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If you count the hundreds to millons that lost job, houses, fell into poverty, prostitution, or died at consequences of them getting richer, in all the world, i think that rope and pitchforks below what justice should do. But if you want to point exactly who died, i'd say justice. What happened with them (and the rest of that mafia) is just the death note for anything that resembles justice in US.

Just like banks? You know, in the front door of the DOJ there is a typo, someone put the word "Justice" there. You could be sentenced by centuries for things that don't harm anyone, but they will keep go free, no matter if they stole trillons, caused the death of thousands, or just broke hundreds of laws, even if its found out.

Just like banks? You know, in the front door of the DOJ there is a typo, someone put the word "Justice" there. You could be sentenced by centuries for things that don't harm anyone, but they will keep go free, no matter if they stole trillons, caused the death of thousands, or just broke hundreds of laws, even if its found out.

It's supposed to read "Just us" not "Justice"

Just like banks? You know, in the front door of the DOJ there is a typo, someone put the word "Justice" there. You could be sentenced by centuries for things that don't harm anyone, but they will keep go free, no matter if they stole trillons, caused the death of thousands, or just broke hundreds of laws, even if its found out.

Just like banks? You know, in the front door of the DOJ there is a typo, someone put the word "Justice" there. You could be sentenced by centuries for things that don't harm anyone, but they will keep go free, no matter if they stole trillons, caused the death of thousands, or just broke hundreds of laws, even if its found out.

It's supposed to read "Just us" not "Justice"

Just like banks? You know, in the front door of the DOJ there is a typo, someone put the word "Justice" there. You could be sentenced by centuries for things that don't harm anyone, but they will keep go free, no matter if they stole trillons, caused the death of thousands, or just broke hundreds of laws, even if its found out.

...it was, in fact, congress who technically are "failing to limit government surveillance." Though I'm quite surprised, and dare I say impressed, by the response:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/new-congressional-coalition-emerges-against-nsa-surveillance-20130726

Granted the fact that congress can't actually agree on something is probably not a surprise, but that narrow of a vote? I had literally assumed up until now that they would vote..something like... But the actual vote counted in at 205 in favor, 217 against. There were only slightly more paid NSA lackeys than actual politicians in congress.

My opinion of the fine men and women in congress is, to paraphrase Bill Hicks, was that they were more or less all "suckers of Satan's cock." That narrow of a vote seems to suggest there really -is- an internal rift over this surveillance dragnet. It's not going to go away, but at least it's not going to disappear from the limelight any time soon, that's surely making someone feel very uncomfortable in their fresh, new Utah offices...

Like banks, oil companies are too big to jail. Minions just don't jail their masters.

The biggest factor that makes us violent or not is cultural. If you want to fix violence, fix the cultural factors that creates it. Unfortunately, some of those factors are tied to money (i.e. if you live in a culture that teach you from kid about justice and find that the rich are above the law won't make you more peaceful), so won't be fixed.

In a country where laws applies in the same way for everyone, that could pass. In US, in the other hand, that now see hacking as mass destruction weapons as they are used and plan to use them in big scale in that way, it will be labeled as terrorist and put you in jail for decades or more... unless you are a big contributor or work for them, in that case it will have no consequences.

Here's a good article from Rolling Stone specifically about Miami, but it certainly applies (more so) to the Keys:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-the-city-of-miami-is-doomed-to-drown-20130620

That is, as long as those students don't object to being watched constantly by a camera.

I don't meant to sound like a card-carrying member of the Fringe Lunatic Association, but after the multiple recent revelations that the LEO's ride around photographing cars and license plates, USPS photographs all mail, the NSA collects metadata on all phone calls, the FBI and NSA together mine data from social networks—in short, that the US government in fact does all those things that the fringe lunatics warned about for years—it's hard to trust a university, whether state-run or private, with a camera to watch me at my computer in much the same way that it's impossible to trust Microsoft to watch me with an always-on X-Box One camera/mic setup.* I feel that recent events have given students very good reason to question whether the benefits of automatic frustration-recognition software are worth the risk that some sort of data might make its way from the camera to an FBI/NSA/Fusion database, despite the sturdiest ringfences and firewalls of promises, hope, and trust. Really, if the MOOC designers are really concerned about frustration, why not just include an "I'm frustrated! Give me a hint!" button on the user interface? Why monitor faces through a camera, and why propose the idea at the same time that MS's creepy XBox camera idea went down in flames?

Thats the real world equivalent to the xkcd strip. The problem is, knowing the trend, going in the streets with something like that will surely put you in jail, for years. If they put in jail, for a decade, for scribbling anti-bank messages in sidewalks with washable chalks this will be harder. In fact, is a hack attempt, you could get a century in prison for that kind of things. Meanwhile, you keep the money and walk free, even if caught screwing the entire world's economy. In their view, law needs justice like a fish needs a bicycle.

Can you read Russia Today with a straight face?
Piss is washable. If you piss on a sidewalk, that's vandalism, period.

You can't piss your thoughts out in giant letters on a sidewalk and call it freedom of speech.

Thats the real world equivalent to the xkcd strip. The problem is, knowing the trend, going in the streets with something like that will surely put you in jail, for years. If they put in jail, for a decade, for scribbling anti-bank messages in sidewalks with washable chalks this will be harder. In fact, is a hack attempt, you could get a century in prison for that kind of things. Meanwhile, you keep the money and walk free, even if caught screwing the entire world's economy. In their view, law needs justice like a fish needs a bicycle.

They only must look good for the Lesters, and a lot of them are outside the reach of the law anyway.

US won't extradite bankers even knowing what they did. Is the area where impunity rules, no matter how much damage they do in the entire world.

Great article in Rolling Stone the other day - laying out how our decades of not doing anything (fossil fuel companies love it) has already cost us Miami and southern Florida, its just a matter of time at this point:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-the-city-of-miami-is-doomed-to-drown-20130620#ixzz2X0NGzxLY

The President will be talking about 17% CO2 emissions reductions from 2003 levels (if memory serves, but it should be 1990 levels) by 2020 which is a joke - and totally inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. He'll probably be doing this talk while approving the XL expansion (he approved the 1st two tar sands pipelines, Keystone 1 and Alberta Clipper in 2009).

You are underinformed on this matter

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216

So please, let's stop saying that no crimes were commited or that it's too hard to prove a crime on the part of high powered bankers and their cohorts.

You are underinformed on this matter

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216

So please, let's stop saying that no crimes were commited or that it's too hard to prove a crime on the part of high powered bankers and their cohorts.

"Should" is overrated. Justice is just a meme that have no meaning in the real universe. No matter how much people believe in it, in the end is money what counts (over certain amount, no matter if everyone knows what you did)

Unfortuantly, a large number of "low information" people who are still bitching about Bush, when he's been gone for 5 flippin' years and the new boss is FAR worse than the old boss.

Worse? Hardly. More like the same damned thing. A better comparison of Bush to a Democrat would be Blagojevich, Illinois' previous Governor (now in prison for selling Obama's Senate seat). Both were corrupt incompetents who appointed incompetent cronies to top positions... hmmm, Eric Holder? Nope, Obama isn't much different at all.

However, Obama hasn't started any needless wars (yet), hasn't tried to lower taxes on the rich, and hasn't destroyed the still struggling economy like Bush did. Obama's far from a great President, but he's better than Carter or Reagan. I never thought I'd see a worse President than Carter but Bush proved me wrong. Went into office with a booming economy and a balanced budget and peace, left office with the worst economy the US has seen since the Depression, the highest deficit we'd had in our history, and fighting two wars.

If you think Obama's a worse President than Bush you're a fool who was brainwashed by your fellow Republicans.

BTW, I voted Green Party, aka "none of the above." I'd have voted Libertarian but I like the clean air we didn't have before the EPA and I don't like eating toxic fish from filthy waterways. Being against environmental regulations is a show stopper for me; I was 20 when the environmental regs were passed and unlike you kids I know what it was like. Take it from a geezer, 1960 wasn't pretty.

By the way, I've been smoking pot since Obama was ten years old and I applaud the fact that he isn't sending the Feds to Washington and Colorado like Romney would have done. Plus, Romney is an evil job-destroying sociopath and there's no way possible he would have been better than Obama, bad as I think Obama is.

Stop voting for Republicrats. They're both bad, just in different ways.

And they're gambling with money that has already been taxed at least once

They're not being taxed on what they gamble but what they win; IE, their profit. I'm taxed on what I earn and am taxed on what I spend (by state government). You should get a tax break for buying lottery tickets or losing at the poker table? That's absurd.

And I'm sick of hearing about "risk." All they risk is a little money that they already have plenty of unless they're stupid enough to gamble their entire fortune on one stock. Meanwhile, the guy who actually creates wealth by making shit or selling shit literally risk their very LIVES. That guy putting a roof on a house is creating wealth. That house is wealth that would not exist without the roofer risking his life. Buying stock in Frito-Lay has no risk whatever but the convinience store clerk is likely to be killed in a robbery.

It's just bullshit. Unless you're playing the stock or commodities market you've swallowed their bullshit. If you are a securities gambler you're trying to feed it to everyone else, and largely succeeding.

The idea is to get people to put money to work growing companies and the jobs and economic activity that comes with that

That's the idea, but that's not how it works in reality. Buying stock does indeed put money to work growing companies and the jobs and economic activity that comes with that, but selling it, which is what is taxed, takes it away. The taxes are to discourage selling and aren't doing nearly a good enough job.

I don't know why you were modded "troll" but I'd have modded "overrated" because the comment is completely inaccurate. The poor pay few or no income taxes, but a very high percentage of their meager income on gasoline taxes, tobacco taxes, alcohol taxes, and other federal excise taxes. The middle class is taxed at twice the rate of someone whose income is from gambling on the stock market. Plus, the more you earn the more loopholes you have.

This is why they're despised. You think it was the poor and middle class who destroyed the economy?

Obama's statements about marijuana enforcement have been complete lies:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/26/obamas-drug-war-medical-marijuana_n_2546178.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamas-war-on-pot-20120216

Oh, we're still in Afghanistan BTW. So I'm 3 for 3.

"HSBC faces court threat..." The Guardian, Thursday 23 May 2013.

Unlikely.

I'll just leave this right here:

Holder's confession

Everything Is Rigged

Came here to make an HSBC quip.

Although Matt Taibi has it at 10 Billion, his description of the settlement with HSBC is sadly hilarious:

Wow. So the executives who spent a decade laundering billions of dollars will have to partially defer their bonuses during the five-year deferred prosecution agreement? Are you fucking kidding me? That's the punishment? The government's negotiators couldn't hold firm on forcing HSBC officials to completely wait to receive their ill-gotten bonuses? They had to settle on making them "partially" wait? Every honest prosecutor in America has to be puking his guts out at such bargaining tactics. What was the Justice Department's opening offer -- asking executives to restrict their Caribbean vacation time to nine weeks a year?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213

Anyway, one thing is clear. Liberty Reserve didn't donate enough to Obama's campaign to get a slap on the wrist and and a cabinet post.

Don't include bankers on that list, they are outside scope

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi recently apologized to conspiracy theorists after realizing they were right all along about the financial side of things.

You missed too big to jail, and everything is rigged. Nothing happened to the people responsible (more than becoming even richer). And it will keep happening.

You missed too big to jail, and everything is rigged. Nothing happened to the people responsible (more than becoming even richer). And it will keep happening.

This is not how bank fraud should be done. The right and proper way is to become too big to fail, to big to jail, rig the LIBOR rates, create systematic rigging, award oneself huge salaries and bonuses, threaten worldwide economic collapse, hold governments to ransom and get huge bail out money. The master criminals running the banks are dismayed by petty criminals stealing from them.

After LIBOR, it appears that the new big(ger) thing it to manipulate interest rate swaps http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425

Hah! Dinner! Bribery need not be that expensive. See this Day-old sushi is enough to rig the financial markets.

To stay under a 2 degree celsius global warming increase, we can pour about 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, fossil fuel companies are already planning on releasing 2795 gigatons from their proven reserves. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719

Thats the culprit. A bad meme that goes deep into our culture. Somewhat (tales, histories, songs, movies that we learn since childhood) we expect that the people that behave well get successful, and the evil ones get punished. But when is becoming too evident that it don't happen at all (bankers, corporations, and politicians in general, get richer, or even get honored for what they did), you only hope against depression is to believe that they will go to hell as they will never be punished here.

Medusa: Fuck you, cunt. Go suck another dick.
  Rick James:Yeah, fuck you, cunt. Go suck another dick.
  MedusaI'm a very kinky giiiirrrrllll. The kind you don't take home to motha!!!

And... they (the Wall St shysters... or as I like to think of them, scheisse-ters), took huge bailout payouts from the government and used it to give themselves huge bonuses.

Except that in this instance with what has become known it is hard to see any injustice at all. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

50 years for trespassing? (*)

This is how the Feds stick it to you if you help terrorists and violent drug kingpings -- you know, fucking murderers -- launder money for a decade:

Wow. So the executives who spent a decade laundering billions of dollars [for terrorists and drug kingpins] will have to partially defer their bonuses during the five-year deferred prosecution agreement? Are you fucking kidding me? That's the punishment? The government's negotiators couldn't hold firm on forcing HSBC officials to completely wait to receive their ill-gotten bonuses? They had to settle on making them "partially" wait? ... What was the Justice Department's opening offer -- asking executives to restrict their Caribbean vacation time to nine weeks a year?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213

(*) Quit with the 6 months plea bargain bullshit. A plea bargain is not a contract.

Some have blithely said Aaron should just have taken a deal. This is callous. There was great practical risk to Aaron from pleading to any felony. .... More particularly, the court is not constrained to sentence as the government suggests. Rather, the probation department drafts an advisory sentencing report recommending a sentence based on the guidelines. The judge tends to rely heavily on that "neutral" report in sentencing. If Aaron pleaded to a misdemeanor, his potential sentence would be capped at one year, regardless of his guidelines calculation. However, if he plead guilty to a felony, he could have been sentenced to as many as 5 years, despite the government's agreement not to argue for more. Each additional conviction would increase the cap by 5 years, though the guidelines calculation would remain the same. No wonder he didn't want to plead to 13 felonies. Also, Aaron would have had to swear under oath that he committed a crime, something he did not actually believe.

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/01/towards-learning-losing-aaron-swartz-part-2

Screwdrivers have tons of legitimate uses and a few "off label" illegitimate ones, like stabbing somebody. Stingray type devices have one purpose only, and that is to enable someone to perform a man in the middle attack and enable spying.

Obama's appointment of this guy to a committee clearly dealing with domestic surveillance makes sense -- evil CEO for an evil Federal program. In that light, it is a big deal because it highlights one of the small details in the many that foreshadow our future, one where the Feds are essentially concerned only with the well being of a certain subset of the business world (usually the largest corps and banks, but lets not leave out those who make their weapons and equipment), extreme pride in the military and the glorification of those who participate in military action, is repressive toward common people in general, and absolutely brutal to any who would challenge it.

You can see these things playing out: more people in prison than any other nation (per capita and absolute basis), militarization of the police force, rampant domestic surveillance, due process free detention, due process free execution, harsh sentences for the minor crimes of some, ridiculously light treatment for the serious crimes of others (*), privatizing profits and socializing losses (bailouts), and so forth. It is pretty obvious that the greatest threat we face to the liberties our country was founded on, comes from the US Federal Government as controlled by Republicans and Democrats with the aid of enabling creeps like Brown. And rather than suffer the rightful indignation their actions deserve, Brown(nosers) get promoted to presidential committees -- but of course they do, considering what the Feds are.

(*) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213
Wow. So the executives who spent a decade laundering billions of dollars [for terrorists and drug kingpins] will have to partially defer their bonuses during the five-year deferred prosecution agreement? Are you fucking kidding me? That's the punishment? The government's negotiators couldn't hold firm on forcing HSBC officials to completely wait to receive their ill-gotten bonuses? They had to settle on making them "partially" wait? ... What was the Justice Department's opening offer -- asking executives to restrict their Caribbean vacation time to nine weeks a year?

30 years. Now that US militarized the internet, any small mistake, or that looked from very far aggresive move will have that kind of punishment, as they see anything related as war crimes. Even falling in a social engineering trick puts you into the enemy of the state category.

Meanwhile bankers that steal billons or just screw the entire world economy, are too big to jail or just gets even a lot more money from government.

And it's already to late to change anything of this. Any try to fix the system will get people 30 years of jail too.

It's not hard to avoid small mistakes. It's not hard to not incriminate yourself. It's not hard to not get entrapped. If you hang around hackers you will go to jail, period.

30 years. Now that US militarized the internet, any small mistake, or that looked from very far aggresive move will have that kind of punishment, as they see anything related as war crimes. Even falling in a social engineering trick puts you into the enemy of the state category.

Meanwhile bankers that steal billons or just screw the entire world economy, are too big to jail or just gets even a lot more money from government.

And it's already to late to change anything of this. Any try to fix the system will get people 30 years of jail too.

Is different reading what routers are publishing in the open air than a fully political prosecution. Google isn't, and is not treated as an enemy of the state, and is an US company after all (Samsung, as is not, had pay 1 Billon over for selling rectangular devices).

Anyway, is not as bad as banks

Compare this aggressive surveillance with the slap on the wrist of HSBC, and it is hard to believe that this is really about national security.

The Constitution is pretty clear that "unreasonable searches" cannot be performed "without probable cause". We can deduce the government is intercepting every electronic communication through various leaks and investigations. I think any average American would agree that these searches are unreasonable and lack probable cause. Certainly there would have been no American independence if King George had this technology.

As for personal harm, the mere knowledge that the government is monitoring everyone's communications creates a chilling effect on the free flow of knowledge and ideas. Does anyone really want to associate themselves with political movements like Occupy Wall Street, even if they identify with their values, when they know the government is actively infiltrating and monitoring them? Has know one suffered mental anguish over expresing an opinion that may put them on a political watch list?

These so-called conservative judges, who are protecting the use of these tools of tyranny that Stalin and Hitler would have salivated over, will be remembered in history for their inaction to combat totalitarianism is America.

Because she spent her entire life saying people who accepted help from the government (or anyone) were parasites.

In the end, Ayn Rand because the kind of parasite she spent her life waging jihad against. Yet she never apologized or admitted she was wrong. She simply sponged up those Big Gubment welfare checks.

You'll probably enjoy this 2010 article The Truth About the Tea Party - commonly referred to as "Tea and Crackers" that interviews (mainly) old, white people railing against government hand-outs from their Medicare paid-for electric wheelchairs.

But we get the point.

It's very well established that banks committed fraud. It's very well established that the US Government protected these very institutions when they were knowledgeable of the fraud being committed.

It's also very well established that no one's going to criminal court. Wall Street and Washington D.C. have been coupled together in such an orgy of conspiracy that neither will willingly do anything to jeopardize their sybiotic relationship.

People unfortunate enough to live in certain parts of the United States are being systemically poisoned:

Bad Water, Bleeding Gum and Gangrene Legs in Victorville

The Dark Lord of Coal Country

The United States is a Third World country masquerading as a First World Country. Some so-called Third World countries are actually nicer than the US (specifically the parts of the US where unrestrained resource extraction is going on).

Besides, the US doesn't have as many poor people oriented businesses as a lot of third world countries. You won't find a cheap food stand with decent, nutritious food in the US like you'll find all over Bangkok, for example. Instead you have to spend a mint at Whole Foods to get non-chemically altered food..

The advantage of the US is supposed to be access to technology. Third worlder's I meet here tend to get upset at the massive weight gain they experience over here from things like juice (or rather, juice flavored corn syrup), but they will buy a few ipods to take back home. (These of course, are relatively wealthy third world people.)

Though Shalt Track Me Not!

Put it in the category of stuff that matters, even to Americans --- we just don't know it:

A sizable chunk of the world's adjustable-rate investment vehicles are pegged to Libor, and here we have evidence that banks were tweaking the rate downward to massage their own derivatives positions. The consequences for this boggle the mind. For instance, almost every city and town in America has investment holdings tied to Libor. If banks were artificially lowering the rates to beef up their trading profiles, that means communities all over the world were cheated out of ungodly amounts of money.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/a-huge-break-in-the-libor-banking-investigation-20120628#ixzz2JQ77kD9d

Matt Taibbi is doing some of the most in depth reporting on the recent financial crimes of any reporter anywhere. Don't be put off by the Rolling Stone source. Plus he's funny.

Management cock-up? Irresponsible? Human stupidity? Isn't it really anything but these things? Both the banks as institutions themselves and the real human beings working for these banking institutions had financial incentive and motivation to commit this fraud. Restitution, if it ever happens, will never even begin to approach the true extent of the swindle, and in all probability the perpetrators will never be brought to any sort of justice (aren't banks above the law, anyway?). And -- of course -- even if the banks themselves are subjected to even meager penalty, the actual humans responsible will be insulted from any culpability.

The financial systems that run throughout so much of our world are rigged at every level to favour those who control them and the ongoing societal trend lines do not point to either reform or justice.

Are you joking? TOS violations are WAY worse than terrorism, at least to Holder, the DOJ, etc.

When you decide not to prosecute bankers for billion-dollar crimes connected to drug-dealing and terrorism (some of HSBC's Saudi and Bangladeshi clients had terrorist ties, according to a Senate investigation), it doesn't protect the banking system, it does exactly the opposite. It terrifies investors and depositors everywhere, leaving them with the clear impression that even the most "reputable" banks may in fact be captured institutions whose senior executives are in the employ of (this can't be repeated often enough) murderers and terrorists.
***
So the executives who spent a decade laundering billions of dollars will have to partially defer their bonuses during the five-year deferred prosecution agreement? Are you fucking kidding me? That's the punishment? The government's negotiators couldn't hold firm on forcing HSBC officials to completely wait to receive their ill-gotten bonuses? They had to settle on making them "partially" wait? Every honest prosecutor in America has to be puking his guts out at such bargaining tactics. What was the Justice Department's opening offer == asking executives to restrict their Caribbean vacation time to nine weeks a year?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213

As an afterthought, it occurs to me that you'll be sharing jail time with:

-- The guy who got caught smoking a joint in a national forest.
-- The guy who raped his sister, gouged her eyes out with a spoon, fed them to his dog, and then bludgeoned her to death.

You won't be spending any jail time with the guys who laundered money for Al Queda for a decade. Their punishment is that they will have to defer collecting a portion of their annual bonus for five years. I'll bet the deferred part doesn't even earn interest. The horror! (*)

Anyway, of the following groups: phone unlockers, pot heads, murders, terrorist's financial planners -- 100% of those who should not be imprisoned will be, and only 50% of those that ought to be will be.

(*) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213

That post is offtopic? Hardly.

From the fine story post:

"They tried to frame Iran as having an active nuclear weapons program. Then they try to frame WikiLeaks as the reason why that's not known to the public now."

Both of Assange's assertions are false as shown above. Iran isn't being framed, they do have an actual active nuclear weapons program, including design and testing of implosion based warhead components. What they have yet to do, so far as is publicly known, is to actually produce a real warhead. Anyone reading the papers, as shown in the parent post, or other sources, knows this. If fact, Iran may be making a move to surge their efforts. This isn't good.

Assnage's comments are just another example of Assange's self-glorification. Nobody knows about Iran because Wikileaks hasn't release anything? Please.

That isn't much different from the claim he makes in regard to planning the Arab Spring. I doubt that is even 5% true.

. . . The first time I went to Egypt, also in 2005, I met the same kinds of people I met in Lebanon. Cosmopolitan, liberal-minded individuals who were like Arab versions of me. Egypt had nothing like Hezbollah controlling large swaths of the country and warmongering against the neighbors. No foreign army smothered the country. Instead it had a police state. The narrative there at first seemed to be: democrats against the regime. That’s what it looked like. But my experience in Lebanon prompted me to ask a question of my liberal Egyptian friends that seems not to have occurred to some of the other journalists and Western internationalists who have been there. I asked these Egyptian liberals, “how many Egyptians agree with you about politics?” The answer stopped me cold: five percent at the most. . . . --- The International Elite Bubble , by Michael J. Totten