Is Edward Snowden A Patriot Or A Traitor?

 

Edward Snowden, 29, is the Maryland native who is at the center of a firestorm, because he revealed to The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers, that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) is actively engaged in two extensive classified electronic surveillance programs, that encompasses monitoring the electronic and digital communication of every American citizen and business.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said that Snowden’s revelations are an “act of treason.” Former vice president Dick Cheney said that he thinks Snowden is a traitor who could be a spy for China.

Snowden responded to Cheney’s unsubstantiated assertion by saying "It's important to bear in mind I'm being called a traitor by men like former vice president Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American."

President Obama is attending the G8 summit in Northern Ireland. He was asked about the NSA surveillance program, and claimed that he had appointed “a privacy and civil liberties oversight board, made up of independent citizens including some fierce civil libertarians.”

The Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill wrote about President Obama’s first public comments about the NSA surveillance programs.

In his first public comments in 10 days about the NSA disclosures, Obama also said he had set an oversight board made up of independent citizens and the ordered the declassification of documents relating to surveillance to allow the public to see the broader context.

Obama said: "My concern has always been not that we shouldn't do intelligence gathering to prevent terrorism, but rather are we setting up a system of checks and balances."

The president said it was a "false choice" to say that American freedoms needed to be sacrificed in the goal of national security. "That doesn't mean that there are not tradeoffs involved in any given program, in any given action that we take. So all of us make a decision that we go through a whole bunch of security at airports, which when we were growing up that wasn't the case … To say there's a tradeoff doesn't mean somehow that we've abandoned freedom."

When the president was asked about Edward Snowden, he said  "The case has been referred to the DOJ for criminal investigation … and possible extradition. I will leave it up to them to answer those questions."

Edward Snowden had a security clearance in his various jobs, that granted him access to many of our nation’s most important secrets. Just a few weeks ago, he was a paid government spy mining secret data in Hawaii, and today he has to hide. The government’s public relations apparatus is in overdrive discrediting him, and branding him a traitor, while threatening him with criminal penalties.

Is Edward Snowden an American patriot or a deceitful traitor?

He’s neither. He’s a courageous whistleblower who exposed that our government systematically spies and snoops on it’s citizens. Was I shocked when I learned this? No. Does it disturb me? Yes.

We have certain guarantees under the Constitution related to unreasonable searches and seizures. While the Patriot Act might give the NSA authorization to snoop on Americans, it doesn’t mean that it’s a Constitutional law.

There was a time in our country when we embraced the values that a whistleblower represents. We cheered the underdogs, and the Daniel Ellsberg's of the world, for exposing practices that were inconsistent with the values inherent in our Constitution.

Army PFC Bradley Manning has been charged in a 22 count criminal indictment, and is facing the death penalty, for allegedly leaking classified diplomatic cables that are credited with being a catalyst for the Arab Spring.  Manning also revealed that during the Iraq war, an American helicopter wantonly murdered 3 journalists, and then attacked a van that stopped to help the injured.

PFC Manning exposed a murder, and he’s facing the death penalty.

My real fear is that Congress is asleep at the wheel. Senator Feinstein and her committee is responsible for ensuring that our intelligence agencies don’t overstep their bounds, and the best she could do is call Snowden’s leaks an “act of treason.”

Treason is defined as a “crime betraying one’s country.” PFC Manning didn’t betray his country, and Edward Snowden hasn’t betrayed his country.

If Congress authorized these surveillance programs, they’ve betrayed their country and the people they represent, and that’s criminal. 

Congress committed an act of treason - not Edward Snowden.

Straight talk indeed.

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Southern Baptist Convention's Anti-Gay Stance Is Incompatible With Christianity

Baptist Radio Personality Mike Huckabee’s Anti-Gay Views Are Incompatible With Christianity Too

Meeting in Houston, Texas, at their annual convention, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) approved a nonbinding resolution opposing the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) recent decision to allow gay young men in scouting. The SBC claims that “homosexual conduct” is incompatible with a scout’s oath to do his duty to God.

The resolution does not require anything specific of SBC member churches, but allows each church to decide individually whether they want to continue sponsoring scout troops. It’s estimated that seventy percent of the 100,000 BSA troops are sponsored by religious organizations.

Amanda Orr and Colleen Jenkins described the implications of the anti-gay resolution for Reuters.  

The Southern Baptist resolution urges churches that continue with the Boy Scouts to work toward the reversal of the new membership policy and to advocate against any change in leadership and membership that "normalizes sexual conduct outside of the Biblical standards."

The Southern Baptist Convention has more than 45,000 churches and church-type missions with nearly 16 million members nationwide, according to the group's website.
A representative from the Boy Scouts was not immediately available for comment on the resolution.

Some religious organizations have accepted the Boy Scouts' new policy. The Mormon Church, the largest sponsor of scouting troops nationwide with about 430,000 youth members, expressed its support. The United Methodist Church, the second-largest sponsor, also plans to continue its role in scouting.

The national scouting committee for the Catholic Church, the third-largest sponsor of scouting troops, has noted that the policy change on gay members does not take effect until next January, providing "adequate time to study its effects."

There’s no theological or Biblical evidence to support this resolution, just as there’s nothing written in scripture to justify the bigotry that the SBC, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and the Roman Catholic Church, continually direct toward the LGBT community.  

As Katie Halper notes at Salon.com, former Southern Baptist Minister Mike Huckabee is stomping mad and attacking any groups or individuals that call out homophobic people for their homophobia. Katie writes that Huckabee is “tired of homophobes being told that their views are, well, homophobic. And he’s tired of the homosexualist attack against heterosexuals.”

In an interview Huckabee had with Penny Nance of Concerned Women of America, a right-wing extremist group, he expressed his disdain for all things homosexual. He claimed that “every fear that people had has in fact come true, that this is being forced in textbooks on how marriage is depicted, we’re now even seeing television commercials portraying same-sex couples, that’s something I guess I didn’t expect to see anytime soon.”

Katie Halper continued:

When asked if LGBT people should be allowed to marry, Huckabee shared his nuanced view that “that would be like saying, well there are a lot of people who like to use drugs so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, should we accommodate them?”

The good news is that the Republican Party is set to follow Huckabee’s enlightened path. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in March that, when it comes to LGBT issues, Huckabee is “a model for a lot of people in our party … I always tell people, listen to Governor Mike Huckabee … I don’t know anyone that talks about [LGBT rights] any better.”

Discrimination is unacceptable, and the SBC is advocating discrimination which is harmful to kids in scouting! Their behavior is beyond insensitive, as it’s outrageous.

We expect Huckabee to make idiotic homophobic statements, because he’s been doing that for years. Since he’s so fond of the American values that were present in the 1840’s, and he doesn’t want to see gay people on TV, he should get rid of his television.

Huckabee and the SBC are exhibiting behavior that’s incompatible with Christianity, and that’s the truth.

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Happy 80th Birthday Joan Rivers!

Legendary comedienne and gay icon Joan Rivers is 80 years old today, and I hope that you will join me in wishing her a happy birthday!

Joan Rivers has been making people laugh for nearly 50 years! She appears on Fashion Police each week on E!, stars in the reality television show Joan & Melissa: Joan knows Best? on WE tv, designs and sells her jewelry line Joan Rivers Classic Collection on QVC, produces and hosts her new weekly talk show In Bed With Joan, and makes personal appearances across the country, and regularly performs her stand up act on both sides of the Atlantic.

She does all of that at 80 years old, and that’s absolutely amazing. There was a huge 80th birthday bash scheduled for last Wednesday night in New York that was sadly cancelled, because Joan’s sister Barbara Waxler, died on Monday.

ABC announced this week that Joan will be appearing on Celebrity Wife Swap this summer. She will travel to Alaska to switch places with Bristol Palin, where she will take care of Bristol’s 4 year old son Tripp. Bristol will be entrusted with Joan’s grandson Cooper.

In honor of Joan’s birthday, here are some of her most memorable one liners.

I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw that my bath toys were a toaster and a radio.

I blame my mother for my poor sex life. All she told me was 'the man goes on top and the woman underneath.' For three years my husband and I slept in bunk beds.

Before we make love my husband takes a pain killer.

My best birth control now is just to leave the lights on.

My obstetrician was so dumb that when I gave birth he forgot to cut the cord. For a year that kid followed me everywhere. It was like having a dog on a leash.

Boy George is all England needs - another queen who can't dress.

Elizabeth Taylor has more chins than a Chinese phone book.

Can we talk? Happy Birthday Joan! Thanks for the laughs and the memories, and I hope you have a fabulous birthday. We look forward to many more laughs in the years to come!

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Senator Marco Rubio Is A Fraud Like The "Emperor With No Clothes"

Rubio Is Against His Own Immigration Bill

After the Republican party experienced a disastrous defeat in November 2012, they attributed their loss to the changing demographics in the United States. Latino voters are the fastest growing minority, and they overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama’s re-election for President.

The brain trusts in the Republican party concluded that they had to do a better job communicating their message to Latino voters, and that Willard Mitt Romney’s rhetoric that undocumented immigrants should self deport, and not have access to healthcare or an education, was harmful to the future prospects of the party in national elections.

While it was a coalition of women, younger voters, the LGBT community, Latinos, and people of color, who joined together to support President Obama, and hand the GOP another defeat in a nationwide election, Republicans determined that Latinos were a crucial constituency that they needed to woo.

President George W. Bush received 44% of the Latino vote in 2004, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) received 31% in 2008, and Willard Mitt Romney received 27% in 2012.

In order to be more conciliatory, and improve the GOP’s image among Latinos, Republicans agreed to join Democrats in a discussion about the 12 million undocumented immigrants that are estimated to be in the United States.

Both political parties agreed that comprehensive immigration reform is a moral imperative. Republicans were motivated to address the issue because they’re afraid that if they continue to alienate Latino voters, they imperil the future of their party. Democrats have long advocated immigration reform because it’s the right thing to do.

President George W. Bush pushed Congress to address immigration reform in 2007, and his proposal was dead in the water because extreme right-wing Republicans had no interest in reforming immigration policy.

Last week President Bush said that Congress should fix immigration policy because as it stands it’s “inhumane,” and fixing it is the right thing to do. In an interview with the Huffington Post’s  Jon Ward last week, President Bush commented on the current efforts to reform immigration.

"The right reason is it's important to reform a broken system. I'm not sure a right reason is that in so doing we win votes," Bush said. "I mean when you do the right thing, I think you win votes, as opposed to doing something that's the right thing to win votes. Maybe there's no difference there. It seems like there is to me, though."

"I mean we ought to be doing it. One, it's right. Two, because the system is broken," Bush said. "It's a system rife with corruption and the corruption being smugglers bringing individuals to do jobs Americans won't do. And it's, to me it's an inhumane system."

"Second it's important for our economy to have people here come on a regularized basis, not permanently necessarily," he said, referencing the guest worker component. "Of course the thorny issue is citizenship and that causes people to scream amnesty, and once the amnesty word gets into the debate, people recoil."

A “gang of eight” Senators in the US Senate drafted a bill (S. 744) that was introduced in April 2013, “to provide for comprehensive immigration reform and other purposes.” The 4 Republicans and 4 Democrats comprising the “gang of eight” in the Senate are Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO).

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was a vocal proponent of the need for comprehensive immigration reform. Rubio’s political roots are with the extremist tea-party movement, and political pundits say that he wants to run for President. In order to widen his appeal, he felt that he could be a leader on immigration reform. His parents are immigrants, and because of his national ambitions, he felt that he could capitalize on the goodwill that comes with being a sponsor of this legislation, and benefit from the free publicity that this hot-button issue generates in the press.

On Tuesday May 21st, 2013, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act by a vote of 13-5. While Democrats on the committee sold out the gay community by not including binational gay married couples in the bill, immigration reform advocates were largely pleased with the legislation. The next step in the process is for the full Senate to consider the bill.

In a radio interview earlier this week, Senator Rubio made news because he said that as the bill currently stands, he won’t support his own bill.

Speaking with radio host Hugh Hewitt Tuesday, Rubio said the Senate should “strengthen the border security parts of this bill so that they’re stronger, so that they don’t give overwhelming discretion to the Department of Homeland Security.” He said he was working with other senators on amendments to do just that.

Then Hewitt asked: “If those amendments don’t pass, will you yourself support the bill that emerged from Judiciary, Senator Rubio?”

Rubio answered, “Well, I think if those amendments don’t pass, then I think we’ve got a bill that isn’t going to become law, and I think we’re wasting our time. So the answer is no.”

As Jonathan Chait notes at New York magazine’s Daily Intelligencer blog, Rubio is playing both sides against each other.

Is the deal exactly what Rubio wanted? No. It wasn't exactly what anybody wanted. But, again, that's called "negotiation." That's why Democrats had to vote for utterly obnoxious provisions excluding gay couples. They didn't like the things they voted for, but were under the impression that both sides were bound by the terms of the deal. Now Rubio is saying only they're bound by it.

The question for Democrats is, at what point do they insist that a deal's a deal? The dynamic here is that Republicans have a mainly political objective, and Democrats a mainly policy objective. The Republicans do want some changes to the law that would benefit businesses, but mainly they want to take immigration off the table as an issue in order to give themselves an opening to court Latino voters. Democrats are willing to take the issue off the table in order to get a substantive policy accomplishment.

The most attractive resolution from the Republican point of view is to get Democrats to support a very weak reform. That enables them to accomplish the political goal at minimum cost of angering their own base. But at some point, the policy gain for Democrats is low enough that it isn't worth surrendering the political advantage.

Wonkblog argues that the changes to the bill Rubio is now demanding would bring its value close to zero. If that's the case, the Democrats' strategy is pretty easy. They need to hold firm to the Gang of Eight deal and dare Rubio to vote against a bill he has publicly championed.

Is Marco Rubio’s support absolutely necessary for this bill to pass in the US Senate?  No it’s not. Should he fail to support his own bill, his presidential prospects will certainly be diminished.

Senator Rubio is an idiot, and he’s mocking the Senate, and the American people, and obviously has no interest at all in immigration reform. He’s like the “Emperor with No Clothes,” and from where I sit the view isn’t pretty. 

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The Night Gay Marriage Died

I heard my mama cry

I heard her pray the night gay marriage died

Brother what a night it really was

Brother what a fight it really was, glory be

Springfield, Illinois ---Amid excitement and fanfare on Memorial Day, Illinois Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago)  predicted that by the end of the week, the gay marriage legislation that passed in the state Senate on Valentine’s Day, would pass in the House. It was going to be a historic week.

Chicago Tribune reporters  Monique Garcia, Rex W. Huppke and Cynthia Dizikes describe the excitement in the state:

For Illinois' gay marriage proponents, it was supposed to be a historic week culminating in a collective "I do" from Springfield lawmakers.

Thousands tuned in to social media and live streams throughout the day Friday, sending tweets and other messages of hope as they waited for the Illinois House to call a vote on the legalization of gay marriage. Gay couples who had traveled to the state Capitol were invited to view the action from the speaker's gallery. And during breaks, families paused to snap smiling pictures with sponsoring Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago.

But as the hours wore on, the optimism and energy dissolved in the face of strong opposition from Catholic and conservative African-American church groups, leading Harris to rise on the floor and tearfully announce that he would not call the bill — there wasn't enough support after all.

His speech was greeted by the angry shouts of dozens of supporters who had been waiting all day to watch the history-making event.

"It felt like someone knocked me to the floor," said Robyne O'Mara, who has been in a same-sex relationship for the past three decades and took off work Friday to be at the Capitol. "They failed us."

Writing for The New Yorker, Richard Socarides weighed in:

Proponents of the bill reacted with shock, quickly followed by anger and some finger-pointing. Marc Solomon, the campaign director of the national-rights group Freedom to Marry, called the situation a “disgrace.” Jim Bennett, of Lambda Legal, which is suing in Illinois over same-sex marriage, called it “a stunning failure.” There has been a standing debate among advocates about whether, in cases like this, it is best to go ahead with a vote even if it is likely that it will fail: doing so has the advantage of putting lawmakers on the record, but it may give opponents a symbolic victory. In the end, Harris decided that a loss would be worse.

All of this proves how difficult passing same-sex marriage legislation continues to be in many places, and how patience and determination have proven to be the only strategies to consistently deliver results for marriage advocates. Many states with same-sex marriage laws now in place, like New York, went through unsuccessful legislative efforts first. The situation in Illinois is the same one that New York faced: in 2009, the New York legislature rejected a bill; it finally passed in June of 2011. The failure in Illinois is a reminder of just how hard fought the New York moment was.

Rep. Harris tearfully said "I have to keep my eye, as we all must, on the ultimate prize. We will be back and we will be voting on this bill during legislature, in this room."

The deadline for the bill’s passage was May 31st, 2013. House Speaker Michael Madigan extended the deadline to August 31, 2013, so there’s still a remote possibility that the  Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act could pass before summer’s end.

Then again, the US Supreme Court’s decision is just a few weeks away, and how they will rule is still anybody’s guess.  

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