BANG! Rachel Maddow covers the CIA debacle. Feinstein's speech.

[longship]

This is a big deal, if anybody else picks it up. A very big deal.

After reporting on Feinstein's speech, she lays out the particulars, as far as we know it. Then, she summed it all up with this:

Our country must sometimes act in secret. At least, arguably our country must sometimes act in secret. We must, for example, at least have a spy service to spy. But the only way we can have a secret government and still remain a democracy is if there is some part of our government that is allowed to oversee what the secret agencies do. If those agencies use their clandestine tactics against the government, that's the sort of thing that's an instant forfeit. That's the kind of thing that undermines the whole justification for any part of our government to have any kind of power of secret action. What Dianne Feinstein alleged on the floor of the Senate today is a huge, Constitution-sized deal for our country.

She followed it with a short clip of CIA Director John Brennan -- stumbling and stammering away -- and an interview with Senator Mark Udall (D-CO).

Bam!!

I hope somebody posts the video clip. All I have is the audio.

[rocktivity]

1. Here's the link to Rachel's video at MSNBC.com

Last edited Wed Mar 12, 2014, 02:03 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/cia-accused-of-meddling-in-senate-oversight-192226371688


rocktivity

[longship]

2. Tanks, Rock! nt.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Hold it, it is California news

it should not even rise to national news!!!!



(long story)

The term constitutional crisis crossed a set of lips tonight over the tv machine.

[longship]

5. I remember the only time in my life I ever heard those words, "Constitutional crisis".

They were said by NBC anchor John Chancellor on October 20, 1973, the Saturday Night Massacre, when Richard Nixon threw the country into just a crisis with the resignation of the Attorney General, the firing of the deputy Attorney General, the firing of the Watergate Special Prosecutor, and seizing of the Special Prosecutor's office by the FBI.

This another of those moments. If the news media picks it up.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Today Richard Wolf said those words.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Here

http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word

First vid

[grasswire]

8. who used those words? nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Richard Wolf

Tape should be online by now.

http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word

[Little_Wing]

4. She was in full-on Rachel mode tonight

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

[grasswire]

7. a Constitutional crisis

I've been saying that for days now. The CIA opened a criminal investigation on Democratic congressional staffers who (CIA *says*) removed a document from the secret viewing room where evidence for the report on torture was held. Then the CIA spied on congressional computers.

CIA (executive branch) attacking Democratic congress (legislative branch) in order to stymie oversight.

That's a crisis.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. We've ad a series of them, starting in 2000

of course in my ignorant view.

I hope this time...

[longship]

12. Yup. See my response up thread.

This puts two branches of the government against each other, with checks and balances in the... balance.

Pretty much the definition of a constitutional crisis.

Obama had better do something here, or Dems will be toast.

[TreasonousBastard]

13. I kinda preferred listening to...

NPR earlier when they had two actual constitutional lawyers discussing whether or not it was a constitutional crisis. Rachel is more editorializing than reporting.

But, editorializing and opinions are OK if we agree with them. Right?

BTW, separation of powers is an important thing, but another big point is that the CIA doing any domestic spying is highly illegal. No wonder they are waffling.

(And how then, do you excuse FBI investigations of Congress? Is that not also a separation of powers issue?)

[longship]

14. I concur with you.

But to see DiFi in action on this makes me think that maybe she's had a road to Damascus transformation. She's pissed. We'll see about that. Actions speak louder than words.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Call me cynical

I really am when it comes to pols. She's pissed cause they are spying on her, ON HER!!!!

Told you I was jaded.

I guess watching these asshats in action regularly....don't get me wrong, there are a few professionals in the business who care (and one is a conservative no less) but I have yet to run out of fingers on one hand.

[HooptieWagon]

28. Agreed. DiFi was fine with CIA/NSA spying on the little people.

Hell, she is probably profiting from it.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

15. I have to agree...

All the sturm and drang about the NSA is bullcrap; they're just doing their job, according to congress, and overseen by courts.
This CIA stuff is real.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[longship]

18. "All the sturm and drang about the NSA is bullcrap"

Unless one takes their charter seriously; that they are not allowed by law to operate within the USA. But if you ignore that, yup, you might characterize it as mere sturm und drang.

I don't like any of it. It's all part of the same constitutional crisis we've willingly put ourselves in since 9/11.

I like Bruce Schneier's words, security theater. It does nothing to make you more secure, but some people feel better about it. That's what this is all about.

[grasswire]

19. I'm not convinced that Democratic staffers removed any document...

.....from the secret room. How would they dare to do that?

I find it more likely that the CIA is lying about that, in order to gum up the release of the torture report.

[longship]

20. Well, it's been fairly attested to by those concerned.

Enough that the CIA counsel is attempting to press criminal charges.

So there's that.

I think your argument from personal incredulity is busted.

But we'll know soon enough. The US Senate isn't going to drop this one.

[grasswire]

22. the staffers have admitted doing so?

Or do we just have the CIA blustering about it?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

26. Please, longship, provide references...

For the idea that &quot the NSA) are not allowed by law to operate within the USA". I'm pretty sure they not only operate here, they have all their major offices here.

But any actually concrete reference would be welcome.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[bemildred]

27. "security theater", yep, that's it.

A phrase to go with "theatrical micro-militarism", the endless string of dirty, pointless little wars we keep getting into at such great expense. You have to have a something to justify the budget. Policing the planet whether it wants it or not fills the bill. All for noble ends, of course.

And there is an element of naive technophilia at the root of it too, we keep trying to find another club on the order of nuclear weapons to get our "deterrence" back. But that doesn't happen as frequently as they seem to think, and it takes a guy on the order of Einstein to make it happen, and guys on the order of Einstein don't usually think that way. They are too smart to buy into binary good guys and bad guys thinking. Hitler convinced him. So we keep hearing about Hitler.

[Hekate]

17. Kick for Rachel and NPR being on this

Too awful for words

[DeSwiss]

21. Nothing. Will. Ever. Come. Of. This. PERIOD.

- It hasn't so far because we're silly enough to think that a corrupt institution can ''fix'' itself.

K&R

[maced666]

23. LOL - happening to you, NOW you are outraged....

While you are SO angered, how about looking into Snowden's proof of the PUBLIC being spied on?!

[maced666]

24. "the NSA's mass collection of Americans' phone records is useful and necessary to protect the nation

- Sen. Diane Feinstein
"It's called protecting America," Feinstein said in June
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/28/dianne-feinstein-nsa-spying_n_4171473.html

Well well well, guess it is okay when we are spied upon - but not YOU.
Typical.

[Babel_17]

25. Youtube video