Tag Archives: surveillance

NSA Surveillance: Insulting Our Intelligence?

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Michael Corleone warned his brother-in-law not to insult his intelligence. Does the government insult ours when it defends its snooping activities? [Credit: Rotten Tomatoes]

Michael Cor­leone warned his broth­er-in-law not to insult his intel­li­gence. Does the gov­ern­ment insult ours when it defends its snoop­ing activ­i­ties? [Cred­it: Rot­ten Tomatoes]

“Improp­er pay­ments” by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment totaled an esti­mat­ed $115.3 bil­lion in 2011, accord­ing to a report pre­pared by the Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get (OMB), but the government’s own watch­dog agency doesn’t believe those esti­mates.  The Gov­ern­ment Account­abil­i­ty Office (GAO), which exam­ined the OMB analy­sis, thinks the num­ber of mis­spent fed­er­al dol­lars is much high­er. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Presidents, Reality TV and Technical Truth-Telling

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People say the darndest things when "Cheaters" host Joey Greco catches them in compromising positions. Presidents, too, sometimes find themselves on the defensive. When they do, we should think carefully about what they're saying.

Peo­ple say the darn­d­est things when “Cheaters” host Joey Gre­co catch­es them in com­pro­mis­ing posi­tions. Pres­i­dents, too, some­times find them­selves on the defen­sive. When they do, we should think care­ful­ly about what they’re saying.

Admit it. You enjoyed the eight-year real­i­ty show that was the Clin­ton White House as much as I did. Before there was “Cheaters,” there was the Pres­i­dent lyin’ and denyin.’ Before there was a “Real House­wives” fran­chise, there were rumors of the First Lady throw­ing a lamp (or was it a Bible?) at her hus­band (or was it a Secret Ser­vice agent)?  Before we were Keep­ing Up with the Kar­dashi­ans, we were delight­ing to gos­sip about the First Fam­i­ly of Dys­func­tion. The sto­ries didn’t have to be true, only believ­able. And they almost always were.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →