Spies want Snowden dead

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Edward_Snowden

Sounds like they put a lot of thought into how to make it happen:

Edward Snowden has made some dangerous enemies. As the American intelligence community struggles to contain the public damage done by the former National Security Agency contractor’s revelations of mass domestic spying, intelligence operators have continued to seethe in very personal terms against the 30-year-old whistle-blower.

“In a world where I would not be restricted from killing an American, I personally would go and kill him myself,” a current NSA analyst told BuzzFeed. “A lot of people share this sentiment.”

“I would love to put a bullet in his head,” one Pentagon official, a former special forces officer, said bluntly. “I do not take pleasure in taking another human beings life, having to do it in uniform, but he is single-handedly the greatest traitor in American history.”

That violent hostility lies just beneath the surface of the domestic debate over NSA spying is still ongoing. Some members of Congress have hailed Snowden as a whistle-blower, the New York Times has called for clemency, and pundits regularly defend his actions on Sunday talk shows. In intelligence community circles, Snowden is considered a nothing short of a traitor in wartime.

“His name is cursed every day over here,” a defense contractor told BuzzFeed, speaking from an overseas intelligence collections base. “Most everyone I talk to says he needs to be tried and hung, forget the trial and just hang him.”

One Army intelligence officer even offered BuzzFeed a chillingly detailed fantasy.
“I think if we had the chance, we would end it very quickly,” he said. “Just casually walking on the streets of Moscow, coming back from buying his groceries. Going back to his flat and he is casually poked by a passerby. He thinks nothing of it at the time starts to feel a little woozy and thinks it’s a parasite from the local water. He goes home very innocently and next thing you know he dies in the shower.”

There is no indication that the United States has sought to take vengeance on Snowden, who is living in an undisclosed location in Russia without visible security measures, according to a recent Washington Post interview. And the intelligence operators who spoke to BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity did not say they expected anyone to act on their desire for revenge. But their mood is widespread, people who regularly work with the intelligence community said.

“These guys are emoting how pissed they are,” Peter Singer, a cyber-security expert at the Brookings Institute. “Do you think people at the NSA would put a statue of him out front?”

Poverty thinking

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Painful neck
When I was at the chiro’s yesterday, one of the other patients told the doctor she couldn’t get Obamacare, it was too expensive. “Talk to Susan, she knows all that stuff,” he said.

She used to have insurance, but lost it. Then she was in a car crash (hence, the chiro) and they discovered a large tumor in her chest. “I couldn’t get insurance because it was a preexisting condition. So it’s still there.”

I asked if she applied for an ACA subsidy, etc. She said she’d done all that, but it was still too expensive. All she was eligible for was a bronze plan, with a huge deductible. I asked her how much she made ($12,000, two children) and the light began to dawn. “Oh,” I said. “You’re one of those people who should be getting Medicaid, but got screwed when Corbett rejected the Medicaid money.”

I turned to the chiro. “You see? You see why I don’t vote for Republicans? It’s because people like her always get screwed.”

He countered that Republicans just legalized marijuana in New Hampshire. “Yeah, well, Republican priorities,” I retorted. “Healthcare versus getting high.”

The woman said, “My application didn’t even include my fiance’s income, because we’re not married yet.”

“There’s your problem,” I told her. “If your fiance’s income puts you above the poverty level, you should go get married. Just go to City Hall and do it, have your big wedding later. That’ll put you in line for good coverage and a big subsidy.”

She looked shocked, but said if it would help, she’d do it.

I don’t know how ordinary people (who don’t follow politics for a living) navigate this system. If you’re having trouble, use one of the (appropriately named) healthcare navigators. You might think you’re screwed when you’re not.

Smoking: More dangerous than ever

~ susie

And let’s remember: The second-hand smoke effect on bartenders and waitstaff was the impetus behind non-smoking laws!

Cigarettes more dangerous than ever, US report warns (via AFP)

Smoking cigarettes can cause even more health problems than lung cancer, including blindness, diabetes, erectile dysfunction and liver cancer, said a major US government report on Friday. The latest Surgeon General’s findings on the health consequences…

Continue reading “Smoking: More dangerous than ever” →

Contagious

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

G2746-D1393
Seems like medical marijuana is all the rage these days!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) came out in favor of medical marijuana Thursday in a Las Vegas Sun interview, becoming one of the highest elected officials in the U.S. government to give his support.

“If you’d asked me this question a dozen years ago, it would have been easy to answer — I would have said no, because [marijuana] leads to other stuff,” Reid was quoted as saying. “But I can’t say that anymore.”

“I think we need to take a real close look at this,” he added. “I think that there’s some medical reasons for marijuana.”

Although it remains illegal under federal law, polls show that most Americans support medical marijuana. And Attorney General Eric Holder announced in August that the Department of Justice would not interfere, at least at first, as states that have legalized weed for adults create their regulatory regimes — a dramatic policy shift from federal authorities’ targeting of medical marijuana dispensaries that were legal under state law.

Victory

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Jetblue/Embraer 190-100IGW/N198JB

Do they even have a mechanism to remove names? I don’t think they do:

(RNS) A Muslim woman now living in Malaysia struck a blow to the U.S. government’s “no-fly list” when a federal judge ruled Tuesday (Jan. 14) that the government violated her due process rights by putting her on the list without telling her why.

Muslims and civil rights advocates say the no-fly list disproportionately targets Muslims, and they hope the ruling will force the government to become more transparent about the highly secretive program.

“Justice has finally been done for an innocent woman who was wrongly ensnared in the government’s flawed watch listing system,” Elizabeth Pipkin, a lawyer representing Rahinah Ibrahim, said in a statement.

Ibrahim, 48, a mother of four with a doctorate from Stanford University, was waiting to board a flight from San Francisco to Hawaii en route to Malaysia in 2005 but was told she was on the no-fly list. She was eventually cleared to fly to Malaysia, but her visa was revoked soon afterward and she could not return to Stanford. She was never told why she was put on the list, and in 2006 she sued the government to find out.

Some good news

~ susie

tomatoes

Naturally, I’m a little suspicious, but it sure sounds hopeful:

World’s largest retailer to put unprecedented market power behind groundbreaking Fair Food Program; Will work with CIW “to strengthen and expand” the FFP beyond Florida and into new crops!

United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights says FFP “offers promise for us all,” is “eager to see whether Fair Food Program is able to… serve as a model elsewhere in the world.”

This afternoon, at a ceremony held under a watermelon packing shed on a tomato farm outside of Immokalee (photo above), Walmart and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers signed an historic agreement for the world’s largest retailer to join the CIW’s Fair Food Program, the widely-acclaimed social responsibility program that is bringing real, measurable change to the men and women who harvest tomatoes for Florida’s $650 million tomato industry. As part of the agreement, Walmart will work with the CIW to expand the Fair Food Program beyond Florida and into “other crops beyond tomatoes in its produce supply chain.”

Alexandra Guáqueta, chair of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, also attended the signing ceremony “to support the Immokalee workers and the Fair Food Program, which offers such promise for us all,” and conveyed a statement on behalf of the Working Group. The statement praises the Fair Food Program for its “smart mix” of monitoring and enforcement tools, including “market incentives for growers and retailers, monitoring policies and, crucially, a robust and accessible mechanism to resolve complaints and provide remedy,” adding, “Workers have no fear of retaliation if they identify problems.” The statement concludes, “We are eager to see whether the Fair Food Program is able to leverage further change within participating businesses, and serve as a model elsewhere in the world.”

Oopsy daisy

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

AFP-Getty_461557241

Yeah, I’m getting tired of this, too. But this is the guy Christie hardly knew, remember:

(CNN) — Give him a position at the top of the agency; he’s a good friend of the governor.

That’s how David Wildstein was introduced to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2010, according to a former employee with extensive knowledge of the agency’s hiring practices.

Soon after, Wildstein was named the director of Interstate Capital Projects, a title that previously had not existed at the bi-state agency, setting in motion a career that would eventually place the former political blogger at the center of the lane closures controversy at the George Washington Bridge.

Wildstein catapulted into the national spotlight with his response to the infamous e-mail from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s aide: “Time for some traffic problems in Ft. Lee,” Bridget Kelly wrote. Wildstein responded, “Got it.”

A former Port Authority employee told CNN that agency officials were told in 2010 they had to find a place for WIldstein at the executive level and the directive was coming from Christie’s office.

Soon after, the position was created specifically for WIldstein. When Wildstein started, Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni, Christie’s top appointee at the agency, introduced him to people as a good friend of the governor.

CNN examined documents from the Port Authority showing the names, titles and salaries of nearly 7,000 employees. The reports show that prior to Christie’s first term in office there were four people working in the deputy executive director’s office, the highest position on the New Jersey side of the agency. When Christie came into office the number increased to six. The documents show that Wildstein’s position was created in May 2010.

Sources, including several current and former employees at various levels of the Port Authority who did not want their names used, told CNN it was assumed that when David Wildstein was involved in any discussions at the agency, the information was being passed back to Christie’s office.