Who is the true patriot, Hillary Clinton or Edward Snowden? The question comes up because Clinton has gone all out in attacking Snowden as a means of burnishing her hawkish credentials, eliciting Glenn Greenwald’s comment that she is “like a neocon, practically.”

On Friday in England, Clinton boasted that two years ago she had favored a proposal by a top British General to train 100,000 “moderate” rebels to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria, but Obama had turned her down. The American Thatcher? In that same interview with the Guardian she also managed to get in yet another shot against Snowden for taking refuge in Russia “apparently under Putin’s protection,” unless, she taunted, “he wishes to return knowing he would be held accountable.”

Accountable for telling the truth that Clinton concealed during her tenure as secretary of state in the Obama administration? Did she approve of the systematic spying on the American people as well as of others around the world, including the leaders of Germany and Brazil, or did she first learn of all this from the Snowden revelations?

Amazon says its remote-control drones can fly 50 miles an hour and carry a five-pound package. It promises the system will deliver packages in 30 minutes or less. In December, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told CBS News that tiny octo-copters could be delivering packages for Amazon within four or five years.

Federal rules now under review don’t allow the commercial use of drones. Amazon has hired lobbyists to try to change that. Congress has instructed the FAA to integrate drones into the nation’s airspace by September 2015.

The FAA approved the nation’s first overland use of commercial drones in June to fly over oil fields on Alaska’s remote north slope, where privacy and safety concerns are small. And last fall, the FAA allowed drones to fly over oil exploration areas in the Arctic Ocean.

Amazon did not respond to KUOW’s requests for an interview. The company’s lobbying efforts were revealed in a legally required disclosure form filed in June with the U.S. Congress.

One of the largest oil companies in the world has been forced in court to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about one of the key environmental impacts of developing oil shale in the arid West. Namely, it will consume an enormous amount of water in a region where drought and climate change are already stressing available water supplies.

Chevron USA, in legal filings in a case brought by the conservation group Western Resource Advocates, has admitted that to meet a goal of developing a half million barrels of oil from sedimentary rock in northwest Colorado it would need 120,000 acre feet of water a year. That’s enough to meet the needs of 1 million people per year.

Chevron and Western Resource Advocates reached a settlement agreement and filed it last week with the Colorado water court. Under the agreement Chevron is allowed to keep its water rights for six years and then must go back to court to keep them beyond that period. It also agreed to provide Western Resource Advocates with five documents that detail how much water it would need for oil shale development and how the water would be used.

That’s how the truth came out. “This legal case puts to bed the argument of whether current oil shale plans will use large quantities of water,” said David Abelson, a policy advisor to Western Resource Advocates. “Now the debate for decision makers is whether allowing oil shale development to use enormous quantities of water in a strained Colorado River Basin is acceptable.”

"It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder. And if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed, it won't be U.S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the Senate." And also, "I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."
http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/five-idealistic-quotes-from-george-mcgovern

"On Friday in England, Clinton boasted that two years ago she had favored a proposal by a top British General to train 100,000 “moderate” rebels to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria, but Obama had turned her down. The American Thatcher?" http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hillary_clinton_flaunts_her_surveillance_state_baggage_20140707

Hillary Clinton has begun distancing herself from President Barack Obama, suggesting that she would do more to woo Republicans and take a more assertive stance toward global crises, while sounding more downbeat than her former boss about the U.S. economic recovery.

In another contrast, Mrs. Clinton has said U.S. presidents must never stop courting Congress. Mr. Obama has questioned whether such efforts make any difference. Mrs. Clinton expressed skepticism of candidates with "beautiful vision," while Mr. Obama still hammers on his 2008 campaign mantra: "Hope." "I mean, some people can paint a beautiful vision," she said at a CNN event last month. "And, thankfully, we can all learn from that. But then, can you, with the tenacity, the persistence, the getting-knocked down/getting-back-up resilience, can you lead us there?"

As she mulls a presidential bid, Mrs. Clinton also has suggested that her husband's administration offers a more viable model for governing in polarized times than Mr. Obama's.
Partisanship in the 1990s was as grave as it is today, she suggested at the Colorado event. Nevertheless, Mr. Clinton made inroads with hostile Republican lawmakers, Mrs. Clinton said.

"My husband had some really serious problems with the Congress when he was in office," she said. "They shut down the government twice. They impeached him once. So it was not the most pleasant of atmospheres. But I will say this: Bill never stopped reaching out to them."
Building those relationships on Capitol Hill "is something there is no rest from," she added.

That "Holy Cow" moment came on Tuesday -- when a House of Representatives controlled by the governor's own party -- voted to send Corbett's favored pension proposal to the House Human Services Committee, chaired by Rep. Gene DiGirolamo, R-Bucks. The suburban Philly Republican has opposed Corbett on most everything, but notably on Medicaid expansion and a controversial county human services block grant program.

It was the functional equivalent of strapping the bill to a rocket and shooting it directly into a black hole. It will never escape. And you could practically hear the peals of Democratic laughter when it happened.

"It was pretty spectacular — what happened," Rep. Patty Kim, D-Dauphin, said in an interview just outside the House chamber on a long, slow Tuesday afternoon. "The bill was 100 pages. It wasn't fully vetted. I applaud Gene DiGirolamo for having it recommitted to his committee."

Then, with some relish, Kim added, "If I know [DiGirolamo], he loves hearings," she said, foreshadowing the long, slow death of the hybrid plan authored by Rep. Mike Tobash, R-Schuylkill, that would have allowed existing state employees to stay in the current pension program and shifted new hires into a 401(k)-style retirement program. And when it came to Corbett, events Tuesday were "a real black eye for [him]," Kim said. "He got into the boxing ring ... and he got hit. It's kind of sad