
Tonight's citations are listed after the jump.
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (pdf)
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism - Drone data
Senate panel postpones vote on Hagel nomination as GOP demands more info
Republican senators' letter to Chuck Hagel
Chuck Hagel's reply to senate Republicans
Hagel Tells Lawmakers He Can't Provide Details On Speaking Engagements, Foreign Funders
Panetta Got $831,500 in '08 Speaking, Director Fees (Update1)
Leon Panetta, CIA director, unanimously confirmed by Senate as defense secretary
Gates' Assets Include Defense Stock
Robert Gates confirmed as secretary of defense
Rumsfeld confirmed as Sec'y of Defense
Ornstein: Court Ruling on Recess Appointments Is an Exercise of Judicial Overreach
Media downplay former CIA official Brennan's support of "enhanced interrogation techniques"
Girl who performed at Obama inaugural events slain on South Side
Chicago Girl's Shooting Death Jolts City and Touches Capital
Chicago teen who performed in inaugural parade is shot to death





So Chicago is killing more people than the Afghan war, Obama's whereabouts during Benghazi is unkown, Hagel has apparently donated to Hamas, and drones have been given a license to kill. Oh and Menendez's war on women has been kept on the QT.
Life sure is interesting these days.
Only uninformed people don't know the whereabouts of President Obama during Bengazi.
Well then, please inform me.
I would tell you, but you wouldn't believe it anyhow. Just come up with another conspiracy.
I have to give Pooper242 a triple +++ for this posting! One true, if not in context statement, followed by 4 lies and/or misrepresentations and/or smears. Something approaching 20% accuracy is a major step forward!
Tonight's show was absolutely gripping. We've desperately need to get more oversight of our nation's intelligence apparatus for years now. Now that we're beginning to draw down from Afghanistan, and the War on Terror becomes a page in history, we need to cut a lot of funding from our vast and expensive intelligence agencies. Perhaps we should consider getting rid of Homeland Security. And most of all, we need oversight.
Here's the thing keeping me up tonight.
It's the segment where John Brennan says:
Ok, let's walk through the more likely possible realities:
Occams razor says choose the simplest explanation-, so either one or two should be the correct one. They are simplest because CIA heads have a long history of lying, dissembling or exaggerating to those performing oversight- and even to their boss in the White House. (example: Tenet told Bush that the WMD case was a "Slam dunk". )
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1 and 2 are pretty bad, because Brennan is about to be confirmed as CIA head. So why should #3 disturb me more? After all, it would be nice to know that Brennan was a good guy, was exercising good faith and simply was operating on incorrect information.
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What disturbs me about #3 is that it would require me to believe that our chief counter terrorism expert was unable to independently verify a fact that was central to his job of making tactical decisions about counter terrorism: Does torture save lives or not? If it is one of your key tools during your work under Bush, it is crucial to understand whether it is working or not.
It's not hard to see how groups would fib to Brennan. There are always operational groups in an organization that want to keep on doing what they are doing and exagerate or distort how effective they are. It also happens in science all the time. The thing that makes what you are doing science and not witch doctor sooth saying is that you can and do go out and verify what is being told you. You attack what is being told you from all possible angles to see if you can knock it down. If from several independent sources you are seeing the same picture, then there is reason to have greater confidence in the story being presented you. Naval intelligence told Nimitz that the Japanese target of a major assault they called AF was actually Midway. Although they had great confidence in their code breakers, the Naval command independently verified the hypothesis by telling Midway to send back in an unencoded message that they were having trouble with their water purification plant. The Japanese intercepted the report and sent and encoded message stating AF was having trouble with its desalinization equipment. They had a hypothesis but they didn't simply trust it- they threw rocks at it to see if they could break it.
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What is disturbing about #3 is that there is some really really bad science going on at CIA. Either -
I don't know which is scarier.
I,, Rachael Maddow emphatically disagree with you.Drones are a good thing in this generation rather than sending our Troops and Special Forces,and Seals all over the place, defend our Military,they have been in War a long time. It is time use use other methods,Drones.
You want to stop the drones? Then end the "War on Terror". Because that is where the government gets their justification to violate other countries' sovereignty and to kill US citizens without giving them the rights the US Constitution allows them.
Is the "War on Terror" never-ending? Are we always going to live our lives "at War"? Are we always going to have the fear of "others" and even US citizens? Because the drones aren't the worst thing the "War on Terror" has done to this country!!
The CIA cannot continue to operate as a military force completely isolated from any democratic (or judicial) checks and balances.
Is this a proposal to change 60 years of historical behavior?