in charge of everything, but knows nothing

Dear Laissez Faire Today Reader,

First there was Eric Holder. He told you Obama didn’t know anything about the Fast and Furious gun scandal in the Southwest and Mexico.

Then there was the IRS targeting groups for their political beliefs and affiliations. The president didn’t know about that either.

And of course, there’s Kathleen Sebelius. She assured you the commander in chief had no idea about the problems with HealthCare.gov until days after it launched.

You know, for someone who’s supposed to be the most powerful man in America, Obama doesn’t seem to know what’s happening in his own country. That’s pretty surprising coming from someone who tries so hard to micromanage as much as he can from the Oval Office.

Now it’s the National Security Agency’s turn to cover the president’s ass.

Last week, reports came out that the United States had tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s smartphone. The White House quickly reached out to the chancellor, assuring her that they were no longer listening in on her phone calls. President Obama even said that he wasn’t aware that she was being monitored.

But when a report came out saying that the NSA briefed the president about the operation three years ago, the agency’s spokeswoman quickly came out to debunk that claim. Considering how the administration likes to spin any answer they give to include parts of the truth muddled with information, we don’t buy it.

And it’s even harder to believe now that another report claims that the United States has been monitoring Merkel’s phone since 2002.

President Obama has found himself in another pickle. In an attempt to shield himself from the full brunt of these various scandals, he’s letting people surrounding him take the bullets for him. But every time he does that, he paints himself as someone who doesn’t know what’s going on in the organization that he’s running.

So he’s damned if he does know, and damned if he doesn’t. Which is nice because it’s pretty much the same situation the rest of the country is in, too.

It’s a tough spot for the president… especially when his own employees are beginning to turn on him. As you’ll see in today’s article by impartial, intergalactic reporter Prr Lzkdrqxcwm, the people the president trust most to protect the nation aren’t doing the best job protecting his image. Keep reading to see his unique take on the matter.

From the Tongue-In-Cheek Department of Laissez Faire Books

Apparently, American Spying on American Allies Is Bad

Prr Lzkdrqxcwm

Washington, D.C. –– Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, announced that her committee will hold a “major review into all intelligence-collection programs.” This surprising declaration followed the revelation, through documents leaked by government whistle-blower Edward Snowden, that the NSA has been listening to the phone conversations of friendly foreign rulers, in particular Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Sen. Feinstein is a well-known defender of the NSA’s spying on American citizens. She claims that that type of spying is OK because it is approved by a secret court and subject to strong congressional oversight, also secret because nobody has seen it. But “with respect to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of U.S. allies,” she declared, “let me state univocally: I am totally opposed.”

Apparently, Sen. Feinstein thinks it’s normal for “our intelligence community” to spy on “our citizens,” but that foreign rulers should be better treated. A proponent of more gun control, she also believes that all rulers, foreign and domestic, have the right to be protected by guns unavailable to ordinary citizens. She calls that “progressive.”

Documents leaked by Snowden confirmed how the NSA works. The agency secretly asks a secret court for secret permissions which are then labeled “secret orders.” Sometimes, the agency violates these secret permissions, claiming that it does not understand its own programs. Some American extremists concluded that the federal government is too big to manage, but Sen. Feinstein disagrees.

President Barack Obama was also very annoyed by the spying on Ms. Merkel. He reportedly said, “She could be my daughter.” He did unquestionably declare to a TV network was that “the national security operations, generally, have one purpose and that is to make sure the American people are safe and that I’m making good decisions.” Nobody asked him what other purposes national security operations occasionally have.

There was some confusion as to whether the president was or wasn’t aware that friendly foreign rulers like Ms. Merkel were being spied upon. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggested that the White House knew, adding, “I have to say that that does not extend down to the level of detail. We’re talking about a huge enterprise here.”

This huge enterprise of spying on everybody is apparently too big to manage.
In the meantime, the government still considers Edward Snowden, the man responsible for this “healthy democratic debate”, a traitor. As one disgruntled Twitter user tweeted, “Debates are good, provided that they deal only with permitted topics and government approved information.” The author of the tweet apparently did not realize that a powerful state is not a problem. That is as long as he only does things that are deemed “good” by the government, an essential feature of the American democracy.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has his own clever solution taken straight from the cradle of English liberty: Ban newspapers from publishing leaked information.

The report of Feinstein’s Senate committee is expected to be secret, and your correspondent is not sure he can even mention this. Some Americans go as far as arguing that the Senate should always meet in secret so the people don’t learn what the government doesn’t want them to know.

A confidential source in the office of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claims he heard the senator say, “God bless America, it’s not the Soviet Union here.”

Prr Lzkdrqxcwm, correspondent of the Martian

[Ed. Note: Foreign leaders aren’t the only ones caught in the NSA’s surveillance web. Reports are coming out now that Pope Francis was being watched by the Government snoops during the papal conclave earlier this year. Apparently, trying to figure out the next leader of the Catholic Church is just as important as keeping tabs on Germany’s Chancellor.

Again, we have to ask the question, if the government has no problem spying on heads of state as well as the Pope, do you think they have any concerns about your privacy?

Before we suggested that you make yourself invisible to the government’s spying programs. But now you need to take it even further. Now you have to make more than just your online identity invisible.

It’s time to reclaim your freedom and detach yourself from the problems of this government. Declaring your independence now could save you thousands in the future. From health care costs, to your retirement. It’s a unique opportunity. But are you willing to take it? Click here to find out more.]