The Chris Moeller Archives

Malfeasance and sacred cows

The NSA is completely lawless. Its audacity is striking. Even when caught, their officers double down on the lies and continue to cover-up the extent of their surveillance crimes. Thanks to Reuters, we now know that the NSA is not just sharing information about criminal investigations of terrorism, but sharing information with the DEA on drug investigations. In concert, they’ve been lying to judges and defense attorneys about how they've come across their suspicions.

Considering the history of our terrorism police entrapping foreign nationals to commit crimes, it’s not a large jump at all to imagine a scenario where Americans are entrapped into making drug buys. It speaks precisely to the lie that the government is only spying on you to “stop acts of terrorism.”

If you are one of the 312 million Americans being targeted by NSA through your internet searches and phone conversations, you need to start concerning yourself with your own liberty. It’s a lonely job to perform for the rest of us.

---

Iowa is one of only two states that has never elected a woman to Congress or to the governor’s office. This is not something to boast about. The other state is Mississippi. Hillary Clinton is well aware of this distinctin and brought it to the media’s attention when she campaigned for president here in 2007 and 2008. It becomes vitally important now that we elect a woman to one or more of these high offices in 2014 so that Clinton can be reliably rejected on the basis of her merits in 2016.

---

The Iowa State Fair "butter cow" has been hit by vandals. Activists from a group called Iowans for Animal Liberation went full anarchy on the buttermilk bovine in the wee small hours of Sunday morning with a bucket of red paint and a dream. I, for one, love, love, love this story. I'm not a vegetarian but I do admire them-- and I admire bold action. The fact that every politician in Iowa, including the governor and Senator Charles Grassley, has come out in support of the cow makes it all the more beautiful. The fact that every local media outlet has been spinning the story in such a way as to try to minimize the impact of the action makes me positively orgasmic. The fact that a butter Abraham Lincoln sat three feet away in the same refrigerator, watching the action, makes me proud to be a freedom-loving American.

posted by CM @ 10:44 PM