were you lying then? What made you do a complete about face? You once called for transparency, but this is the least transparent administration in American history. And on top of everything else, you want to prosecute whistleblowers, the very people who are shedding the smallest amounts of light on the activities you say are completely legal and appropriate.

You’ve lost the trust of millions Americans, and rightly so. Your actions are clearly unconstitutional and immoral.

The surveillance state: Did Obama drink the Kool Aid or was he even invited to the party?

There are some days when I just can’t stop myself from indulging in a conspiracy theory. The theory is a simple one: Barack Obama is merely a cardboard cut-out, a face of the presidency who’s great at giving speeches and mingling with the common folk, but isn’t actually in charge of anything. He doesn’t make the important decisions; someone, or some group of people, make those. He is Madison Avenue’s concept of a President.

It’s either that or Obama is one of the shrewdest, most calculating, most manipulative individuals to ever hold public office.

I can come up with no alternatives after reading the story that broke yesterday about the NSA conducting widespread domestic surveillance on millions of Americans. And when I say “widespread,” I’m talking about capturing the call histories of every single Verizon customer in America, and very likely, customers of other communications companies as well.

Is that the sound of the Founding Fathers turning over in their graves?

The White House is defending the practice with the, “We’re keeping you safe from terrorists” canard, but this response is patently ridiculous. First of all, let’s put the threat in some perspective. The odds of being a terrorist’s victim on a flight: 1 in 10,408,947. Odds of being killed by lightning: 1 in 500,000. It reminds me of the old joke about the guy walking around the city streets carrying a large rifle. “What’s that?” he’s asked. “It’s an elephant gun,” he responds. The first man says, “That’s insane, there aren’t any elephants around here.” The rifleman replies, “Right. It’s working.”

 This type of untargeted, massive domestic surveillance is absolutely, unequivocally unconstitutional. Perhaps Obama really didn’t understand this point. Oh wait, he taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. What convoluted rationale does he tell himself to justify a program that ignores the basic lynchpin of our system of justice: innocent until proven guilty? Or, is he simply kept out of the loop?

There are groups out there, specifically the Electronic Frontier Foundation, that are actively working to bring this lawlessness to a stop, but it gets even more difficult when you have an overly compliant Congress that continuously puts its stamp of approval on these illegal actions.

As many others have said before me, the loss of liberty doesn’t happen with a clap of thunder, but in tiny, incremental, barely perceptible steps over years. I say “barely perceptible” because there are those few canaries out there that try to warn us, yet they are often ignored until it’s too late. While we slept, the government took it upon itself to spy on you and everyone you know. That’s not tinfoil hat stuff anymore. It’s the world in which we live.

Intercepted memo: Midterm marching orders for Republicans

MEMO

From: Frank Luntz, Luntz Global, LLC

To: Republican candidates for office, 2014 midterm election

Re: Campaign talking points

Dear ,

As you are well aware, midterm elections are fast approaching. As a candidate for elected office, you will be giving many speeches, interviews, panel discussions, etc. and it necessary for you to be well prepared for these public interactions.

To help with your preparations, we are offering a handy guide to appropriate and inappropriate response strategies to today’s most controversial topics. The liberal press is always ready to pounce on conservative candidates who may express their valid beliefs in less than articulate ways. So keep this guide handy and stay on message. United we stand, divided we fall.

Best of luck with your campaign.

Topic: Abortion

Strategy: Avoidance. Change the subject.

Examples:

“I’m here today to talk about (national defense, Flag Day, puppies, etc.) not abortion.”

“My views on this subject are well known. Is that pork I smell?”

“Accordions? I love accordions. Next question.”

Topic: Women’s rights

Strategy: Empathize. Change the subject.

Examples:

“Some of my best friends are women. That’s a lovely dress. Very flattering.”

“My mother was a woman. Don’t tell me I don’t know anything about women. My god, it’s a UFO.”

“I truly value the contributions women make to society. My wife is the boss. I let her make all the important decisions in our family. Now, let’s talk baseball.”

Topic: Global Warming

Strategy: Question science. Change the subject.

Examples:

“The minute we put science ahead of common sense, we lose our humanity in a gas ball of data and lifeless facts. Go with your gut, and my gut tells me it’s lunch time.”

“Oooh, let’s bow down and worship the scientists. They’re little wizards who know so much more than we mere mortals. Ooooh. Give me a break. Are they smarter than God? Let us pray.”

“The scientific community is in utter chaos regarding global warming. In fact, I read yesterday there was a running gun battle between pro- and anti-global warming factions at the University of Zurich, and that reminds me of a story about my father…”

Topic: President Obama

Strategy: Nothing is off limits. Be creative.

Examples:

“I have seen photos that prove Barack Obama clubbed baby seals with a prosthetic limb stolen from a decorated Iraq war veteran.”

“No one has yet proved that Obama is not an Al Qaeda agent trained in Afghanistan who has had extensive plastic surgery and vocal chord replacement.”

“There are documents that prove conclusively that Obama is the point man for a secret society that sacrifices white babies on the altar to Elathan, a Celtic lord of darkness.”

You can put lipstick on a pig, but…

It seems that every day there is an article about what Republicans should be doing to strengthen their damaged brand. How can they better reach minority and young voters? What can they do to appeal to women? How do they overcome the perception of being the party of angry white men?

There’s no question the GOP has lurched farther to the right in recent years under the influence of the Tea Party. This is not Richard Nixon’s Republican party. If the Republican leadership could keep their elected officials from opening their mouths and speaking in public, this might actually help bring about the desired results. Could be a bit unpractical.

What’s wrong with the Republican Party is that it’s the Republican Party. Asking how to strengthen the party’s brand is a lot like asking how you can make a rabid dog seem more like a kitten. In other words, it really can’t be done, because the Republican Party’s basic ideological foundation is flawed, unappealing and out of step with the direction the world is moving.

Just yesterday, a panel of cavemen at FOX News were tearing at their animal skins over the fact that more women than ever are family bread winners. What voting demographic, exactly, would find this position compelling? Young working women? Professional woman? How about angry white men? Check. You name the demographic and tell me what Republicans have to offer this group of people. Minorities? The poor? The unemployed or underemployed? Women? Union members? Anyone making less than $1 million a year? Republicans want them all to just shut up and go away.

There’s not enough pretty wrapping paper on the planet to make ignorance, bigotry, and sexism look appealing.

Is a conservative’s call to dissolve the federal government treason? And, Dude, where were you during the Bush years?

A radio host named Adam Kokesh is calling for mass marches on 50 state capitals on July 4 to demand “an orderly dissolution of the federal government.” According to an article at Media Matters, he was originally promoting a march on Washington, D.C. and encouraging participants to carry weapons, but has now changed tactics. Oh, and he’s putting a time limit on compliance. If said dissolution hasn’t taken place by July 4, 2014, well, who knows what could happen.

There’s an occasionally interesting back and forth in the comments section of the Kokesh article about what constitutes treason. One thing that comes out loud and clear is the idea promoted by conservative contributors that the Obama administration is ignoring the Constitution and is therefore acting illegally, making open rebellion justified. This is a fait accompli in right wing media circles. While FOX News is not openly promoting armed rebellion (I don’t think), their talking heads spend program after program, week after week, attacking Obama and his policies with a fierceness that borders on pathology, and as a result, fanning the emotional fires of those who might actually strap on a rifle and take to the streets.

Here’s my question. Where were the “dissolve the federal government” patriots when it became clear that George Bush lied us into a war that cost nearly 5,000 American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and trillions of our tax dollars? Where were the “dissolve the federal government” patriots when the Bush administration ignored the Constitution to create the Patriot Act and the Office of Homeland Security? Where were the “dissolve the federal government” patriots when Bush approved torture, indefinite detention and Guantanamo? Where were the “dissolve the federal government” patriots when the Bush crowd threw habeas corpus out the window?

These self-proclaimed patriots aren’t interested in saving America. The goal is to remake America in their conservative image, to create the dumbed-down, church approved, gun-toting, patriarchal utopia they have wet dreams over when they’re not attacking that uppity black guy in Washington.

We shall see what comes of the Kokesh rebellion. Is it treason? Here’s Article 3, section 3 of the Constitution:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

You be the judge.

Michele, we will miss you

I couldn’t let Michele Bachmann’s announcement that she isn’t running for Congress again go by without comment. I’ve written many times over the years about Minnesota’s favorite loon; her dispatches from Planet Tea Party have been comedy gold. In fact, go to today’s issue of Mother Jones for a compendium of her most cherished misstatements, muddled messages and made up shit.

I will miss Bachmann. Unlike many of her fellow conservatives, she never tried to cover up her extremism with a veneer of socially acceptable behavior. She never once turned to any of her advisers and asked, “Does that make me sound insane?” She never made any excuses for living in an alternate reality. She was, and remains, crazy and proud of it. I respect that. She will be hard to replace.

We will miss you, Michele. Godspeed.

Of mermaids and manipulation

I watched the Animal Planet show Mermaids: The Body Found last night. I didn’t have any background on it and assumed it was a documentary for the first few minutes (yes, despite the title), however it didn’t take long to realize that this wasn’t an actual documentary, but a pretty well-done faux documentary peppered here and there with genuine scientific facts.

It originally aired on Animal Planet in 2012 and was then re-aired by the Discovery Channel. According to press reports, on both occasions it caused a huge stir on social media sites with pro and con mermaid camps battling it out. What has piqued my interest is not the subject matter as much as the concept of the piece itself. It was originally shown not on the Comedy Channel or Sci Fi, but on Animal Planet, which generally airs content based in fact. I don’t know how much effort either Animal Planet or Discovery put into letting people know that this was a work of fiction, but there is none in the piece itself, and it was not enough to keep thousands of viewers from assuming it was genuine.

The technical quality of Mermaids: The Body Found was actually quite good. The biggest giveaway for me was that the “scientists” were all attractive and articulate, which is, of course, totally unrealistic. But it’s made me contemplate the potential misuse of this technology. Think Wag the Dog. Perhaps we’ve already been victims of it, but with sophisticated CGI and more realistic actors, this type of faux documentary could be a very powerful propaganda tool. Mermaids fooled a lot of people, as have a lot of CGI UFO vids.

As CGI technology becomes more and more seamless with real action, it is going to be tougher to identify fraudulent video from the real thing. Hopefully the ability to detect CGI in videos will keep up. For now, my advice is this: Stay skeptical, my friend.

Tonight's Presidential press conference...

Tonight President Obama is scheduled address the nation and discuss Guantanamo, six years after he promised to close the prison, and lay out his rationale for drone strikes. Should be entertaining.

I would like one courageous reporter…oh, I forgot, we don’t have those anymore, okay, one very drunk reporter, to ask the President this question: Is there any rationale of any kind that we would accept from a foreign government for dropping bombs on American soil? 

Obama administration applying Soviet style tactics to silence the press

American politics has entered a truly surreal phase. For once, liberals and conservatives are united in their anger over the DOJ’s surveillance of the Associated Press and investigation of FOX News reporter James Rosen, and rightly so. In addition, as Glenn Greenwald points out in his latest New York Times editorial, “The administration of Barack Obama has prosecuted more accused leakers under "espionage" statutes than all prior administrations combined -- in fact, double the number of all prior such prosecutions.”

The same Obama who talked about greater transparency in government during his first campaign for President is now employing Soviet style suppression tactics to make sure the only news that’s reported is government approved. This goes way beyond fighting terrorism. It is a blatant program to intimidate critics and punish those reporters who dare challenge the administration’s policies.

To reiterate a point I’ve made before, it was the post 9/11 Bush administration that opened the Pandora’s Box of executive prerogative in the name of fighting terrorism that has led to the abuses we are seeing today in Washington. Instead of repudiating and rescinding Bush’s blatant overreach of Presidential power, Obama has embraced it, expanded on it and taken it to new levels of secrecy and persecution.

We can’t call ourselves a democracy under these circumstances. If we don’t allow our press to speak truth to power, we are no better than any other totalitarian regime.

Unless Obama makes some drastic changes to the laws governing the surveillance and treatment of reporters and whistleblowers, we will continue slipping into a very dark and surreal episode in American history where the truth is the enemy and freedom a distant memory. 

For Republicans, destroying Obama trumps everything

Republicans have spent almost a year now trying to turn the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi into Obama’s Waterloo. We now know that the supposedly incendiary emails relating to the event were doctored by Republicans in an attempt to embarrass the President. In the end, the only entity left embarrassed was ABC News, the one mainstream organization to eagerly represent the tainted emails as fact.

Although the administration is mired in an authentic scandal at the IRS, Benghazi is only the latest in a long line of mudslinging by Republicans in congress and the conservative media to try and destroy Barack Obama. The hatred of Obama on the right has reached a pathological stage. Facts don’t matter. Reality doesn’t matter. The prime directive is to bring the uppity negro to his knees at all costs.

The never-ending attacks on Obama are not really about the man himself. They are about what he represents. The election of Barack Obama marks the beginning of the end for the elite white patriarchy in America, and the remaining members of that small but powerful club are not going to go quietly into that good night.

Even though Obama’s policies and proposals are for the most part remarkably moderate, he stands for everything the elite worldwide fear; people of color rising to positions of power, the poor having a say in government, hope for the oppressed, accountability for the one percent. Obama is the vanguard of the future, and he is despised for that. Benghazi is a blatant and failed example of the unfettered hostility among the puppeteers to the emerging new world, but you can be sure there will be more attempts to bring the President down.

What’s most frightening is that the Right’s hatred of Obama is stronger than their love of this country. Real solutions to real problems are not on the agenda of Boehner and the Tea Party radicals in congress. Their true allegiance is to their corporate masters and the one-percenters; the people who bought them their seats in congress.

As Benghazi reveals, the Republicans and America’s elites are becoming more and more desperate to destroy Obama and all that he represents, and there’s nothing more dangerous then a wounded animal in the last throes of life.

Can Obama go from bullied to Bulworth?

So four years and five months into his presidency, Obama is reported to have told aides he’s tempted to “Go Bulworth,” an allusion to a 1998 Warren Beatty movie about a politician who decides to stop playing political games and be brutally honest. Whether this will actually happen seems unlikely, but the sentiment reflects the President’s frustration with a recalcitrant Congress.

The question that I have is what the hell took so long for Obama's pot to boil? Obama is not a dumb man, and yet it seems to have taken the Prez nearly five years to figure out that Republicans do not care about what’s good for America, but are only concerned with symbolically lynching the black man in the Oval Office.

I still don’t understand why Obama has chosen to take the path he has so far. Why has he been willing to give up so much to a band of yahoos in Congress who made it crystal clear years ago they were not going to support anything he proposed. Was it stubbornness? Lack of backbone? Bad advice from his cabinet members? It’s a mystery to me and many others.

If he really does have the courage to “Go Bulworth,” I will be the first to congratulate him on finally waking up and seeing the light. If he continues down the road he has been on for the past four years, he will end up having little to show for having spent two terms in the White House.