The New York Times has a lengthy article about the evolution of Obama’s ideology and perspective regarding NSA spying.    However, inside the article there is this admission from White House advisor/campaign director David Plouffe that everyone appears to be overlooking (emphasis mine):

[…]   “When you get the package every morning, it puts steel in your spine,” said David Plouffe, the president’s longtime adviser. “There are people out there every day who are plotting. The notion that we would put down a tool that would protect people here in America is hard to fathom.”

At the same time, aides said Mr. Obama was surprised to learn after leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, just how far the surveillance had gone. “Things seem to have grown at the N.S.A.,” Mr. Plouffe said, citing specifically the tapping of foreign leaders’ telephones. “I think it was disturbing to most people, and I think he found it disturbing.”

Yet it is hard to express indignation at actions of the government after five years of running it, and some involved in surveillance note that it was Mr. Obama who pushed national security agencies to be aggressive in hunting terrorists.  (read full article)

(more…)

Sometimes people ask us ‘why are you willing to confront the third rail issues’?  I think Allen West has just provided the best explanation of ‘why’.

Allen West – “racial protectionism” – When the concept of doing a website was presented to me, initially I scoffed thinking there wouldn’t be enough critical material daily to comment on — boy was I wrong. Every day I am amazed at the insanity I witness in our America and here is another example.

According to a report in The Hill, Attorney General Eric Holder is at it again with his racial preference policies,

Attorney General Eric Holder called upon the nation’s school districts Wednesday to rethink “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies that he said disproportionately punish minorities and push too many students into the justice system. Alarming numbers of young people are suspended, expelled or even arrested for relatively minor transgressions like school uniform violations, schoolyard fights or showing ‘disrespect’ by laughing in class,” Holder said during a speech in Baltimore.

What did his remarks really mean? They accompanied the release of new federal guidance from the departments of Justice and Education encouraging (i.e. threatening) schools to adopt disciplinary policies that are “fair, nondiscriminatory, and effective.” The guidance offers parameters for punishment as governed by federal civil rights protections, alternatives to exclusionary discipline and a comprehensive list of regulations on the books in every state. (more…)

….. Semi-related Prog Hypocrisy – Did Chris Christie know about his staff punishing his political opponents ?

“At this point,… what difference does it make”?

Did Eric Holder know about operation Fast and Furious? (more…)

More interesting disturbing than the actual criminality aspect, is the statement from the Second Chance School Director, Jamie Quinn.   What exactly is he saying here, or more importantly, perhaps, what’s he not saying?…..

ROCK HILL    Two teenagers wanted for murder walked into the lobby of the Rock Hill Police Department Monday morning and turned themselves in, police say.

Dontavion Qua’mek White, 17, and Maurice Lamont Burris, 16, are charged with murder, criminal conspiracy, armed robbery, possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime and possession of a firearm while under the age of 18, police said.

Burris, a juvenile under state law, will be tried as an adult because of the severity of the allegations.

[…]  Both White and Burris attend the Renaissance Academy in Rock Hill, an alternative school for students that gives them a second chance if they’ve lost other educational opportunities. White (17) is a 10th-grader; Burris (16) is a ninth-grader. (more…)

President Obama Tuesday said he’s “not going to be waiting for legislation” from Congress to move forward on his agenda in 2014, further stoking a clash between both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue over the reach of executive power.

“I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” Obama said before a Cabinet meeting at the White House Tuesday, issuing a challenge to GOP lawmakers who have blocked most of his second-term agenda. (more…)

Pathetic, spineless, High School politics….

WASHINGTON DC – Democrats atop a political “hit list” of politicians who betrayed Hillary Clinton in 2008 are trying to get back in her good graces as she weighs a 2016 comeback.

Clinton campaign aides kept a detailed list of lawmakers who supported Barack Obama in the Democratic primary, according to excerpts from the forthcoming book HRC: States Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton, by The Hill’s Amie Parnes and Politico’s Jonathan Allen. The book says aides ranked them according to the gravity of their perceived betrayal, with several prominent Democrats — including Secretary of State John Kerry, then a Massachusetts senator — earning the blackest of black marks.

The new revelation set off a flurry of praise for Clinton, also a secretary of State, from the damned on Monday. (more…)

(Via Washington Free Bacon) Jewish community leaders in South Florida say they are growing frustrated with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) over her conflicting statements regarding a bipartisan Iran sanctions measure in the House.

Following a Washington Free Beacon report detailing her efforts to block a House resolution backing new sanctions on Iran, Wasserman Schultz has told her hometown press that she is open to new sanctions, while telling D.C. reporters that she opposes them.

The conflicting statements are a sign that Wasserman Schultz is torn between her support for the White House, which opposes the sanctions, and her constituents, who are less convinced of Iran’s good intentions and more supportive of tough congressional action. (more…)

Iran and the White House are aligned in their demand the U.S. congress must not issue any further sanctions against the Iranian nuclear ambitions.   However, the more alarming aspect is that the White House is refusing to let congress review the exact terminology of the previously announced arrangement.

Not passing proverbial sniff test….

WASHINGTON DC –  Iran vowed to maintain its nuclear infrastructure and threatened to boost its uranium enrichment capabilities just hours after announcing that it had agreed to a deal to halt some aspects of its contested nuclear program.

Iran and Western nations announced on Sunday that they had agreed to an interim deal to halt portions of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for some $7 billion in sanctions relief.

Secretary of State John Kerry celebrated the interim agreement, which will officially begin on Jan. 20.

However, Iranian officials threatened to ramp up nuclear activities should they feel the West is violating the accord.

“We will in no way, never, dismantle our [nuclear] centrifuges,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told the country’s state-run television station on Sunday, according to New York Times reporter Thomas Erdbrink. (more…)

Last week House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan said they’ve discovered the assigned head of the IRS probe was Barbara Kay Bosserman. Bosserman is a DOJ trial lawyer in the Justice Department who donated more than $6,000 to Mr. Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, as well as several hundred dollars to the national Democratic Party.

Now this week: WASHINGTON DC – The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t plan to file criminal charges over the Internal Revenue Service’s heightened scrutiny of conservative groups, according to law-enforcement officials, a move that likely will only intensify debate over the politically charged scandal.

The officials said investigators didn’t find the kind of political bias or “enemy hunting” that would amount to a violation of criminal law. Instead, what emerged during the probe was evidence of a mismanaged bureaucracy enforcing rules about tax-exemption applications it didn’t understand, according to the law-enforcement officials. (more…)