I’ve been citing bits of this interview between James Clapper and Andrea Mitchell here and there, but the whole thing needs to be read to be believed.

But the quick version is this. Mitchell asks Clapper whether “trust us” is enough, given that some future President or Director of National Intelligence might decide to abuse all the programs in question. Clapper responds by celebrating our constitutional system’s checks and balances.

ANDREA MITCHELL:

The president and you and the others in this top-secret world, are saying, “Trust us. We have your best interests, we’re not invading your privacy, we’re going after bad guys. We’re not going after your personal lives.” What happens when you’re gone, when this president or others in our government are gone? There could be another White House that breaks the law.

There could be another D.N.I. who does really bad things– we listened during the Watergate years to those tapes. With the President of the United States saying, “Fire bomb the Brookings Institution.” You know, what do you say to the American people about the next regime who has all of these secrets? Do they– do they live forever somewhere in a computer?

JAMES CLAPPER:

No, they don’t live forever. That’s a valid concern, I think. You know, people come and go, presidents come and go, administrations come and go, D.N.I.’s will come and go. But what is, I think– important about our system is our system of laws, our checks and balances.

You know, the– I think the founding fathers would actually be pretty impressed with how– what they wrote and the organizing principles for this country are still valid and are still used even in you– to– to regulate a technology then, they never foresaw. So that’s timeless. That– those are part of our institutions. Are there people that will abuse those institutions? Yes. But we have a system that sooner or later, mostly sooner these days, those misdeeds are found out. [my emphasis]

But when, earlier in the interview, Mitchell asks him about his lie to Ron Wyden, here’s how he answered.

ANDREA MITCHELL:

Senator Wyden made quite a lot out of your exchange with him last March during the hearings. Can you explain what you meant when you said that there was not data collection on millions of Americans?

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In my last installment of the Great Takeover of Chicago Schools, I took some heat for blaming Rahm Emanuel for his part in the school closure debacle. Commenters claimed Rahm had nothing whatsoever to do with the CPS, that it was independent and the mayor wasn't involved at all.

They were wrong.

The video has footage of a paid protester at one of the school closure hearings, who isn't exactly sure what he's protesting, but he's definitely convinced the pay is worth the effort, evidently. Kenzo Shibata at Huffington Post explains who paid him:

The video also features a man admitting to being paid to protest at the 2012 Crane School closing hearing. The Chicago Tribune reported last February that Rahm Emanuel's associate Greg Goldner's firm Resolute Consulting, a firm that worked on Mayor Rahm Emanuel's 2002 Congressional bid, allegedly paid people to protest at these hearings. The paid protesters largely blamed Chicago Teachers Union for problems in Chicago's schools.

There's more, and the partnerships are confusing and ugly.

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The Political Carnival: Virginia Governor Bob “Ultrasound” McDonnell is facing a probe of his own.

Paul Bilbeau: Among the potential abuses of NSA data collection, imagine a future Committee to Re-elect the President.

This is Ashok: Niall Ferguson returns to serve up another heaping pile of derp.

Politics USA: S&P raises U.S. outlook while warning GOP not to destroy the American economy with more debt ceiling hostage-taking.

Speaking of which, your quote of the day: ”That would be a financial disaster, not only for our country but for the worldwide economy.” (House Speaker John Boehner, on the impact of failing to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, January 30, 2011.)

Guest blogging Mike's Blog Round Up this week is Jon Perr from Perrspectives. Send your tips, recommendations, comments and angst to mbru AT crooksandliars DOT com.

Members of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra sure do know how to deal with a flight delay. h/t Susan Madrak.

Open thread below...

Meet Chad Connelly, former director of the South Carolina Republican Party. Before he was a full time political boss, he was a sales director for Amway. What do Republicans do with state directors who are under fire from disgruntled tea party members? They promote them, of course!

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has just announced the hiring of a Tea Party Southern Baptist to strengthen its ties with the Evangelical community, Chad Connelly. Connelly, 49, is a motivational speaker and until his resignation to work for the RNC, was the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. The Southern Baptists (SBC) are perhaps among the most anti-gay of all Christian sects, and represent about 16 million Americans, the second-largest group of Christians in the U.S. after Roman Catholics.

Connelly, who has been described by a local South Carolina paper as “a chronic liar,” and reportedly believes America is a Christian nation, there is no separation of church and state, and somehow only one person died on the Mayflower — “a sailor who cursed and mocked the Pilgrims’ efforts” — will be the RNC’s director of evangelical outreach.

Here's the problem, as David Badash notes. Republicans don't have a problem with Southern Baptists. Southern Baptists love Republicans. The 2012 postmortem of the election indicated that the GOP should do everything it could to connect with Latinos:

The RNC’s 2012 “autopsy,” a report meant by RNC chair Reince Priebus to be a blueprint to get the GOP on track, recommends the “RNC should consider hiring a faith-based outreach director to focus on engaging faith-based organizations and communities with the Republican Party.”

All other references to “faith” in the report focus on the Hispanic community:

“The RNC must improve how it markets its core principles and message in Hispanic communities (especially in Hispanic faith-based communities).”

“Engage the Hispanic faith-based community in our efforts.”

Based on that, and the College Republicans' report last week warning the party about their attitudes on gay rights, a conservative Southern Baptist guy who hates gays and promises to recruit even more Southern Baptists while ignoring the Latino community should be exactly what the RNC needs to succeed, don't you think?

CNN Sr. Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin says NSA leaker is 'in enormous trouble' That's the CNN headline from this morning, but it doesn't say enough about how NSA leaker Edward Snowden is starting to be characterized in the media. Like Jullian Assange before him, Snowden is being smeared quickly by the establishment media as being unpredictable, uneducated and bizarre for going to Hong Kong to avoid being arrested.

Toobin: And I think Snowden's bizarre ideology makes it even more bizarre. I mean here's someone who's supposedly concerned about free speech and transparency and goes to a place that's under control of one of the most oppressive in the world. So I don't think we're looking at a coherent ideology here, where someone he's upset, he doesn't like government policy, but we don't usually let 29 year old high school drop outs decide what our policy is.

Why does Toobin consider it a bizarre ideology to believe that the NSA program has overreached into a massive privacy issue and wanting the American people to know what's going on behind their backs? I'm no fan of Libertarians, as you know - or Ron Paul, but that doesn't make this any less a legitimate story. And he's not trying to decide policy, but only informing the public on what is being done without their knowledge. And I doubt if he was such a moron (high school dropout) if the CIA and Booz Allen hired him in the first place.

This is the first step in undermining his credibility and it won't be the last. At least Jeffrey doesn't believe Glenn Greenwald should be prosecuted. I mean, what could he be prosecuted for, reporting? I didn't see the clip where Toobin calls him a 'clown,' but Jonathan Turley did.

Jonathan Turley:

Edward Snowden, 29, is now a hunted man. The media this morning has moved from the shock over the massive surveillance of citizens to attacking Snowden as a leaker. Indeed, this morning, CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst Jeff Toobin denounced Snowden as a “clown” and someone who should be denounced. Toobin and I have been disagreeing a great deal lately. While I respect Jeff Toobin, I was surprised last week when he defended aspects of the investigation of journalists and later the massive surveillance programs. However, I was taken aback by the attack on Snowden.

There certainly is a basis for criminal investigation — a point no one denies. He will have to answer for any violation of his clearance agreement and national security laws. However, it is the tenor and shift of the comments this morning that so surprised me. Rather than continue the debate of the loss of privacy, political and media figures are focusing on Snowden rather than the programs. You can disagree with his methods just as you can disagree with Julian Assange. However, there is an obvious effort to (like Assange) make him look unbalanced and dangerous.

The story appears more complex. This is a man who gave up a $200,000-a-year job and his likely freedom to reveal something that he felt the public should know about in the interest of privacy. You can disagree with his method, but few of his critics would even consider such a sacrifice for principle. Yet, the coverage this morning is largely on how to catch him and punish him. Over the weekend, the White House said it would find the person responsible and punish him. Snowden then self-disclosed his identity.

Clapper has made this a criminal investigation now so Snowden does face arrest. Let's hope Greenwald isn't being made to face prosecution himself as a warning to other reporters.

Ben Shapiro once compared the Affordable Care Act to slavery, which should've disqualified him from commenting on politics forever. Here, he's deploying the new favorite wingnut tactic of comparing the Bush administration's illegal torture with drone strikes and surveillance.

This isn't about what's "good" and "bad." It's about the law. And what's different about waterboarding is that it's illegal. Period. Full stop. There's absolutely no ambiguity about that, as a a bipartisan review concluded.

Whatever one thinks about the Obama administration's drone strikes and data mining programs, they've been conducted under the framework of the current laws. To be sure, those laws arguably need updating.

But if they're as unambiguously illegal as waterboarding, as Ben claims they are, let's see the Republicans try to impeach Obama over either.

We're waiting, Ben.

And so the dance continues. We are already seeing media bobbleheads reading their scripts, not even going near the actual issues as we debate the constitutionality of a massive fishing expedition. Here's Greenwald on Morning Joe, via Raw Story:

Appearing on MSNBC Monday morning, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald smacked down “White House talking points” he said were being repurposed by “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, saying the National Security Agency’s spying programs are flatly unconstitutional and that her defense of them was misleading.

“Quickly, I just want an answer yes or no,” Brzezinski began. “Isn’t it the case that reviewing of emails or any wiretapping cannot take place without an additional warrant from a judge and a review? It’s not like there’s haphazard probing into all of our personal emails. Can we put this into context so we understand exactly what’s going on?”

Greenwald didn’t even hesitate, blowing past Mika’s request for a one-word response.

“Yeah, I’ll put it into context for you: the White House talking points that you’re using are completely misleading and false. The whole point of what the Bush administration did when it disregarded and violated the FISA law, and then when Congress on a bipartisan basis enacted a new surveillance law in 2008 was to enable the NSA to read emails between people in the United States and people outside of the United States without having to first go to a FISA court and get a warrant. The only time individual warrants are needed is when two people are both within the United States and are both American citizens.”

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Former Sen. Russ Feingold was blunt in his assessment of the Obama administration's just-revealed intelligence gathering program: "I believe it's illegal":

Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001. (Brendan Hoffman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)After the Guardian revealed that the National Security Agency seized millions of Verizon customers' phone records through a secret court order, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), one of the authors of the legislation that opened the door to this practice, said he was stunned.

"I do not believe the released FISA order is consistent with the requirements of the Patriot Act," Sensenbrenner wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. "How could the phone records of so many innocent Americans be relevant to an authorized investigation as required by the Act?"

But this sort of data collection -- along with what the NSA is doing through itsPRISM program -- is exactly what then-Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) warned about when he was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001.

From his speech:

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(SPOILER ALERT: I will be recapping this episode so don't read on if you haven't seen it yet.)

And so season three comes to an end. It's been an amazing season of Game of Thrones and "Mysha," the tenth and final episode, wraps up plots of old and sets new courses for those vying for the Iron Throne as they pick up the pieces after the Red Wedding.

The Twins

Arya and Sandor Clegane are riding away from the carnage of the Red Wedding massacre when they see a body with a wolf's head attached to it on a horse and the soldiers all around it are yelling, "It's the 'King of the North!'" Robb Stark's body is mounted on that horse and Arya is crushed by this gruesome display of yet another family member being beheaded. Even The Hound was affected by the carnage and he whisks her away.

Later they come upon four soldiers telling stories about the wedding and how they were the ones to mount the wolf head on Robb's body when Arya coldly walks up to them and asks for food because she's hungry. They tell her to f*&k off, but she says she has money and drops the coin that Jaqen H'ghar gave her on the ground. As they look at the unusual currency, Arya takes out a knife and calmly and repeatedly stabs the man who bragged the most until he's a bloody corpse. Clegane then takes care of the other man and asks if this was the first man she killed. She replies with a simple "The first man...." She has a very big hit list.

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