Delusional Obama thinks Iran has changed

President Obama says that the Iranian people have “rebuffed the hardliners and the clerics” in the country by electing a moderate president over the weekend.
“I think it says that the Iranian people want to move in a different direction,” Obama said in an interview on PBS.
"He can’t really be this stupid, can he?" asks Jammie at Jammie-Wearing Fools. More.

I can wave higher than you

Slogan of the Day

“Democracy: Citizens watch government. Tyranny: Government watches citizens.” --from  a sign carried by an anti-Obama protester  in Berlin. [Thanks BJS]

Barack Obama's Diary: With a Sheila under me arm

Dear Diary: After a walk-and-talk meeting this morning with British PM David Cameron an Enda Kenny, Taoiseach  of Ireland, I took my leave of them by singing "With me a Sheila under me arm and a twinkle in me eye, I'll be off to Tipperary in the..."  For some reason they lengthened their stride  and I was left behind. My Secret Service detail hurried me into The Beast,  thence to Airforce One and Berlin, where the formidable Arugula Merkel awaits. But enough about me.

Cartoon: Patrick Chappatte

[Le Temps, Switzerland]

NSA vs. KGB

"Barack, is that a microphone in your pocket, or are 
you just pleased to see me?"

NSA veterans: 'We told you so'

When a National Security Agency contractor revealed top-secret details this month on the government's collection of Americans' phone and Internet records, one select group of intelligence veterans breathed a sigh of relief,  USA Today reports. Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe had  paved the way.
For years, they had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from U.S. citizens. They had spent decades in the top ranks of the agency, designing and managing the very data-collection systems they say have been turned against Americans. When they became convinced that fundamental constitutional rights were being violated, they complained first to their superiors, then to federal investigators, congressional oversight committees and, finally, to the news media. Read it all.   [Thanks: BJS]

Cartoon: RJ Matson

[Roll Call]

Why lying to America is not OK

 A member of Congress asks the director of national intelligence if the National Security Agency collects data on millions of Americans. "No, sir," James Clapper responds. Pressed, he adds a caveat: "Not wittingly."  Then, NSA programs that do precisely that are disclosed, writes Liz Sidotti for AP.
"It turns out that President Barack Obama's intelligence chief lied. Or as he put it last week: 'I responded in what I thought was the most truthful or least most untruthful manner, by saying, 'No,' because the program was classified. The White House stands by him. Press secretary Jay Carney says Obama "certainly believes that Director Clapper has been straight and direct in the answers that he's given."  If there have been repercussions, the public doesn't know about them." Read more

Majority now disapproves of Obama

President Barack Obama’s job approval rating fell sharply over the past month—from 53 to 45 percent, according to a new CNN poll. Fifty-four percent of Americans disapprove of the job he’s doing, also up from 45 percent, the survey found.
Sixty-one percent disapprove of the way he’s handling government surveillance of Americans in the aftermath of a series of dramatic reports about National Security Agency spying, while 35 percent approve. More details here.   [Thanks: BJS]

Official contradicts IRS claim

An Internal Revenue Service supervisor in Washington says she was personally involved in scrutinizing some of the earliest applications from tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status, including some requests that languished for more than a year without action, AP reports. Holly Paz--until recently a top deputy in the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status, told congressional investigators she reviewed 20 to 30 applications, which contradicts claims by the agency that a small group of agents working in an office in Cincinnati were solely to blame for mishandling the applications. Read it all.  [Thanks BJS]

Barack Obama's Diary: Putin up with Vlad

Here I am at a golf resort at Lough Erne in Northern Ireland for the G8 summit. I had been hoping for a superb opportunity to distract attention from the various "scandals" back home and display my unique talents as a statesman and diplomat. But Air Force One had not even landed at Belfast before Vlad the Inhaler was warning the rest of us, via the media, not to arm the Syrian rebels. What an atrocious schemer he is. He knows perfectly well that I have just authorized such arming and he wants the limelight for himself. From previous experience I know the man loves to show off his torso. So I will invite him for a  swim in the resort pool. Now he is divorced he will leap  at the chance to display his squat, muscled body to the media. He loves to goad me, to crush my elegant fingers in a harsh handshake as he fixes me with those cold, narrow-set blue eyes, looking for the slightest flinch. And so it was today. "Care for a refreshing swim, Vladimir?" I asked him. "Да" he said, which means "yes " to those of you without my extensive education and knowledge of Cyrillic script which I learned at Moscow University [no you may not see my transcripts]."Let's meet at the pool in ten minutes, " Da!" I replied. I went to my suite where Marv Nicholson had already laid out my swimming shorts.  When I arrived at the pool, Vlad was already strutting about self-importantly chest puffed out, belly drawn in. Without further ado I dove in and he followed.  Out of breath, we soon stopped swimming and  began to tread water. Unseen by me, he dove under, again   seized my shorts in both hands and ripped them down over my feet, throwing them  out of my  reach  at the  edge of the pool.  I was naked and  thus trapped in the water. "Marco! [code for "help!"]  I yelled to  any of my Secret Service detail who might be within earshot   Luckily my aid, Marv, had  just arrived at the pool with a towel. "Polo!" he yelled back, immediately reading the  gravity of the situation and tucked a toe under my wet shorts, dragging them  discreetly back into the water where I was able to grasp them as they sank and wriggle them back on. Awkwaard! As I emerged from the water, I saw Vlad sitting in a poolside chair, heaving with Slavic laughter. I hissed at him: "ублюдок"  [bastard!] and stomped off to the refuge in my suite, there to  restore my dignity with a bottle of Guinness from the mini-bar. But enough about me.

Dim crims: Moses parts the traffic

Police a have arrested an Alaska man who they say was driving a motorized shopping cart while drunk and in possession of stolen cookies and cake mix.  Merrill K. Moses, 63, was arraigned this week in Fairbanks on charges of drunken driving, shoplifting and refusing to take an official sobriety test.  A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 5, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports.  Read more.

Dumb slebs try to set nuclear strategy

Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon and John Cusack are among an array of A-list actors starring in a new video urging President Barack Obama to "set the world's course" for an end to nuclear weapons, at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland. Eminent global military strategists Whoopi Goldberg, Morgan Freeman, Naomi Watts and Christoph Waltz also lend their profound opinions.. Read more

The NSA CAN tap your home phone

The National Security Agency  has disclosed, in a secret Capitol Hill briefing, that thousands of analysts can listen to domestic phone calls. Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSA's formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically, it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls.  Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during the briefing he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that."
Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadler's disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.
The disclosure appears to confirm some of the allegations made by Edward Snowden, a former NSA infrastructure analyst who leaked classified documents to The Guardian. Snowden said in a video interview that, while not all NSA analysts had this ability, he could from Hawaii "wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president."  Read more.
[Thanks  BJS]