Top CIA Nazi Brennan Cops to Spying on Senate Staffers

CIA Director John Brennan fessed up today over his agency spying on staff members of a key Senate committee. Mr. Brennan's admission comes months after an ugly dust-up with Senate Intelligence Committee boss Dianne Feinstein (DiFi) over allegations that the CIA had hacked into the computers of staff investigating agency interrogation and detention programs or in layman's terms: torture programs.  DiFi went absolutely ballistic at the time, going to the extraordinary lengths of denouncing the CIA's tactics on the Senate floor. Brennan, being the career spook that he is did what comes natural: he lied, denying the accusation without qualification. Not that Senator Feinstein could ever be defended as a defender of American civil liberties - she is after all one of the NSA Stasi's most ardent defenders - but this time, like the adage of the broken clock she was right. It was her great shining moment.

Feinstein could be excused for doing a victory lap today being vindicated by the findings of an internal review showing that her committee was indeed spied on by Brennan's CIA goons. According to a story in The Guardian entitled "CIA admits to spying on Senate staffers" by Spencer Ackerman from which I excerpt:

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issued an extraordinary apology to leaders of the US Senate intelligence committee on Thursday, conceding that the agency employees spied on committee staff and reversing months of furious and public denials.

Brennan acknowledged that an internal investigation had found agency security personnel transgressed a firewall set up on a CIA network, which allowed Senate committee investigators to review agency documents for their landmark inquiry into CIA torture.

Among other things, it was revealed that agency officials conducted keyword searches and email searches on committee staff while they used the network.

The admission brings Brennan’s already rocky tenure at the head of the CIA under renewed question. One senator on the panel said he had lost confidence in the director, although the White House indicated its support for a man who has been one of Barack Obama’s most trusted security aides.

The reference to Brennan being "one of Barack Obama's most trusted security aides" is particularly galling given the anti-constitutional rampage that El Presidente has been conducting out of the Oval Office. Forget about that political stunt of John Boehner in suing Obama, the real problem  is Obama's ongoing empowerment of a mammoth national security state apparatus that is setting into place all of the institutions of a totalitarian state for his successors. Being a libertarian myself, the concentration of such unchecked power in the Executive Branch absolutely horrifies me, but were I a Republican the prospect of the turning over of the keys to this machine to Hillary Rodham-Clinton would be a nightmare of biblical proportions. The golden opportunity for the GOP to once and for all put a choke chain on this menace to American liberty lies in the coming retaking of the Senate in November. There will be an approximately one year window of opportunity to cage this monster and I hope that for the sake of all of our future that they will do so.

The CIA spying on Feinstein's committee is a part of the ongoing efforts by a rogue government to cover up our sad and disgusting choice to embark upon the path of a torture state after 9/11. This very concept, at least prior to that terrible day was antithetical to American values - we were the good guys and we did not resort to such vile practices which were what morally separated us from our enemies. Tragically, we lost our way and that "shining city on the hill" that was so eloquently evoked by President Ronald Reagan continues to recede into the rear view mirror as under our recent and current leadership. This leadership has no respect for our traditional values and has zero qualms about dragging us through the darkest alleys of humanity that are the route to a despotic torture state. Sucks that such a thing is seen by so many as being as American as apple pie now. Jack Bauer is a fictional character designed to create within the people an acceptance for the same type of conduct  that had men hanged at Nuremberg  after our fathers and grandfathers defeated fascism in Europe.

The covering up of the torture that our deranged and power drunk "leaders" turned to has truly been a bipartisan effort that spans two presidencies - one Republican and one Democrat with each one being for two terms. The administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama have continued to thwart efforts to reveal the truth of the heinous torture programs to the public and even Feinstein's efforts are tepid at best to get to the bottom of things and will continue to be fiercely resisted by the White House.

Brennan's admission along with his much hyped apology is a nice public relations gimmick which comes at a very opportune time. Our wonderful representatives in the US Congress are ready to decamp from Washington for their latest taxpayer funded extended vacation. By the time that they return all will be forgiven and most importantly forgotten by the public as the media feeds them the ridiculous horse race coverage of this most critical of mid-term elections along with the insane focus on non-issues that only benefit entrenched power.

Hillary: Snowden Should Return to USA for Trial

When it comes to repulsive characters of the type that are created by the failed American political system one of the worst of the dismal collection is Hillary Rodham Clinton. The former Secretary of State, US Senator and humiliated spouse of a philanderer in chief, Hillary has been a dominant and relentless performer in the political circus dating back to the waning days of the last century and after a failed run at the Democratic nomination in 2008 it was always a foregone conclusion that she would be running again. The Clintons are like genital herpes - they just won't go away.

Let’s face it; the woman is an egomaniac and nothing short of becoming the first female president in United States history is going to be satisfactory to her. Back during the 2008 primary season we were given an exhibit of exactly how she operates and how low that she will go to sip from the holy grail, her racist attacks on the man who beat her, Barack Obama were a precursor of the so-called Tea Party and every bit as dirty. It was trench warfare, even to the extent that Hillary even met with longtime Clinton family nemesis banking and media tycoon Richard Mellon Scaife (who only this week moved his base of operations to Hell) to get a leg up on the upstart Obama but it was all for naught. When Obama clinched the nomination there was much infighting within the Democratic party establishment and even the idea that she would assume a position of subservience to Obama on the ticket and take the VP slot but as Matt Taibbi brilliantly nailed it at the time – “Hillary would rather eat a KFC bucket full of her own shit than run with Obama” – so she eventually ended up as Secretary of State as a part of that vaunted and ridiculous “Team of Rivals” which could more accurately labeled as "Team of Rats" that set the stage for the five and a half years of cascading fuck-ups that has marked the Obama era.

On tour ostensibly to hustle her new book “Hard Choices” but truly to sell herself and rev up the engines of the formidable Clinton machine for the 2016 blitzkrieg towards the White House, Hillary made a trip across the pond and sat down for an interview with British host Phoebe Greenwood. The interview, the video of which can be found here and covered a wide range of topics with one of them being former government contractor turned NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden who Clinton suggested should return to the USSA to be tried under the post-Constitutional legal system.

According to a story in The Guardian entitled “Edward Snowden should have right to legal defence in US, says Hillary Clinton”:

The former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has said Edward Snowden should have the right to launch a legal and public defence of his decision to leak top-secret documents if he returns to the United States.

"If he wishes to return knowing he would be held accountable and also able to present a defence, that is his decision to make," Clinton said in a video interview with the Guardian on Friday.

Snowden, who is currently in Russia where he has been afforded temporary asylum, has been charged with three separate violations of the US Espionage Act. These charges include stealing government property and sharing classified documents with the Guardian and the Washington Post.

The broadly worded law makes no distinction between a spy and a whistleblower and affords Snowden almost no recourse to a defence.

The former NSA employee is likely to face a number of additional charges should he return to the US.

When Clinton was asked if she believed the Espionage Act – passed in 1917 – should be reformed in order to allow Snowden a defence, she claimed not to know what the whistleblower had been charged with as they were "sealed indictments".

"In any case that I'm aware of as a former lawyer, he has a right to mount a defence," she said. "And he certainly has a right to launch both a legal defence and a public defence, which can of course affect the legal defence.

"Whether he chooses to return or not is up to him. He certainly can stay in Russia, apparently under Putin's protection, for the rest of his life if that's what he chooses. But if he is serious about engaging in the debate then he could take the opportunity to come back and have that debate. But that's his decision."

The interview is a masterpiece of bullshit, particularly where Mrs. Clinton dodges the question on the invocation of the Espionage Act of 1917 - an archaic World War I law used to criminalize dissent  that has been used by the Obama Justice Department with aplomb. She also dodges on the "crimes" that Snowden has been charged with as there is a sealed indictment and ludicrously states that he can be a part of the public "debate" were he to leave Russia and return to the open arms of Uncle Scam. Hillary is a snake, she has already declared that Snowden "helped terrorists" and alluded to the horseshit talking point that he is a Russian spy despite the truth that he was trapped in Russia only because the USA!, USA!, USA! revoked his passport and stranded him there, taking such extreme measures as forcing down the flight of Bolivian president Evo Morales out of suspicion that the patriotic whistleblower was onboard.

I am sure that he would face a warm reception now that the probably successor to Barack Obama is rolling out the welcome mat, she was so prepared to be lenient and merciful to other whistleblowers during her tenure at Foggy Bottom – like Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning who was tortured, subjected to a show trial and thrown into prison. And Manning only embarrassed the State Department not the entire system like Snowden has. I am sure that Hillary’s word is as good as gold, that of the fool’s variety.