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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDirty Wars author Jeremy Scahill: is journalism being criminalised? – video interview
http://m.guardiannews.com/commentisfree/video/2013/jun/25/dirty-wars-jeremy-scahill-video-interviewJI7
(89,252 posts)struggle4progress
(118,295 posts)MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)Say it ain't so!
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)He's been struggling for so long.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)was bred for it in a laboratory somewhere, probably.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)I would say that about a third of Rand Pauls filibuster was sane and some of the best information thats been put on the public record, and then the other two-thirds was this kind of bizarre Tea Party carnival where it was almost like a burlesque show or something.
They roll onto the floor of the Senate and it was like a hodgepodge of every crazy conspiracy theory that they have about President Obama how he wants to come after the Tea Party zine editor in a café in Montana, and theyre going to drone-bomb this person from the Tea Party.
I think it was a sort of two-edged sword. On the one hand Im glad that Rand Paul did that, and he tried to hold up the nomination of Brennan on these very serious issues. On the other hand, I think it diminished the seriousness of the issue, because quite frankly, I think Rand Paul has utterly reprehensible views on so many things.
We could spend hours talking about some of the despicable positions of Rand Paul and other people within the Tea Party. On this issue, I do think that he was being sincere in wanting to raise issues about it, but then he flips his position on it a couple weeks later and talks about drone-bombing someone who robbed a liquor store.
So thats unfortunate. If someone like if we had a credible Democratic senator, someone like Dick Durbin out of Illinois, who said, You know what? Im a major supporter of this president, but this has gone too far and I want to hold serious hearings of this to see is our national security being degraded by our pursuit of a small group of terrorists and our killing of a larger group of civilians? What are the actual national security implications of that?
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/investigative-journalist-jeremy-scahill/
Savannahmann
(3,891 posts)First, let me say that Rand is a nut. I agree with you that he raised serious questions on the Drone Strike programs, and I agree it's sad he is about the only one doing so.
However, if you told me that I had to speak for hours on end nonstop, I could probably fill and hour, or two, with well conceived and well expressed opinions based in logic and common constitutional sense. After that, I would be floundering, any of us would be. The strain of standing and talking would get to you, and the strain of perpetually making sure you spoke logically and reasonably would almost be too much for any of us.
So I can forgive him for that, which is another reason I didn't watch it live. I figured 90% of it would be repetitive filler, and I had other things to do.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...and this is no exception.
K&R