Glenn Beck Reports CIA Plot Between Embassy Killing and Something Awful
An anonymous reader writes "Here's one that even The Onion would reject as too blatantly ridiculous: American right-wing radio and TV clown Glenn Beck believes that Sean Smith aka Vile Rat, the EVE Online diplomat who was killed earlier this month during the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, was actually a CIA agent, relaying communications to his fellow undercover agents at Something Awful."
I don't believe anything that guy says. He is only after ratings, and by extension, money.
decode that glenn beck.
This was hypothesized on the No Agenda Show podcast weeks ago.
This is why Beck is so against socialized healthcare - because if we had it, he'd be institutionalized for being so completely fucking nuts.
Would the Onion reject it? Or would they pay Glenn Beck to work deep undercover on the cutting edge of embedded satirical news radio?
It's a pretty good cover.
People are talking about Glenn Beck :-P
"Paranoia strikes deep, into your lives it will creep. It starts when you're always afraid. Step out of line, the man comes and takes you away."
Really. The fine line between clear batshit-crazy paranoia and justifiable concern grows thinner and thinner the deeper down the "terrorists!" Rabbit hole we go. The cited song refered to the last boogeyman: "Commies!", but it fits very well, if eerily, 50 years later with "Terrorists!"
People like Glen Beck just drink the koolaid. Rather than point and laugh about his over the top paranoia, take an honest look at how batshit we are acting in regard to "Terrorists!", where we are scared of plastic knives, exploding underwear, and flamable mouthwash to the point where we grope and tickle old women and 2 year old children as a daily occurance at our borders.
In times like these, agencies like the CIA get ever expanding license to do stupid, batshit crazy stuff to "catch them terrorists", and "make us feel safe!" As such, things like the silly stupid of this story might not actually be as silly stupid as they seem.
That is what is truly scary.
I hear ya, but given the batshit insane reporting he's done in the past I wouldn't put it past him.
He's not a particularly reliable source. Move along, no news here.
Bruce Perens.
Ooh, is someone upset that the GOP and its representatives (official or otherwise) would be taken for being mad?
Beck falls into chasm created by Poe's law.
I see, people see Beck say wild shit and you accuse people here of suffering from Aspergers. Real classy one you are.
Considering the man can't tell a joke for shit and the other wild-ass garbage come out of the Republican Party these days, I'm not surprised at all that people missed it.
IT'S A CONSPIRACY! And Slashdot is in on it too! Careful, you're starting to sound like Beck as well.
The Earth is 6,000 (excuse me, 6,016) years old, creation by a deity is a better explanation than evolution by natural selection, homosexuality is a choice and a sin, and women are meant to be subservient and deliver every time they conceive. When a party already believes laughable things like that, it’s hard to tell the sarcasm from the seriousness anymore.
Here is the official summary of the episode from Glenn Beck's website:
http://www.glennbeck.com/2012/09/17/is-the-obama-administration-covering-up-scandalous-details-in-libya-attack/
Note particularly this part at the end:
Audio from the relevant portion of the episode is posted on Soundcloud:
http://soundcloud.com/nivdes/glenn-beck-goonswarm-is
"Goonswarm" is the name of the in-game organization affiliated with Something Awful.
TL;DR: It really did happen.
1. the guy had all of the skills that the CIA recruits;
2. Benghazi was where we provided Libyan groups with weapons that are now still floating around between there and the Sinai;
3. State Department, Diplomats, their security teams, etc are always cover for the CIA, the same way other governments use their diplomatic corps to get their intelligence officers in theater;
I'm glad to know the CIA has such good guys.
If you read the article, you'll find that Beck didn't say that "Vile Rat"'s message to SA was to CIA operatives who work at SA. He suggests that the comment was to CIA through the SA forum. I don't know if that's true, but it's not unheard of to send a coded message through a public forum.
New for Nerds not from Idiots. Stop this shit.
"Considering the inability of the supposed "geniuses" on this site to spot an obvious joke that Mitt Romney made last week"
No, no jokes are funny.
Glenn Beck has been known to use this device known as "sarcasm"
Good point. There's a talk show host named Rush who does the same thing; basically says ridiculous stuff to get people's attention. But the foaming at the mouth crowd takes them both seriously.
Assume that Glenn Beck was 100% dead serious in his assertion:
1. Of course he's nuts, but do you think it would be impossible for the CIA to use an online game like Eve to communicate in some circumstances? Considering the conspiracy theories that get modded +5 on this website whenever somebody accuses Bush of plotting 9/11 it is not very far-fetched. That's not to say that Eve online itself is a CIA front any more than the phone company is a CIA front, but it could still be used.
2. The Obama administration insisted publicly and repeatedly that this attack had absolutely nothing at all to do with terrorism, but it was just some stupid Internet video that magically turned the Libyans into Kill-Bots and we need to curtail the First Amendment in the name of "tolerance" RIGHT NOW!...
Oh... until their own intelligence analysts and even the Libyan Government bascially embarrased them into admitting that an attack that used heavy weaponry and was obviously planned well in advance to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary was actually related to real terrorists and not just a spontaneous reaction to a stupid Youtube video.
Now here's my point: How many people on this site will insult Glenn Beck, some nut on the radio who has no real power, while giving the White House a free pass?
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
If it's not easy to tell whether or not something's sarcasm, then you're doing it wrong. Or it could just be that glen beck depends on people misinterpreting "sarcasm" and believing really retarded stuff, without being willing to admit that they could misinterpret something.
With this much derision in the story, there is obviously something to the claim....
That's how it works people...you don't come out swinging, unless you are trying to defend something.
Glenn Beck has been known to use this device known as "sarcasm" which tends to escape the Aspergers crowd that runs Slashdot.
People also do this thing called "reading sites that they don't hate every person involved with", but I guess that would greatly reduce your ability to act butthurt.
I'll do the politically incorrect thing and not have the Pavlovian foaming at the mouth reaction to what the ringleaders on this site want
OOOOH! Somebody can use big words! Gold star for YOU!
but instead rely on these things called "facts" before making a judgment.
Well, that would certainly be refreshing coming from an average Beck fan. Next time, you might even want to try this thing we call "READING THE SUMMARY OF THE EPISODE", which would have demonstrated that Beck actually believes this.
when was the last time he was relevant? and with regard to his purported comment: thats his job. his job is to say, or do anything to anyone in order to garner enough attention to sell advertising slots. the formula is to find a hot-button item and exploit it. Whether he believes anything he says is irrellevant. He lost his job on Fox News because his ability to draw advertisers plummeted once americans realized the stalinist dystopia he insisted upon never arrived. Sean Hannity, Bill Oreilly, Glenn Beck, and Limbaugh are all designed and employed to keep people interacting with and talking about their respective shows. None have any expertise in anything of a technical nature, ever.
Good people go to bed earlier.
the right side of politics sure has been "funny" a lot lately
There have been cases where large scale drug rings have used MMO's for communication in the past, its not that far fetched.
Why would the CIA, with a $50 billion budget, use public forums rather than some sort of secure satellite link or a VPN?
Now here's my point: How many people on this site will insult Glenn Beck, some nut on the radio who has no real power, while giving the White House a free pass?
Good point. Then again most people here are still giving the White House a free pass on Fast and Furious along with Holder and Obama and the killing of 300+ Mexicans a US border agent, a mass murder(most recently discovered and linked at a party of teenagers), or they're blaming Bush still because that's the line the WH is still trying to feed on the narrative. Even though under Bush's program their guns were tracked. Under Obama and Holder they simply let the guns walk away.
Om, nomnomnom...
yes! clearly, barack obama is the real reason why glenn beck is such a fucking moron. it's so obvious! is there anything obama isn't responsible for?
...that the Masons are behind it all. So what? Why are the rantings of a loon news for nerds? Or anyone else?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Glenn Beck has been known to use this device known as "sarcasm" which tends to escape the Aspergers crowd that runs Slashdot.
Isn't everything he says sarcastic?
I have to admit that the right seems to have a very weird sense of humor these days (assuming Romney really was joking about those airplane windows) that seems to go past us feeble-minded libbies. On the other hand, right wing bloviators do tend to say stupid things in all seriousness and then claim they were being sarcastic when they're called on it. I guess that's why they say everything with a smirk, since this expression is so ambiguous with respect to seriousness.
Did the internet make you stupid?
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
Let's not pretend Beck's critics are left-wing. They may be predominantly Democrats (and other anti-TeaParty people) and disagree on how the power of the state should be applied, but they are as supportive as any of giving the state that power.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Really? Is this what Slashdot has become? Posting Glenn Beck rants?
And the wrong side has been despondent.
I have to go with Occam's Razor here. Or maybe Occam's Meat Axe, since the differences really, really small. But I find it slightly more plausible that Mitt things that his joke is funny than that he hasn't seen Goldfinger.
Vilerat was posting those comments on an IRC channel for his gaming clan, not on SomethingAwful. Yes, Beck has it wrong too by calling it a "gaming website" when it's actually an IRC channel.
SomethingAwful is mentioned separately in the story. Vilerat was a mod there.
Creating jobs?
Pull your head out of your ideological ass. Beck is a fucking mental case, and anyone with two brain cells can see that. Because you're a rabid ideologue doesn't mean you get your own reality. Beck rarely uses sarcasm, he mostly uses paranoid delusions... and it takes another fucking moron to believe his crap and defend him as something other than a fucking idiot.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
1. Of course he's nuts, but do you think it would be impossible for the CIA to use an online game like Eve to communicate in some circumstances?
Right, because there's nothing suspicious about an undercover operative who suddenly needs to contact headquarters firing up a video game. I guess that would be somebody infiltrating the Al Qada's notorious gold farming operation.
Ask Osama about his experience in international affairs.
Since when are most people here giving that a pass? Most people here tend to think that both sides are fucked up. A lot of people just decide that one is less fucked up and go with the less fucked up one (which goes both ways). But a lot of us just hold on to that they're both fucked up and we're headed down the shitter in the US either way. Personally, I'm the latter: to say that any side is more fucked up than the other is just bickering over which way you want the pineapple being shoved up your ass to be pointed.
Monday morning quarterbacking sure is fun. And the best part is, you can never be wrong!
Even though under Bush's program their guns were tracked. Under Obama and Holder they simply let the guns walk away.
Which brings us to the bigger point... people give the White House something of a pass because Obama isn't THE ONLY PERSON IN THE GOVERNMENT. He doesn't have a say in the minute details of everything... how ridiculous is it to even think that he would? But, the fascist conservatives hate Obama, so they'll lie like son of a bitches EVERY TIME something happens. They tracked the guns under Bush, they tracked the guns under Obama... fucking mental midget ideologues want to lie, however, and make asinine statements like you did.
Quit fucking lying, and you'll get a little respect.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
One can point out that name calling in a news summary is patent flamebait without being either a supporter of or an opponent to the person being insulted. Just as one could discuss whether it is appropriate to use inflammatory hehaviour in a summary without themselves becoming insulting and assuming straw men for their own amusement and importance.
...yet can't sell ads? Right.
If you have ever listened to his show, they are sarcastic all the time. But then again, I can listen to political shows without the predetermined bias and make judgements on facts.
you could have watched the video and then be able to tell whether he was being sarcastic or not.
The issue with the Romney quote, is that there is no real context since it's all text. But in this case, there is a video, all the context is there. Glenn Beck, is quite bizarre.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
If Obama had called it terrorism immediately, you'd be accusing him of scaremongering. No matter what he does, you'll call it the wrong thing. Why should anyone even care what you think any more? You're openly trying to turn the murder of innocent people into a politcal cudgel. Fuck you.
I don't get why all these posts that belong on Media Matters or Crooks and Liars show up on Slashdot. Glenn Beck's an idiot and everybody's lying about the embassy attack in Libya. Yea, we get it. Take it somewhere else - this isn't "News for nerds" - it's clickbait. Take it somewhere else.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
But I do suffer from Asperger's, you insensitive clod!
This whole Benghazi thing is driving people nuts, just like 9/11.
They think: How does this shit happen without a devious plot by the CIA, Illuminati, or some other shadowy government operatives?
We are unable or unwilling to accept that both happened because of shear stupidity, hubris, and incompetence. (and not necessarily in that order)
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
If Obama had called it terrorism immediately, you'd be accusing him of scaremongering. No matter what he does, you'll call it the wrong thing
No, he should wait until he knows before telling the world. He can say an investigation is ongoing.
Don't tell the world you know when actually you don't. It's simple.
Right, now it's time to grow up. So, remember Iran-contra? And how the democrats blamed Regan for everything. No? Okay. So remember the last 8 years and oh let's go with the housing crisis. That was obviously all Bush's fault right. Despite the fact that in 2002 and 2003, that the republicans tried to change the rules but were blocked by the democrats. Wait, he was the only person in the government. Now that your little temper tantrum is done, you'd better get your head out of the sand.
Under Obama they were not tracked, the documents received showed that. The real problem that comes back on this is that the democrats themselves are stonewalling and it has become a civil case because the DoJ itself is blocking further investigations into the issue. Now, if you're finished lying to yourself perhaps, just perhaps you learned something today.
Om, nomnomnom...
Except that maybe a president cant be in charge of all of government, and leaves it up to those in charge of that area to handle things.
The biggest things presidents are liable for are what comes out of their mouths and what direction they direct their policies in.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/job-creation-campaign-promises.html?pagewanted=all
Good zinger, really! I chuckled.
But the Prez can do very little to create jobs, realistically. Obama may have an easier time creating the Unicorn we all seem to want. Add in a obstructionist, insane House, and the Euro wanting to implode the European Union?
Good zinger though, really...
Here is the problem you seem to not grasp:
Holder fucked up
Obama appointed Holder.
Holder fucks up, then Obama is responsible.
It has worked that way every time I fucked up as a manager, I got grilled by the higher ups why my people fucked up. I was responsible for them, and "gee I didn't know" was not fucking good enough.
Sure as fuck is not good enough for "The smartest man in the room".
Especially when he hires fucking Holder, who has admitted he fucking participated in the take-over of the Columbia University ROTC lounge in an effort to rename it after Malcolm X, and expect him to have any Fucking respect for the fucking rule of law.
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/201012/eric-holder-attorney-general-rahm-emanuel-white-house-elections?printable=true
P.S. I hope all the extra "fuckings" made it easier for you to follow the argument.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Why not ask the president? he will tell you whose fault it all is.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Whenever someone calls you out on your BS claim that it's either humor or sarcasm. too bad the grownups aren't dense enough to believe you.
Well, the president didn't ship them. Of course bigoted cowards like you always want to scapegoat "one of them" don't you.
"But the Prez can do very little to create jobs, realistically." - What a bunch of B.S! Obama's policies are EXACTLY why job creation is nearly non-existent.
Uh.. as many people on Slashdot point out all the time, *LOTS* of people play online games. So what do you do if you are a spy and want to communicate without raising suspicion... do what *LOTS* of other people do and blend in.
James Bond is not a real spy, Joe Blow, the average guy who you pass on the street without even noticing is what a real spy looks like. If it is expected that a white guy in his 20s - 30s and who is kind of nerdy will play video games, then that is an excellent thing for an operative to do so that he blends in with every expected stereotype.
I'm not saying that this particular guy was doing it, but for you to call it ridiculous is patently silly... especially given the credulity of people on this website to every single conspiracy theory that supports the pet-prejudices that are promoted around here.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
His ratings? Who knows, but that's all that matters in this business. This little story can only help in that department.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
which is sadder. That Beck is making wild theories about the attack on our consulate or that all the other so called main stream media aren't asking questions about how and why 4 (5 with Camp Leatherneck) were murdered?
I live next to the Air Forces Special Operations Squadron and I can tell you there are a bunch of pissed off guys there. $60 billion for intelligence and a government that seems to want to pretend nothing wrong is making them wonder why they are risking their lives
Mayby you are just as crazy as Beck.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/18/news/economy/obama-bush-jobs/?source=cnn_bin
And what is Dubya's excuse during his orgy of spending? Where was the outcry then?
Come to think of it, even as an independent, Dubya made me cry a lot...
The President didn't, but the Justice Department did, and by the policy of "the buck stops here" the president is at some point responsible. Problem is that the first series of "gunwalking" operations started under Bush. So, AC isn't a "bigoted coward" unless he or she is of neither African or Caucasian descent. And I don't know where the cowardice comes in, unless you're referring to posting as AC, in which case I totally agree. Except for the general tone of your reply, which seems sort of, I don't know, bitter and stupid.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
Its not Paranoia if they really _ARE_ after you...
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
I think this makes a very strong case for universal health care. In an ideal world, Glenn Beck would have access to the medical care he so obviously needs.
So, if all you had was a smart phone, what'd be the easiest way to establish covert communication? Hide in plain sight, of course.
Your eloquently supported position convinced me. After all, what Beck says is nearly as crazy as calling a person an "EVE Online diplomat". And to suggest that the CIA would do anything wrong is just insane.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Especially if his cover job is the IT guy, it would be quite an ordinary thing. IIRC he was on IRC at the time, not EvE.
You used the fuckings as adjectives, which some consider ad hominem.
You could simply have inserted proper nouns thusly:
Eric fucking Holder.
Malcolm fucking X.
Now you get a smoother flow, and informative mod points.
I think you're getting your Osamas and Obamas mixed up.
$
Wait, your position is that Beck has a radio show that features him saying things in jest, for entertainment, and that he shouldn't be taken seriously, but that it's flamebait to call him a clown?
What do you mean where was the outcry? :)
People talked so badly of George W the entire time he was president. Hell..we still make fun of him in Texas
There was even a sitcom about how dumb he is.
We all know it was because of free speech and some stupid movie trailer. The president has already apologized for it.
*LOTS* of people play online games
Lots of people don't play MMORPGs that suck up half their lives. What kind of cover story includes that much time spent on a collective fantasy? Not one that includes actual time spent gathering intelligence.
You mention that James Bond is fiction. That's very true. Real secret agents don't have elaborate schemes for doing ordinary things, like talking to people.
I always wonder about the people who compare Obama to Bush. It's like comparing yourself to a squirrel or a bonobo monkey, if you can't do obviously better then you are in trouble.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You couldn't be more wrong. Thinly veiled sarcasm is an art form. Often it takes the other party several minutes to process what you have said, after you have left the room, they realize you have won.
Then they really start paying attention.
Most people don't like sarcasm, not because they dont understand it, rather they float like lead shot.
woosh!
As a former goon, and former goonfleet pilot I can say how tightknit that
/. effect with malice, e.g. hitting the reload button on a site you didn't like until the pipes clogged, at the same time as every other goon. Back in the day, it was very feasible to clog down the low-rent juggalo, furry, pedo, and other stupid sites somethingawful would target. They also asked eachother for advice. traded stories, made confessions, trolled eachother. There was "goon justice", when goons fucked up a pedophile, scammer, spammer, or other internet lowlife. The also did photoshop contests, made memes, and trolled eachother really hard.
1. something awful is
2. goonfleet in particular was.
I am still in shock and disbelief that both get into the news, and vile rat will be deeply missed.
Some back story, before there was 4chan, there was something awful. Goons used to do pranks and raids (far more mild that what 4chan/anonymous eventually became). Goons became named "Goons" because they were Lowtax's "goons" who'd invade forums and crash websites. But there were no LOIC, or any other tools. it was just using the
There were also pranks, such as habo hotel, and the like.
The Forums "Goons" had a general dislike for the rest of the internet, and would play internet games with other goons, because they disliked the general population of gamers at the time. Goonfleet stuck out because of how harsh the game was, and how goons when from harrassing people in game, to becoming a serious angry force hell bent on serious stellar conquest. EVE is a game where everyone is a ruthless bastard hell bent on conquest, and people fucked with the goons, they pushed back harder. They kept to themselves and disliked outsiders, and took a dim view on the status quo of the EVE eliete(poopsocking pubbies). Goons made a break for power in 2006 and I am proud to say I was there. Other alliances had players with far more skill points(like level), who where more powerful, but goons had numbers, excellent organization, and teamwork. There was a profound sense of "goon nationalism" in the game that we were out to stake our claim and challenge the status quo. leaders had charisma, and leadership skills, but not as much in game skill points. We bucked the pecking order in favor of our own. We let anyone from Something Awful in, while rejecting the most seasoned non-goon EVE players.
The world hated us, but as goons we reveled in their hatred, and it made us closer, stronger, more determined. We had the numbers and were far far far more ruthless than the worst the game had to offer. EVE is not just played online, its played over instanat message, cell phones, text messages, and even in the real world. When we allied with the Russians, we sent a real life delegation to Russia to visit them in person, and they sent one to NY, to shore up in game ties.
We upset some major long standing alliances who had publicly gone on EVE TV to bash us.(Lokta Voltera, Vertas Imortalis) to bash us and our antics. We went on to terminate them with prejudice.
EVE got serious just about the same time goons were almost at the height of their in game power.
Somewhere around 2005, when the internet started getting really "serious" and pranks and raids started to have legal conotations, site founder, lowtax put a halt to raids and pranks. The sense of community remained. But just a reminder before "Anonymous" was "Leigon", we were "40 thousand screaming goons"
RIP VIle Rat. Here is a speech remedial made on teamspeak before the epic battle of XZH-, of which I was a defender. I recorded this as I listened to.
http://www.favupload.com/audio/6704/
I know plenty of conservative Republicans at my work place that hate Rush and Beck, having called them unofficial spokesmen of the party (not so much Beck now, but more so a few years ago). The thing about being unofficial, is it is unofficial. Such a label is based on the impact they had, in thiscase the number of people that took them very seriously within the Republican part of the population.
Maybe they they were foaming at mouth Asperger's type (combining a few posts' claims...), or maybe they just believed important topics should be discussed civially, and be fact-centric. Here is a hint: I actually enjoy talking about politics with them, even on subjects I strongly disagree with, because I would always learn a lot from them about current events, economics and politics (unlike online arguments that only seem to teach crappy insults).
"would be impossible for the CIA to use an online game like Eve to communicate in some circumstances?"
impossible of course not. Silly, certainly, and unnecessary and risky. If he guy had an IP connection he could ssh in somewhere.
...American right-wing radio and TV clown Glenn Beck...
Now, I'm not commenting on whether he's right or wrong, but this in an accepted summary? Seems a bit much even by Slashdot standards.
"Intelligence has nothing to do with politics!"
-Londo Mollari
As much as I don't believe James Bond is anywhere near what a real spy would do, it's pretty hilarious to see you guys argue about what a "real" spy would do as if you knew.
I know it's probably useless to debate this with you, but here's the problem.
I don't think Rush or Beck are 'insane' or 'stupid' or whatever. They are varying degrees of successful businessmen who know how to make money (albeit with hate speech, 'ridiculous' or not) off the ignorant populace.
My issue comes with the audience these guys cater to: people who very likely either a) actually believe the 'ridiculous' crap that they spew as the gospel truth or b) are mentally unstable enough to consider the hate a call to arms.
These guys would be fine and dandy if their ridiculous BS wasn't believed by a segment of the population, but they ARE. And then you have ridiculous groups like the 'birthers' who honestly believe the President of the damn United States has somehow duped all of us into electing a 'foreigner' to the highest office in the country via bad Photoshops of his birth certificate, or that Michael J Fox is 'faking' his Parkinson's disease to elicit sympathy votes or whatever bullshit they decide to say in their public forum (these are just two examples of crap they've promoted that I can think of, I know there's tons more).
Now, is it their fault that people believe this stuff? That's debatable, I'd say yes, but whatever. That said, I believe the world would indeed be a better place without Rush and Beck's brand of ridiculousness, if only because then these groups of ignorant people might not have something to rally behind and maybe they'd be more apt to become informed rather than believe ridiculous conspiracies, etc.
My personal opinion?
The media in general has a *huge* influence on our culture and social order, ask any sociologist. The media, therefore, *should* have a responsibility to not produce things that inspire hate and ignorance but either be unbiased or, if necessary, promote tolerance and knowledge.
It's pretty simple to not cater to the lowest common denominator and it's one of the things I believe this country has failed wildly in (ON BOTH SIDES of the political spectrum). The fact is the media are pitting us against one another in some silly battle over politics and ideology for their own profit. They don't care what the results are, just that it gets ratings. The bloodier the better. It's disgusting and it needs to stop yesterday. The more we call out this sort of thing, the less it will (hopefully) happen. The more we realize we're in this thing together and the more we try to negotiate and agree on *something*, the better this country and this world will be.
But hey, maybe I'm just a lonely idealist railing against something far too big to change. With enough of us though.... maybe we CAN change things.
Makes sense to me. After all, if you want to send a message to the FBI you use 4chan, therefore it's entirely reasonable that if you want to talk to the CIA, you use Something Awful.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
It has worked that way every time I fucked up as a manager, I got grilled by the higher ups why my people fucked up. I was responsible for them, and "gee I didn't know" was not fucking good enough.
I see the problem, both you and Holder should have used the Alberto Gonzales "I don't remember" defense.
Please don't confuse those who self diagnose themselves with Aspergers, and those who really have it. The self diagnosed are those who are afraid to use their voice unless behind a keyboard. Or, they use their voice too much and can't make/keep any friends as a result.
Those to whom you refer to are mostly malignantly narcissistic, with a dash of Internet Fuckwad Syndrome.
Ask Osama about his experience in international affairs.
Killing Bin Laden was indeed a military and intelligence coup, but in his success he is indebted to others. (He didn't build that, at least not alone.)
To Get Bin Laden, Obama Relied on Policies He Decried - By Michael Barone
The president deserves credit—but so does his predecessor.
Let’s cheerfully and ungrudgingly give credit to Barack Obama for approving the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. . . .
While we may not know all the details about and behind this operation, it’s fascinating to see how many of the things that made the success of this operation possible were not so long ago decried by many of the president’s fans and fellow partisans.
For one thing, it apparently would not have happened without those infamous enhanced interrogation techniques — “torture,” according to critics of the Bush administration.
The enhanced interrogation techniques reportedly led to identification of the courier who eventually led our forces to bin Laden’s hiding place. Critics of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques assured us that “torture” could not produce reliable information.
They were probably right that sometimes such techniques yield false information. But the bin Laden operation shows that they can also produce actionable intelligence.
You may remember that many Democrats called for criminal prosecution of CIA interrogators who were acting under orders vetted by legal counsel. Attorney General Eric Holder actually considered bringing such prosecutions.
Fortunately, he decided not to do so — fortunately for the individuals involved but fortunately also for his own reputation. Who would want to be known for prosecuting the people who helped track down bin Laden?
It has also been reported that in hunting down bin Laden our forces relied on intercepted communications. I wonder if any of them included contacts between suspected terrorists abroad and persons in the United States.
This was the “domestic wiretapping” revealed to great acclaim by the New York Times and presented as an intolerable infringement of civil liberties. Given what we know now, it’s a good thing our folks were tuning in.
Obama deserves credit also for employing the Navy SEALs, who are part of the Joint Special Operations Command. It was fashionable a few years ago to call the JSOC “Dick Cheney’s death squad” and “Cheney’s assassination team.”
The assumption behind such criticism was that Bush administration officials were using what they termed the war against terrorism as a smokescreen for persecuting domestic dissidents. But there is not a scrap of evidence that either the Bush administration or the Obama administration was doing anything of the kind. They were too busy trying to protect us.
There was criticism as well of the idea of targeting particular individuals for assassination. But, in ordering the raid on bin Laden’s compound, Obama authorized the killing of bin Laden. And no Miranda warnings first.
Smart Diplomacy (a Danish View)
Obama Regretted His ‘Muted’ Early Stance on Iran - By Jim Geraghty - September 25, 2012
This morning, The New York Times offers a lengthy look at President Obama’s relationship with leaders in the Arab world, full of revealing detail. It never quite comes out and explicitly says the president’s approach has failed, but the overall picture is withe
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
An eve online dude can work for the CIA too.
The Guy's a real-life troll, except as well as getting his excitement from stirring people up, he gets market share and money.
Don't feed him with this attention except where there is a real chance of getting him sued or imprisoned.
bush did it..... (that is obamas answer for everything right? well except for killing bin laden (which he didnt, remember, "you didnt build that") and saving GM (oh wait, they STILL went bankrupt after getting billions of dollars from americans....but no, obama saved them.....)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
...that Something Awful *isn't* part of a CIA conspiracy? These allegations need to be investigated further.
no comparing obama to bush is like comparing twins, not identical twins because, well... but fraternal twins none the less. Obama is the exact same as bush, the only difference is that bush didnt try and cover up his stupid statements, he just walked away from them. Obama on the other hand embraces them, and twists the meaning to try and make him look good. 20 embassies get attacked? fuck it lets go to vegas, we can blame a movie maker anyway
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
you mean where he had to be forced to give the ok (or didnt give the ok and it was done anyway because he was a bitch about it) ??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
This guy obviously can't find his own news or his writers are just late to the party, considering this was discussed and established on No Agenda weeks ago.
to be fair, pakis have arrested the man who helped us get bin laden... and obama has done NOTHING to help him, and would not even pay him the reward offered for his head whiich was available
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I wonder why Ollie North ended up taking the fall for Reagan for that whole Iran-Contra scandal when the government was openly supporting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war but secretly giving weapons to Iranian "freedom fighters".
If this were true wouldn't Glenn Beck be a traitor? If so, I think we should hang him immediately.
Technically, the guy never specifically denied being a CIA agent. Why wouldn't he do that? Obviously because he's hiding something.
On to other matters. That little frosted guy on the Mini-Wheats box still hasn't made any official comment on his involvement with the CIA and their HAARP death ray experiments. What's he trying to hide?
someone needs to tell the obama supporters about this. I mean hell, as long as hes giving his suppoerters free phones, they dont seem to notice that they are being fucked
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
and we have a party that believes that nothing " we" do is good, a party that believes that giving a man a fish, instead of teaching him to fish is good, and a party that continues to push the lies that another party wants their grandparents to eat dogfood, when THEY are the ones who cut over 1/2 a BILLION from medicare. That is the parrty that continues to claim that we were attacked, in over 20 locations, due to a movie, NOT lead by a man that the party let out of prision (gitmo) who is known to have been involved. Also it is the party that claims we cant know the truth about it, however CNN can roll in a few days later, get the embassador who was murdered (first time since carter... coincidence??) diary, and see that he was worried prior to 9/11 (which i as a new yorker am every year, and will be for life) yet the president doesnt see that... This is the party that blames a movie for the murders of americans, and locks up the movie maker, without talking about those who did the killing in front of the entire world (the UN)
but no, lets talk about what some people believe may or may not be true, people who dont kill other for simply disagreeing with them, or drawing pictures of their holy ghost.....
long story short, both major american parties are fulll of shit, and until we get rid of both of them, we, as americans, are fucked.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
but he did, single handedly kill bin laden... he keeps saying so so it MUST be true right???
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
2 words
OBAMA PHONE!!!!!
whos foaming at the mouth again????
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Glenn Beck has been known to use this device known as "sarcasm" which tends to escape the Aspergers crowd that runs Slashdot.
The problem is: Beck's followers don't recognize the humor either (if that's what it really is). For all I know, Beck is a Berkeley educated flaming liberal hippie freak. One who is smart enough to have found a market and produced product for it. Kudos for him. He's getting rich and probably laughing all the way to the bank.
The problem is the people who believe his 'connect the dots' theories. Beck may or may not know he is producing crap. If he takes it seriously, I've heard psychologists compare him and his scribbling to John Nash. Russel Crowe was acting. Nash wasn't. I'm not certain Beck's followers can tell the difference either.
Have gnu, will travel.
ok fine, if that is your point meglon, than why is it ok for obama to blame bush for all his failures??? why isnt he blaming all the people he apointed who failed?? didnt obama say "the buck stops...uhhh..with me"
you cannot have it both ways. You cannot allow obama to take credit for killing bin laden, at the same time blaming bush for the economy. You cannot give credit to obama for "saving GM" without giving bush that same "credit"
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Actually I might respect him for the second time in 4 years( the first being when he allowed the seals to kill bin laden)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Hey, at least Beck pushes gold instead of bitcoin.
You say that like it's a good thing.
Do we really want something as important as the gold market perturbed by the cumulative effect of Beck and other gold bugs like him?
I say it's better for society if fringe people come up with some crazy "safe haven money store" that the rest of us have no use for, so we won't have to pay inflated prices for useful money like gold, bitcoin, or major stable nation-backed currencies.
CLEARLY you missed south park this week
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
You act as if people on the liberal side dont say alot of stupid things. Obama is gonna pay my rent, and we got the obama phone are 2 good counterpoints, There are many more.
long story short, ANY party person is a dumbass, as people latch on to parties because they dont have ideas of their own
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Ask Osama about his experience in international affairs.
Is Paradise considered to be "international"?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I'm generally bipartisan, and I don't take any issue with the point you're trying to make here (very clearly the President relied on others to "get" Bin Laden; he didn't infiltrate the hideout himself....).
However, the article you pasted is chock full of weasel words, sarcasm, "quotes", and general contempt. It's difficult - very difficult - to take articles like this seriously; at least for those of us who are what "moderate" used to be. Why don't people ever seem to understand that the facts speak for themselves, and pointing them out without snark is an elegant weapon for a civilized age?
I have to go with Occam's Razor here. Or maybe Occam's Meat Axe, since the differences really, really small. But I find it slightly more plausible that Mitt things that his joke is funny than that he hasn't seen Goldfinger.
However, he probably thinks Goldfinger is a tragic story.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I know plenty of conservative Republicans at my work place that hate Rush and Beck, having called them unofficial spokesmen of the party (not so much Beck now, but more so a few years ago). The thing about being unofficial, is it is unofficial. Such a label is based on the impact they had, in thiscase the number of people that took them very seriously within the Republican part of the population.
Maybe they they were foaming at mouth Asperger's type (combining a few posts' claims...), or maybe they just believed important topics should be discussed civially, and be fact-centric.
Probably they think Colbert makes a better unofficial party spokesman.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Obstructionist, insane House?
What do you call the first two years of his office? You really need to quit leaving those hits of Acid next to you keyboard dude, you're spouting crap that's not even close to reality.
I don't know what's more disturbing...that you're spouting this tripe or that someone was so fucking stupid as to upmod it as informative when it's not even remotely close to that...
You act as if people on the liberal side dont say alot of stupid things.
Oh please. I'm not allowed to get snarky about Glen Beck without invoking the equal time rule?
Obama is gonna pay my rent, and we got the obama phone are 2 good counterpoints,
Let's see, Glenn Beck has 3 million viewers. Miss Obama Phone has how many?
Well, of course it's a tragic story. Goldfinger is obviously the hero. I mean he gets all the good lines ("No, Mr Bond, I want you to die!") while James Bond stands around making bad puns.
I am at a loss for what seems so implausible about posting there not being meant to garner the attention of someone specifically. Surely, in a fight for your life, you wouldn't post a message describing the security situation on a gaming message board.
If they had lived, then that message would have likely gone unnoticed, or at least unassociated, and it could be easily denied. But, at the same time, a bot for any number of agencies could have been simply waiting for that user to post on the forum for any reason to alert someone else. Maybe it wasn't the CIA, but what about any number of covert agencies? They don't need a secure connection to go there, on either side, and it's unlikely to be blocked for religious reasons. There's a lot to it that seem really convenient for such a purpose, and it could easily be swept under the rug if nothing came of it.
It sounds to me that it's just because Glenn Beck said it, that makes it sound crazy. But, I suppose the rabid obsession of liberals on Slashdot will ignore the plausible nature of the story because, after all, it's Glenn Beck and a game website. Clearly, he was just posting some dudes he met online that he really took a liking too. That sounds so much more reasonable...
havent checked the youtube link so i dont know what its up to now, but id say its gotta be close to that number
i didnt say you cant get snarky, beck is a loon. Im just saying that if you look at his listeners, and you look at obamas supporters.... well ill take becks listeners over obama supporters any day
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
He ripped that off from Adam Curry who said this exact thing two weeks ago on No Agenda
"it's so obvious! is there anything obama isn't responsible for?"
Yup.
The film caused all the unrest.
The economy is still Bush's fault. Either one, Doesn't really matter.
The banks are the Republicans' fault, collectively. They started it, and the whole financial industry precipitated all this.
Housing is a Republican problem too. Along with student loans. Same problem, but that's not at issue here. We are not really too involved in reality, just in avoiding holding our President accountable for a damned thing.
Because, after all, it was like that when he got there. It could be worse. Bush could have left it all for Obama to figure out. Oh,wait...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Blah blah blah. No president does anything single-handedly. Lincoln didn't tear through the Confederacy like an action hero. FDR didn't paradrop into Nazi Germany. Obama didn't pull the literal trigger on Osama. But it was his decision to refocus efforts on finding OBL, it was his decision to go with troops on the ground rather than an airstrike, it was his decision to keep the Pakistanis out of the loop. All of those turned out to be the right choices, and Obama deserves credit for that.
All you Republicans claiming the credit should go exclusively to the military, ask yourself this: If the mission had ended with a dozen dead SEALs instead of a dead terrorist, would you be placing the blame solely on the military?
We are unable or unwilling to accept that both happened because of shear stupidity, hubris, and incompetence. (and not necessarily in that order)
Why does it need to be our fault at all? Why can't it be the fault of the murderers?
I think you're falling into a sort of just-world fallacy. You're thinking that as long as the good guys are clever, they'll always win. Sadly, that's not the case.
But Ian Fleming was.
So clearly to the genius's here no 'spy' would ever try to blend in while trying to cover for his boss (obama) and then end up dead.
What I love most about this argument is that there are people on the other side of it (a lot of people apparently) who instead blame Obama for all it. And they, like their opponents, think the their opponents are a bunch of nutters who are drinking sweet sugary drink, etc.
But as usual, the truth is nuanced and bla bla bla.
Oh look, a kitty!!!
What I love most about this argument is those who put it forth typically will not give Obama credit for anything and see all of his acts as a failure (even acts where failure isn't really possible -- "Obama blinks diffrent!!1"). Such a viewpoint is obviously only held by twizzler wrappers, but such is the state of our twizzler wrapper population.
He worked in the embassy. Of course he was a CIA asset. (They call them assets. The word agent has specific legal connotations. It's why special agents aren't called agents either. They're called special operators.)
Say what you will about Glenn Beck, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
This guy would be Jimmy Hoffa of TV assholes.
Yes you can, welcome to politics. You just have to ask the right person...
MouseClass extends ScrollClass, which extends TabClass, which extends SidebarClass, which extends PowerClass, w
Your presentation of the twizzler wrapper viewpoint is pitch-perfect.
Don't forget to slam Obama for his blinking deficiencies!! You know how he blinks all weird and stuff... sucka can't do anything right.
See... this is where you can also hit Obama on that blinking thing I mentioned.
Come on! Don't let us down!!! USA! USA!
Possibly.
But like Pearl Harbor, and 9/11, we had intelligence this was coming, and we did not have our guard up.
I don't blame the "murderers", because it was a legitimate target. The fact that we want to see it as a police action and thus a "murder" is hubris and stupidity. They have declared war on us many times and we won't treat it as such.
It. is. a. fucking. war.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Ooooh, the free phone thing that comes from a program started under Reagan -- good one!!!1 And don't forget the blinking thing. Come on!! Obama blinks weird (pssst, like a Muslim... try to slip "Muslim" or "Socialist" in there if you can, but don't do those too much because, you know... USA! USA!).
Hey buddy, I think your shift-key is broken. We won't be taken seriously if we can't get some of the the basic communication things right at least some of the time.
USA! USA!
Whoa... a string of these --> "!" must have a "1" inserted occasionally.
And seriously, how many times do I gotta mention it? BLINKING!!!1!1! (See how I did the "!!!1, etc" there? That is how you Dew it.)
USA!
I've got a new item just down from the big man himself. We are to now start putting forth the true 9/11 facts. This is a prime directive that replaces previous directive 7X, sub C.
All forum postings should, whenever possible, mention the known facts for what really happened on 9/11. And don't forget to mention that Obama blinks weird. That is a prime directive now too.
USA!
You are right. Glenn Beck is perfectly sane and right. Thank you for putting forth the truth. There are billions of us out here fighting and I hope you will join us.
USA!
This was a perfect time to mention the blinking!!!1!1
It shows that he is always wrong. Even when he is right he is wrong because have you seen the blinking!?!?!
USA!!
Except that maybe a president cant be in charge of all of government,
Here I thought that thats EXACTLY what he was elected to do, as head of the executive and armed forces.
But then I also thought that part of being top of the heirarchy was having competent people beneath you who you could hold accountable.
Whoa... did... did you just put down Mr. Glenneth Samuel Beck Sr. Esq??!?! You know the rules... I must now report you. Good luck.
USA!!
Its obstructionist for the opposition party who holds ONE part of the government, to refuse to give democrats everything they want? What if we flipped it around and called the Senate obstructionist for refusing to give in to every whim of the house?
Or better yet, how about everyone grows up and deals with it? Like we have for the last 200 years?
lets go to vegas
I thought that was Hillary...?
Wooo spring break 2012!
Lincoln didn't tear through the Confederacy like an action hero.
Yea, but to be fair, he did take on all those vampires single-handedly.
If the mission had ended with a dozen dead SEALs instead of a dead terrorist, would you be placing the blame solely on the military?
Unless there was a clear indicator that it was someone elses fault, yes. I give some credit to Obama for the Bin Laden kill, since he IS commander in chief, but I recognize that a HUGE part of what happened is because of intelligence infrastructure that predates him. It wasnt an "Obama policy" that lead to the raid AFAIK, so the credit he gets is somewhat limited-- perhaps to the fact that he had the guts to authorize the raid into pakistan.
I may be a republican but that doesnt mean I dont think Obama can do ANYTHING right, it just means I think that hes wrong on most things.
The entire point of congress is to obstruct laws from getting passed. That is deliberate and by design, which is why it is a huge committee that needs to have a majority agree before anything happens. It was designed that way on purpose so no single person could dictate policy in America and "take over" the government.
Only policies that are serious and have widespread popular appeal are going to be seriously considered and accepted. For those who are trying to run roughshod over the political process and demand that your pet programs that have only a minority of the people of America supporting those ideas, of course they are going to be seen as obstructing those projects. That just means you aren't doing you job to convince the American people and especially a majority of congress to accept your ideas.
I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not. If you are, the guy who responded first who agrees with you really goes a long way to proving your point.
If you were not being sarcastic, I have to ask:
If this is Bush's economy, and it was Bush's economy when Bush was president, and it was "on Bush's watch" when 9-11 happened seven months after he took office, at what point does this become Obama's economy and Obama's watch?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
In politics sound minds may differ. There are appropriate forums for such discussions. This is not one such.
And your empty repartee is the written version of sticking your tongue out.
Answer yes or no:
Is Reagan responsible for the Iran-Contra scandal?
If "yes", then why are you whining about Democrats blaming him for it?
If "no", then why are blaming Obama for Fast and Furious?
You're complaining about double-standards being applied by liberals while simultaneously using double-standards yourself.
Either the president is responsible for everything that happens in his administration, in which case you had best condemn everyone from Reagan to Roosevelt to Lincoln, or they're not, in which case you have no reason to be condemning Obama.
The second option seems far more sane to me.
Well he certainly didn't help anything when his administration made that video he claims got the Middle East in an uproar, the filmmaker didn't build that.
to be fair, pakis have arrested the man who helped us get bin laden... and obama has done NOTHING to help him, and would not even pay him the reward offered for his head whiich was available
And why should he? That paki is no more useful.
Facts may be inconvenient... but they do matter
The House is not the obstruction in the government... they have passed many bills on jobs and taxes and budgets and such. Given that the House is where the Constitution requires certain money-oriented bills to START, they cannot (by definition) be the obstruction if they pass such bills.
The obstruction is Democrat Senator Harry Reid of Nevada who simply places these bills in his desk drawer. These bills are not even being debated or voted on in the Senate... Harry Does not want them debated or voted on in the Senate because then his members would have to take actual positions on those bills; that would mean (a) the voters could hold them accountable for specific votes and (b) some of his members might actually vote for some of the bills (many of which went through the House with bi-partisan support). The result would be that the bills would make it to Obama's desk and he would then have to sign or veto them and be accountable to the voters for his decisions. Harry prefers a system where Obama (playing the role of monarch) does what he wants by executive order and the senate obstructs the other party from stopping him. The United States has never before operated this way... it is absolutely corrupt and evil.
The Democrats have not offered a budget in 3 years... they have turned irresponsibility and dodging accountability into a campaign tactic and they have set a horrendous precedent in doing so. You might think you like all this lawlessness now while your guys are doing it...but I bet you'll get all angry and critical if the Republicans get control of the Senate someday in the future and use these same tactics and Harry's precedents....
Think about it and don't be such a zombie. Pre-1969 Democrats were civilized and generally played by the rules... and our political system was far less divisive. It's impossible to have civilized politics in the modern era where Democrats argue about the meaning of words, completely ignore the Constitutional order for how the government should operate, and believe that there is no such thing as objective truth. It is completely impossible for people who believe in the Constitution to find any common ground with these people.
Obama, Romney eye blinks could decide election
In 2003, Republicans controlled the house and the senate, I cannot find evidence for your claim that Democrats blocked regulatory legislation which would have prevented the US housing crash. http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2008/09/18/republican-congress-talked-about-financial-reform-but-did-nothing.htm In fact, given the disdain Republicans have for any form of governmental regulation, I find your claim doubtful
prepare the survey weasels.
Monday morning quarterbacking? They were offered a full WIPS. They DECLINED the protection package. Moreover, the Brits clearly saw the writing on the fucking wall.
But if you think anyone who works at an embassy isn't a spy then you are the Moron
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
That is an awful lot of verbiage to say you agree with me. (See above: "in his success he is indebted to others")
So, once again we agree.
And now you are claiming something that isn't true. I didn't write that. The primary article that I quote doesn't state that, in fact it is the reverse. Quoting from above, "Let’s cheerfully and ungrudgingly give credit to Barack Obama for approving the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden." That contradicts your claim. You go pretty far off the mark in a very short distance.
Maybe you were confused by the post I responded to which stated, "Ask Osama about his experience in international affairs." I pointed out that the implied Raid on Bin Laden was a military and intelligence action, not diplomatic.
Well, since neither I nor the primary author I quote gives them sole credit, it doesn't immediately follow that they would deserve sole blame, does it? (Would you attribute any blame to President Obama if there was a failure? Even if it was the result of his not accepting a strong recommendation about not going under present conditions?) Besides, I doubt you are aware of how thoroughly the military goes through such failures, such as occurred at Desert One, and the years of hard questions that would follow from the media, military, and government. It was self-criticism over Desert One that led to the reforms that ultimately enabled the raid against Bin Laden to succeed.
So, after agreeing with me, then making a false claim about my position, you never get around to addressing the main point in the main piece I quote: "While we may not know all the details about and behind this operation, it’s fascinating to see how many of the things that made the success of this operation possible were not so long ago decried by many of the president’s fans and fellow partisans." President Obama was successful primarily because of not fulfilling his platform. I'm not surprised you won't touch that. That's a pity though, as it would have been a chance to demonstrate real insight, if you have any, rather than simple Republican bashing.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It's almost certain VR was an intelligence agent. A large number of those working at foreign embassies are actually CIA officers. Primary function of an Embassy is to collect intelligence in the host country and report it back to US govt agencies. I don't see how he could not be an agent. He is former military, trained in DC/Virginia area, served in Iraq, South Africa, and other places. His mother stated she never knew what he really did, and that if she asked he might joke " i would have to kill you" so she pretty much assumed it was classified and didn't inquire. She didn't even know that he had gone to Libya. So, his work was without question sensitive. Whether Something Awful and EVE online are some type of CIA fronts isn't likely. However, it is possible VR did use the platform for communicating to assets/other intelligence officials. Not for that purpose, but because it's something he already does a lot and enjoys, AND same time does provide excellent cover for occasionally communicating with intelligence assets. I don't see what the outrage is. I guess because it's coming from GB. Who has totally shattered his credibility as he has become an agitator. I didn't even hear what he said, just read about it. Not worth even listening, Years ago, Beck was appeared to be a thoughtful, sensitive, rational pundit. But he sold out to become something just because there is an audience for it. Look at Rush, or that blonde chick author- total jokes. They are just riling up the crowd and pushing something the extreme wants. Same with some liberals, like Olberman who went from ESPN to crying about Bush everyday. These people don't represent american opinion, they just cater to extremes who are a slim minority. Yet it divides our country and dialogue. Nobody wants to discuss intelligent, balanced analysis.
I completely agree with your post! Mod parent up!
Here I thought that thats EXACTLY what he was elected to do, as head of the executive and armed forces.
Then you need to go back to civics class and learn that there are two other branches of the U.S. government in addition to the executive. Furthermore, of the three branches of government, only one is empowered to write and pass laws, and it ain't the executive.
Breakfast served all day!
posted as ac lol
Ask Osama about his experience in international affairs.
Killing Bin Laden was indeed a military and intelligence coup, but in his success he is indebted to others. (He didn't build that, at least not alone.)
To Get Bin Laden, Obama Relied on Policies He Decried - By Michael Barone
The president deserves credit—but so does his predecessor.
For one thing, it apparently would not have happened without those infamous enhanced interrogation techniques — “torture,” according to critics of the Bush administration.
The enhanced interrogation techniques reportedly led to identification of the courier who eventually led our forces to bin Laden’s hiding place. Critics of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques assured us that “torture” could not produce reliable information.
Ahh. Reported by whom? Of course former members of the Bush administration. There is no single evidence that Osama was found based on "enhanced interrogation techniques", we'll have to take the torturer's words for it.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/03/osama-bin-laden-was-not-caught-because-of-torture-but-in-spite-of-it.html
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Whether Reagan is responsible for Iran-Contra, and Obama responsible for Fast and Furious, is an open historical question that will probably not be answered for a very long time.
The question in both cases is "What did the president know, when did he know it, and what did he do about it?" And in both cases, we don't know the answer to any of those questions because all the relevant documents are classified.
I am officially gone from
Seriously, Bin Ladin worked for the CIA.
Stupid politicians work for CIA.
CNN has fake reporters making fake stories, YES they got caught, idiots.
Wakeup dumb stupid americans, working for the CIA is nothing special, 100000000000s work for them.
Again, Dumb asses (except the 1% linux users).
Then again, most wouldnt know google was 'funded' a bit by CIA ppl.
Oh my god, our saviour has mirrored 'backups' and Langley.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Slashdot, of course, is the designated contact point for the NSA.
BTW, Agent Smith, please don't forget to adjust the sarcasm filter on Echelon. It keeps overloading.
> if you can't do obviously better then you are in trouble.
I doubt there's anyone on all of Slashdot who can do as much or as often as those bonobos. Many here have never done anyone at all.
When Obama starts a bunch of wars and deregulates banking to the brink of global collapse. When that happens, we can all blame Obama. Until then, though, only one out of Bush or Obama has actually done both.
So Bush's fist-fucking of the world is directly comparable to 20 embassies getting attacked. Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up.
All pollies are hypocrits that only want self fame, NEVER ULTIMATE GOODNESS FOR SOCIETY.
Oh btw, creationism doesnt exist, and your god is an alien from Prometheos, who came from B Reti.
And and that funny prophet that cannot be drawn doesnt exist either.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
An ambassador is already an agent of the President... by definition. That's just the job. Even if he were "taking orders from CIA", that both still have the same boss -- POTUS. I call bull shit on the whole story. Sounds like an attempt to attribute a stupid right wing conspiracy in order to divert attention from the actual screw of the administration (failure to protect a US embassy and the subsequent attempt at covering up that failure by blaming attacks on an unrelated movie).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Not that it's relevant to this particular event, but having an IP connection doesn't mean it's unecumbered. For example, the Iran "state firewall" filters TLS (HTTPS, IMAPS, etc) and SSH.
Dilbert RSS feed
I know there is a general slashdot trend of modding comments "insightful" in order to give positive karma to humorous posts, as opposed to using the "funny" mod, but in this case you really should stick with the "funny" option as modding comments which ride the fine borderline between hilarious satire and psychotic denial of reality is thin and you wouldn't want to confuse anybody.
During Obama's first two years, they had "control" of both the House and Senate. But without 60 members of the senate in your party, you don't control it. Democrats never had 60.
The republicans in the senate have filibustered more than any other time in US history. They were on record as saying their primary objective was making Obama a one term president. And how do you do that? You tank the economy. Oh you want stimulus? Here is 1/3 of the amount of money needed. So it won't work as well as it should have and then we can say "See? the stimulus didn't work!"
and Zombies! Lincoln was awesome!
During Obama's first two years, they had "control" of both the House and Senate. But without 60 members of the senate in your party, you don't control it. Democrats never had 60.
Are you saying that to get anything done, you need the executive AND a 60 vote majority in the house AND a 60 vote majority in the senate?
Wow, one wonders how anything got done over the last 200 years. For the record btw, there are many things (like the budget) that were NOT filibustered (since they CANT be filibustered by senate / house rules) that the dem congress still didnt manage to get done.
And for the record, its ridiculous to blame the other party for being opposed to your ideas: thats the reason theyre in the other party, because they dont agree with you.
cough, should have said 2/3rds in the house, not 60 vote. Derp.
Not to support Glenn in any way, but the link between CIA stations and the Embassies they are located in is well know.
The CIA station chief would likely be under the Embassador, however.
The executive technically DOES pass laws, but I wont make this pedantic. Certainly he has the power to set policy, and certainly he influences the direction legislation goes in congress. He also has the power to enforce-- or apparently, not enforce-- laws as he sees fit (hence executive), which gives him an awful lot of power.
And of course, he can write executive orders, and I dont think its clear what the extent of that power is.
There is no filibuster in the House, so you only need a majority. But depending on the makeup of the committee a bill gets assigned to, it may never come up for a vote. I don't have any good info on that.
But in today's hyper partisan climate? Yes, you need the presidency, house majority and filibuster proof senate majority of 60 votes to pass anything of substance. Does that sound crazy? It should because it is. You can't reason with and make compromises with crazy people with irrational views and a party that is willing to accept their crazy ass views for the sake of party. Michelle Bachman for example.
Our President said he would 'fix it'. He not only hasn't, he's done a bunch of other things and not even attempted to fix core problems. Even discounting promises as purely electioneering, he's failed. Failed.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Shocking allegations have come to light that Glenn Beck is responsible for the rape and murder of a girl in 1990. Are these allegations true? Is Beck guilty? Various websites are offering conflicting points of view. Some claim it is a hoax. Many are suspicious because Beck has remained silent on the matter. If the story isn't true, why won't Glenn Beck deny that he raped and murdered a young girl in 1990?
Banking deregulation goes back decades. Plenty of blame to share among many past presidents. As for 'bunch' of wars, ymmv.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Wow /. is so down the tubes now you are allowing someone to just post the entire first paragraph of the story as your summary?
Sandra Fluke testifies before congress that her friend needed treatment for a cervical cyst, and the treatment was birth control pills, but they weren't covered under her health care plan.
So rush spends 45 minutes calling Sandra a slut, saying she can't walk she's so sore down there, men are lined up around the block, on and on, and you defend that as sarcasm?
Your Fat Flacid Rushbo is luck I'm not Sandra Fluke's dad.
Now hold on a minute. You're making quite a leap here. You're assuming that all members of a party collectively believe those things that you just listed. I don't. You're equating conservatism to Republicans, and it just isn't so true. I just also happen to not believe in the redistribution of wealth, the insertion of government into private sector business, the sheer crazy number of executive orders the administration has issued (to maneuver around the legislative branch), the uncontrolled spending, the blocking of mining and export our own fossil fuels, the prosecution of enemy combatants as US civilians, not to mention the way Fast and Furious and the Libya debacle have been handled. Lastly, I believe there is sufficient evidence that the man is a racist and has worked harder to divide our country than he has to unify it. And that's just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head. And when I think back 4 years ago, my life (financially) is not better now than it was back then, nor does it look like it will be, and I can cite several reasons why it is DIRECTLY his doing. No, sir, I'd vote for a bag of potato chips before I'd vote for the current administration again. At least a bag of chips can do no more harm.
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The guy was an information officer for the State Department working out of a US consulate--you're right, it's very likely his most secure line of communication to the CIA was coded chats through a MMORPG.
Hey, there was an outcry against it. I VOTED for Bush, and I was completely against the stimulus spending toward the end of his administration. But what gives Obama the right to do it 10X more?
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
Sure. And Obama had both the House and Senate for the first two years, he could have passed almost anything he wanted. The only reason that the healthcare bill almost didn't pass is because they didn't have enough Democrats to pass it!
Let's see, the film caused unrest... do you actually know anyone who saw the film? That was a complete fabrication that the White House made and that has been substantiated by several news stories already (Washington Post). Not only that it wasn't the films, but that the White House KNEW it wasn't the films and covered it up for 2 weeks, and that they were given prior knowledge that this attack was going to happen and did nothing. That is a fact.
Economy.... do you think 4 years should be enough time (especially with a House and Senate on your side) to turn the economy around? I do. Two should be ample.
The banks... oky, you're uninformed here. The banks were regulated into having to create bad loans -- that they knew were bad loans at the time -- and then bundled and resold to other financial institutions, all started under Clinton. Now, I'm not saying Clinton was the cause per se, but that's where it started. The Republicans (specifically Bush) actually pointed out the problem with the banks (and the housing) (same problem), but could not get the rules changed/de-regulated. Thus, voila, the house-of-cards collapses eventually 8 years later, as it did.
The thing is, the President IS accountable for all these things, because it is his responsibility to appoint the right people to get these things done. This president has proven himself to be ineffective at it. You could argue that Bush was ineffective at some of those same things, and I'd agree. But that was then, this is now.
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
Well then please cite some of them
And presidents don't ship thousands of assult rifles to Mexican drug lords who use them to kill hundreds of Mexicans.
that's a start...
hey, at least he's trying.
There have been cases where large scale drug rings have used MMO's for communication in the past, its not that far fetched.
Ohhhh, that's why Walter keeps Jesse around.
that, and killing people.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
>Don't tell the world you know when actually you don't. It's simple.
YOU'RE simple and you don't get how this thing called diplomacy and statesmanship works.
Did it ever occur to you that the administration would rather take a beating in the press for soft or incorrect early statements than make early statements that might have escalated the attacks?
You don't really think Obama believes what's going on in the Middle East are just "bumps in the road", do you? He just doesn't want to add fuel to the fire by saying, "You know, you're right, things are spinning out of control and all Hell is breaking loose". Perhaps you'd also like him to tell the media exactly what he's doing behind the scenes to manage the situation?
Obama and the rest of the world are frantically trying to keep the lid on the Middle East and you're mad because US government statements don't match your conception of how to respond to rapidly-changing, conflicting, and incomplete data in real time when getting it wrong can trigger a war?
You're an AMATEUR. Were you as harsh on the President when Reagan got THREE embassies blown up due to his not-ready-for-prime-time Middle East diplomacy? Go look up to confused babble that his administration spewed about them, especially since at least one of the Beirut embassy bombings was in direct retaliation for car bombings done by US proxy forces...
18 April 1983 Beirut, Lebanon Islamic Jihad car bomb destroys Embassy
12 December 1983 Kuwait City, Kuwait al-Dawa truck bomb outside Embassy
20 September 1984 Beirut, Lebanon Hezbollah truck bomb outside Embassy
Here's what's so implausible:
Sean Smith had been playing Eve for years. He was one of the most important members of the Goonswarm coalition. He had personally met many of the people he was talking to that night, at the Eve Fanfest and CSM (an elected body that represents the player base's interests to CCP) events in Iceland and in personal visits back home in the U.S.A.
This was not some random bloke using a random website as an inconspicuous spot to get in touch. This was a player deeply involved in the game, who had formed personal, real-life friendships with many of his coalition members over a half-dozen years, chatting with them during a stressful time.
Here are some personal memories from The Mittani, the de facto leader of Goonswarm (Sean's in-game coalition) and a personal friend:
http://themittani.com/news/rip-vile-rat
In particular, he recalls that they would often have similar situations in 07-08 when Sean was posted in Baghdad. The Mittani is probably the most famous (infamous) Eve player in the world. Many other (less famous) players have posted their memories of Sean, both in-game and in real life, too.
This is not "rabid obsession of liberals" ignoring "the plausible nature of the story." This is people like me who actually know something about the situation getting frustrated at idiots like you and Glenn Beck who don't. Glenn Beck knows nothing about Sean Smith--he just made something up. You know nothing about Sean Smith, but you happily believe Glenn Beck and refuse to do even a little bit of research into it before spouting off a diatribe about how OMG TEH LIBERALS ARE REPPRESING GLEN BEKK!!!
in the first two years Obama had a majority in the congress for something like a month.
The uncivil and hyperpartisan crap started with Newt Gingrich and his GOPAC memo during the 1980s. Up to that point, even such polar opposites as Reagan and Tip O'Neill or Ted Kennedy and Bob Dole could negotiate without being ostracized by party leadership. In the congress now, if a Republican is seen even TALKING with a Democrat the GOP leadership pounds the GOPer back into the obstructionist line.
The real problem is the poison pill amendments the GOP adds to the budget bills to ensure they fail. Continuing Resolutions have been used by other presidents (including G W Bush) when their budgets are trapped in the political process. Did you complain then?
And if you think Reid and Pelosi are bad, think back to the manipulations pulled under Bush II by the majority leaders. They turned the parliamentary system inside out, it wasn't pretty, and it got us unfunded tax breaks on the rich and two unfunded wars.
oh, right, the Obama administration is going to tell the world about any back-channel negotiations with Pakistan about getting that guy out of jail. Besides, his jailing by the Pakistanis was purely for domestic political reasons because Pakistan is playing a balancing act between us and the extremists. Pakistan had to do SOMETHING and this was something they could do, so expect him to be in jail for a while regardless of US attempts. Poor man.
Ok, here you go.
#1 This administration has yet to pass a budget in 4 years. I had a great job working for the government. Directly due to this, I was told that my contracting company (the people I worked for) could not get funding to continue the contract, and so I was essentially laid off. Not only that, but no new contracts could be funded, so it made it very difficult to get work elsewhere, and dumped a lot of competition in my field. I did finally get another job, but it was for about $23,000 less. Thanks Obama.
#2 We had a child last year. I work, and my wife works. My wife gets free insurance, but adding another dependent would be $550/mo. I also got free insurance, and adding to mine would be about $420/mo. I have a friend who sells insurance, and I know I can get a better rate just getting a single policy for my son that way for about $280/mo, same level of coverage. However, he couldn't sell it to me --- due to the Obamacare laws, health insurance providers cannot sell just a single policy to a child (crazy, isn't it?) -- they must sell it to at least one parent and child. So, I thought, well, I'll just get a high-deductible plan for me, and the really good plan for him. But nope, due to Obamacare laws, the coverage has to be identical. So, thank you Obama, I'm spending more than is necessary now -- just for insurance.
#3 Due to the housing crisis (which is not Obama's fault), our house is now worth about $40,000 less than what we purchased it in 2008. So it has been this way for 4 years now, and gets worth less every year for some reason. Now, under normal circumstances, the industry would crash, and then rebuild, and the market should boom, or at least come back to where we bought. But no, Obama has had a plethora of life-support stimulus programs sustaining what should have completely failed and recovered already -- which has kept the price of housing artificially low. I can't even refinance now because the house is worth so much less. Just do something different Obama, this is killing us.
#4 Of course, my wife and I still are in the highest tax bracket, we don't qualify for or take any government subsidies, and somehow even though my income went down, our income taxes went up last year -- just paid a nice tax bill (even after having reduced bill with a house and a kid and taking more out of paycheck for taxes) -- $820.
I'm sure I can think of more, but I really don't feel like getting more pissed off right now. And I don't really think you care anyway.
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
Even FOX NEWS rejects the lie that Obama was found with data produced by torture. McCain came out and said so and he sits on the committees which would know.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/12/mccain-torture-did-lead-bin-laden-death/
McCain: Torture did not lead to bin Laden death
Published May 12, 2011
Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques were not a factor in tracking down Osama bin Laden, a leading Republican senator insisted Thursday.
Sen. John McCain, who spent 5½ years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, also rejected the argument that any form of torture is critical to U.S. success in the fight against terrorism.
In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, the Arizona Republican said former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and others who back those tactics were wrong to claim that waterboarding al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, provided information that led to bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.
"Sure. And Obama had both the House and Senate for the first two years, he could have passed almost anything he wanted. The only reason that the healthcare bill almost didn't pass is because they didn't have enough Democrats to pass it!"
And stumbling past that, the healthcare bill was a HUGE distraction. It did not need to be done then, but we should be able to discern what is important to our President from that episode.
"Let's see, the film caused unrest..."
You got it right. Fakery.
"Economy.... do you think 4 years should be enough time (especially with a House and Senate on your side) to turn the economy around? I do. Two should be ample."
I'm not looking for a solution, just real progress. I don't see it.
"The banks... oky, you're uninformed here. The banks were regulated into having to create bad loans..."
You wren't thinking I was unformed, were you? This goes way back to the S&L scams, and the industry trying again to deregulate, and the various administrations trying to oblige in little ways, moderate ways, until key regulations were finally tossed aside. Not the bankers, so much, as the 'investment houses', who make money even when they lose yours.
"The thing is, the President IS accountable for all these things, because it is his responsibility to appoint the right people to get these things done. This president has proven himself to be ineffective at it. You could argue that Bush was ineffective at some of those same things, and I'd agree. But that was then, this is now."
Amen.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I'm quite glad that Reagan started giving away phones. I'm even more excited he did it through a law that was passed in 1996 to give out free landlines, a full eight years after he left office. I'm actually happy that it's a program that does not get funded through the federal government; that's right, federal dollars do not go toward the so-called Obama phones. However, everyone that pays for their own phones does effectively pay a tax, but it just goes directly toward non-profit fund that provides said phones rather than the federal government, and it is the federal government that mandated it, which does, through an odd backdoor, tax us without calling it a tax, by requiring the companies to collect a fee that is used for a federally mandated program.
Now, the program has expanded under Obama, and people are on video time-after-time proclaiming their love for receiving their Obama-money, or Obama-phone. Sure, the number of people in households on some form of welfare has skyrocketed under Obama, but you know, let's ignore all of that, because, after all, it must be some racist reason to not like the guy. It can't be that he genuinely acts like a socialist supporting class warfare-like tactics.
No president does anything single-handedly? How about getting us INTO a war that never ever should have happened? Now, you could argue that it wasn't just GWB who did it, he had all his advisors, etc. But he was the guy. He made the call. He had no evidence of weapons, anything close to it has been falsified, and it had nothing to do with his "war on terror". There has never ever been any reasonable explanation for invading and overthrowing the government of a sovereign nation.
Obama may not have been able to live up to his promises, and he hasn't fixed everything he inherited. He inherited a deficet that GWB built, and made it even bigger. He made some promises he didn't keep. But here's the thing - his mistakes had the INTENT to fix things, and didn't cost thousands of lives. THAT is the difference between Obama and his predecessor.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Please refrain from commenting, adults are trying to have a conversation.
Oh right, a woman whose sole claim to fame is that she said something really stupid has a one-time spike of hits, mostly by people who are thinking "Wow, what a stupid cow!" That's exactly equivalent to a guy who gets millions of viewers every week, most of whom are thinking "Tell it like it is, Glenn!"
Can't think why that never occurred to me.
Don't forget blind hatred by Islamic jihadists
Forget Glenn Beck or the other details. The basic accusation is either someone who is an enemy of the USA has infiltrated the CIA, or someone who already worked for the CIA has turned against their country. In other words a double agent. Why is it so hard too believe that? It's not like this type of thing is unheard of.
Bawny Fwank stood up and said there was no mortgage crisis in 2005. This was in response to a republican senator questioning the state of the mortgage industry, the ARM heavy ratio of new loans, the super inflation of home prices, and the lack of regulatory oversight. It's well documented if you'd like to go do some research. While many people were complicit in causing the crisis spanning both parties it was Frank who chose to ignore all of the warning signs and forecast clear blue skys right before the fit hit the shan.
http://tjhancock.wordpress.com/housing-bubble-financial-crisis-detailed-comprehensive-assessment/
Isn't this the same freak that once was on CNN? Thought he passed on or something - wouldn't even want to listen to the opinion-only, conspiracy-theorist/liar if you paid me. Folks like this thrive on fear and falsity - hoping someone will listen or tune in.
Glenn and Rush are hopefully married on an island in Fiji somewhere
Apparently my sarcasm parser was not enabled when I read your original post.
*click*
Oh.
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
I could respond to that, but it would blow my cover....
Hey man, nice troll.
I never said that he hadn't formed friendships in the game, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an awfully weird post to put up, even with the closest of friendships involved.
Because, with my life on the line as a high ranking official in the US government, my first thought would be to contact my friends that have zero ability to help. That sounds incredibly reasonable, particularly given the connected nature of all US Ambassadors.
Realizing full well how the real world works, I would expect that message to be quickly forwardable, and readable on a phone by anyone that actually mattered who may have had a computer watching. I suppose that this is the difference of being a friend versus being someone that can think logically about the situation, but the truth still stands on its own. The fact that you give him such little credit is baffling because if his instinct was truly to contact a gaming forum, then, grimly, his instinct could have quite possibly gotten him killed. Now, to be fair (not that liberals tend to actually give both sides of an argument themselves), it's quite possible that he went through other channels first before posting said message, but that is a highly risky OPSEC breach if that's the case.
When my brother was overseas in a regularly dangerous location (both Iraq and Afghanistan), I never once caught him, nor did I catch his friends posting OPSEC-related messages to his friends. Not even when they were surrounded by a supposedly larger force, which I heard about much later.
EVE Online is not a game run by the CIA, nor is it likely that the Goons are either (though considering their early targets, one might question the altruistic leadership). That doesn't change the fact that this message, no matter how deep the friendship was, makes no sense to post. It's short. It's terrifying. And it provides no benefit to anyone unless it's being picked up by some covert office.
It's not your detector. On /. you rarely see sensible^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hconservative opinions that aren't modded into oblivion.
We are on the same page here, my friend. Mostly, anyways, and that's good enough for now.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Once again you display your ignorance of the situation. Sean Smith was hardly a "high ranking official in the US government." He was not an ambassador. He was an IT worker, one of thousands in the State Department alone, one of tens or hundreds of thousands in the government as a whole. Just one of the little people who make the world go round.
As for the rest of your points,
1) He had been in situations like this before, particularly when he was in Iraq. He had always escaped before. It's easy to underestimate the real risk posed.
2) He was in the habit of chatting with his friends from the game every day. This was not a "Hey, I'm in trouble, I think I'll go to the gaming forum" deal. This was more like "Hey, friends who I chat with every day, here's what's going on in my life."
3) It's only an OPSEC breach if he's on a classified/sensitive operation. In fact, to me this seems to be one of the strongest arguments against him being a CIA operative who was trying to use this channel to contact his supervisors. Any CIA operative who went and told random people from Eve Online that he was in a safe house in Benghazi would be an idiot who should be fired. A random IT guy who works for the embassy, not working on a classified operation, is a different matter.
4) I don't think I claimed that the Goons had altruistic leadership, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make about that. I mean, SA isn't exactly known for being the most friendly place on the internet, is it? The leaders like The Mittani are about what one might expect. I was the one who called him infamous, remember?
But I think I'm done arguing about this now. Feel free to go on living in your deluded little world.
Monday morning quarterbacks can never be wrong?
Have you seen the Republican Party lately?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Before you form a (very obviously) uninformed opinion, perhaps you should try to listed for two weeks straight.
Why don't you try to read Das Kapital for two weeks straight? It's not enough time to form a reasoned opinion, one only needs an hour or so for that. But it is enough time to warp your sense of reality.
But Das Kapital actually makes sense. At least the beginning part about capitalism: that it needs constant growth and new markets and will eventually lead to globalization. Pretty good analysis for the 1800s.
And if you gave just that excerpt to people, they certainly wouldn't guess that they're reading old Charlie Marx. Ronald Reagan perhaps, except that it is too well written.
I've read the party platform and none of those statements is in there.
In fact, it may astonish you to know, that there are a great many religious people on the left as well, many of whom also believe that stuff.
Only ~15% of the population identifies as not religious. Other than a small sliver of "Other" everyone else, ~79%, claims to be Christian. Christians, their political beliefs, and their beliefs on "bible strictness" shall we say, vary widely. No one side can claim a monopoly on any of it.
So lets get the facts straight:
-Not all GOP are Christians
-Not all Christians are GOP
-Not all atheists or other non-religious are Democrats
-Not all Democrats are non-religious
-Not all Christians believe what you said
-There are plenty of atheist GOP
-There are plenty of fundamentalist Christian democrats
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
And the GOP is unique in this?
Did you just mentally tune out when the "fascist liberals hate Bush, so they'll lie like son of a bitches EVERY TIME something happens" during the previous 8 years?
Standard political rules:
-When its your guy, he gets all the credit and none of the blame, regardless of how much of each he deserves.
-When its not, he gets none of the credit and all the blame, regardless of how much of each he deserves.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I thought I read somewhere that Glenn Beck is a rapist. That Glenn Beck raped someone back in the 1980s. Am I mistaken in remembering that Glenn beck raped someone in the 1980s? I could have sworn I read somewhere that Glenn Beck was a rapist. I don't really care for his show, and he seems to have a lot of crackpot ideas. Still, I don;t think they'd give him his own radio show if Glenn Beck was a rapist. I mean, if Glenn Beck raped someone in the 1980s, would Fox News give him a TV show? I don't believe Fox News supports rapists.
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
LOL I love how this was modded troll. Some Obama fanbois no doubt. Just because the dood thinks Obama is incompetent doesn't make it a troll. Grow up kids!
I give credit to obama for one thing and that is allowing bin laden to be killed, I do not support any other policy that I can think of that he wanted I agree with. I dont care about how he looks or blinks or that crap, policy is what matters to me, and he failed
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
right lets blame bush for that too.....
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
what the hell do you keep blabering about on all my posts? I dont give a flying fuck about how a man blinks. But continue to deflect, instead of listening to the facts.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
just the response I would expect from a sheep, Instead of listening to the words I speak, you insult. Keep up the good work there
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Actually, no. GM made a deal with the USSR to send some engineers over to help build plants to develop and build autos, but Stalin became so paranoid over outsiders in his country that most of those engineers ended up getting sent to prison as traitors/spies.
The plan itself ended up being a failure as a result and most Soviet tanks were Soviet built and designed with only TINY amounts of input by the GM engineers.
For further information, you can get this book from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Under-Red-Star-Extraordinary/dp/1400070783
Also, I'm not sure what this has to do with this topic.
Nobody cares what the CAPTCHA for your post was.
You can split hairs all you want, but none of the above is what he was "elected to do" (your words).
Breakfast served all day!
Well, there DEFINITELY is some form of coverup here, because the US HAS NO EMBASSY IN BENGAZI. The only Embassy or Consulate the US has in Libya is in Tripoli. http://libya.usembassy.gov/ The Government even stated that they knew this attack had NOTHING to do with any YouTube Video, but it was "blowback" for US Drone Strikes, and was carried out by Al-Qaeda (actually an affiliate group called Ansar al-Sharia). http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2012/09/28/abc-reports-obama-administration-knew-terrorists-carried-out-libya-at So it sounds like Beck is speaking more truth than any other news/media company. Except, of course, for Ben Swann: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nPf0waX2HI
Well, the attacks WERE caused by Obama, since he ordered the Drone Strikes in June that caused this attack. No, it had NOTHING to do with any YouTube video: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2012/09/28/abc-reports-obama-administration-knew-terrorists-carried-out-libya-at And if you believe it was in response to the YouTube video, as CNN tells you, then why do all the news companies ALSO keep saying they attacked a US EMbassy in Benghazi? THERE NEVER WAS A US EMBASSY IN BENGHAZI! Our only Consulate in all of Libya is in Tripoli: http://libya.usembassy.gov/ Now they are calling it a "US Mission" that they attacked. Translation = Safe House = CIA. Watch some REAL news: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nPf0waX2HI
Is it really unbelievable that the diplomat was a CIA agent??
It actually makes perfect sense -- look where he was stationed!
Would you not want a CIA agent over there?
In fact, it doesn't matter if he was CIA per se -- it is not unreasonable that he was gathering intelligence for the US.
In fact, it is unreasonable to think that he wasn't..
Explain the phenomenon of homosexuality in view of natural selection. Logically, homosexuals should have been naturally selected out of the gene pool a long time ago.
The rest of your "points" are just fundamentalist flamebait; they have no basis in reason.