defend the indefensible: glenn fucking greenwald

when we troll, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll troll again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's trolls ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

a+

GG pwned Bill Maher a few weeks ago x1000 when he was off on one of his usual blaming everything on religious extremism tangents.

morbs: yes, rrrrreally

C'mon HST just rejiggered Teddy Roosevelt's imperialism from Hiroshima on, and JFK ran with it.

trolling me about israel is so easy that even morbz can do it

Which side of your reversible Bibi Netanyahu/Cole Hamels pajamas are you wearing now?

well yeah, but i don't see that as a system 'automatically perpetuating' itself so much as a series of presidents actively and aggressively seizing more and more power for themselves (enabled by congress, natch). trust me, no truman/JFK apologist here!

i do have a soft spot for TR despite the obv problems.

TR is a complicated figure.

C'mon HST just rejiggered Teddy Roosevelt's imperialism

what on earth does this mean?

Harry taught TR how to dance?

i initially read it as 'hunter s. thompson just rejiggered teddy roosevelt's imperialism.'

My main problem with GG is personal. Set the politics aside and he's a pompous ass who responds to all criticism with sneering and condescension. I could agree with everything he says and still think he's a dick.

that is the only way to respond to people who are wrong.

GG is a pretty nice guy in person.

That's interesting. I've heard the opposite.

C'mon HST just rejiggered Teddy Roosevelt's imperialism

what on earth does this mean?

it means that if you stand on san juan hill and look north you can almost see the high-water mark

He seems like he'd be nice irl... Nerdy, earnest, literal-minded xp

i saw him speak last year and chatted with him for about 10 minutes afterward and he was really nice, i assume he gets out all his aggression through vicious exchanges on twitter.

tbh i'd be a dick sometimes too if ppl kept calling me a libertarian.

I agree with DL though. I don't like the rhetorical style where u act like your opinions are SO OBVIOUS that it's a shock when someone doesnt automatically agree with you. Jezebel is like this, I think, and it's annoying to me even when i agree with them which is often.

xp Anyone can be decent chatting to someone who agrees with them but I can't think of another major pundit, left or right, who is so pompous and graceless when responding to even mild dissent, except maybe Bill O'Reilly.

yeah, that's the thing. trolling me about israel is so easy that even morbz can do it. i thought hungry4ass was into the next level trolling.

― Mordy , Thursday, May 23, 2013 11:15 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

tbh i didnt know you were 'into' israel until a few weeks ago. thought you were one of the good ones b4 that

oh well now you know the awful truth that i am a bad one

thought you were one of the good ones

damn fine trolling there. he raised his game a notch.

yeah, that's the thing. trolling me about israel is so easy that even morbz can do it.

― Mordy , Thursday, May 23, 2013 11:15 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

Morbz has a pretty low batting average but tremendous trolling power when he connects.

good slugging percentage tho

i'm very sincere when it comes to issues of jewishness and israel. it involves my family and friends and it is something i feel very emotional about. i try very hard on ilx to discuss it intelligently and engage ppl in legitimate debate on the topic. i suppose it's fair game to troll me on it but when i read morbz do it, or hungry4ass, or gukbe, or the numerous ppl on ilx who have trolled me on the issue, i feel momentarily sad and disappointed and i try not to get into a fight about it. on the other hand if it seems like someone has a legitimate point they want to discuss, it's one of my favorite things to talk about.

so yeah, good trolling dudes. i got the feels or however the kids describe it these days.

sorry.

mordy if this pathetic routine is just a ploy to make us feel sympathy for you and your racist settler state... well then it's working--come on in for a hug ya big ole lump!

lol

mordy -- my political perspective is obv a bit different from yours but i actually genuinely appreciate + have learned from your posts on this subject, and sincerely regret if i've ever trolled you abt it (i can't remember, but my penchant for posting lazily ill-thought-out quippy stuff on political threads while at work tells me i prob have).

yeah i learn a lot from mordy posts and i have to think about stuff in ways i haven't before, so thanks

GG's passions do seem obviously on-target to me, as does how the Israeli government tends to act against its own long-term interests re the Palestinian question.

but complaining about self-righteousness re an 'indefensible' subject lol i guess

Drone attacks continue, the FBI killed an unarmed witness, and Obama aides cash in

Update

American expat wears cargo shorts with gay Brazilian lover, Beltway elite shrug

Revealed: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Americans daily

The order directs Verizon to "continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order". It specifies that the records to be produced include "session identifying information", such as "originating and terminating number", the duration of each call, telephone calling card numbers, trunk identifiers, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, and "comprehensive communication routing information".

The information is classed as "metadata", or transactional information, rather than communications, and so does not require individual warrants to access. The document also specifies that such "metadata" is not limited to the aforementioned items. A 2005 court ruling judged that cell site location data – the nearest cell tower a phone was connected to – was also transactional data, and so could potentially fall under the scope of the order.

...

The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities.

For roughly two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on "secret legal interpretations" to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be "stunned" to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted.

Because those activities are classified, the senators, both members of the Senate intelligence committee, have been prevented from specifying which domestic surveillance programs they find so alarming. But the information they have been able to disclose in their public warnings perfectly tracks both the specific law cited by the April 25 court order as well as the vast scope of record-gathering it authorized.

Julian Sanchez, a surveillance expert with the Cato Institute, explained: "We've certainly seen the government increasingly strain the bounds of 'relevance' to collect large numbers of records at once — everyone at one or two degrees of separation from a target — but vacuuming all metadata up indiscriminately would be an extraordinary repudiation of any pretence of constraint or particularized suspicion." The April order requested by the FBI and NSA does precisely that.

in which new guy ackerman & greenwald deliver

This guy does good work.

thx

lol

lmao i cant IMAGINE what the original draft of that greenwald piece looked like

http://www.out.com/sites/out.com/files/GlennGreenwald1.jpg

Good work GG. I may not like him but credit where it's due.

Actually I like him more every time I see the walking-the-dogs picture. That doesn't look like a guy who would question my reading comprehension.

i wore cargo shorts last weekend tbh

It's a good look

prefer skinny shorts, neutral-colored flip-flops, Labradors, and a Constitution.

They were discussing this article plus a drone operator's interview with NBC on "Morning Joe" this morning, and Joe was predicting Holder would soon be going through Greenwald's phone records

and by Greenwald's phone records you mean