Dick Cheney went on Fox News yesterday, and while he criticized President Obama on some issues (like Benghazi and the situation regarding the IRS excessively scrutinizing right-wing groups), he pretty much gave his consent to what the administration is doing in terms of conducting the war on terrorism.
And why wouldn't he? From what we're learning, not only has President Obama maintained all of the surveillance measures that Bush-Cheney were conducting, but he's gone even further.
Is everyone okay with this? I ask this after reading David Rohde's piece in the Atlantic Wire, where he wrote about how large our "secrecy industrial complex" has grown since 9/11, to the point where more than 4.9 Americans now have government security clearances, while another 1.4 million have "top secret" clearances.
Whether you classify Edward Snowden as a hero or a traitor, the fact that he apparently had so much access to so much classified material while working for Booz Allen Hamilton has to be a bit concerning for everyone, right? Rohde concludes that the post-9/11 inspired culture of secrecy "where terrorists lurk in every corner — is overblown."
Meanwhile Marco Rubio is feeling the heat with his conservative base as he continues his work regarding immigration reform as part of the Gang of 8. Rubio has made contradictory comments in recent weeks about the legislation, prompting ABC's Jonathan Karl to ask him straight up yesterday on This Week if hestill supports such a bill right now.
And I'm here to remind you that it was announced late Friday afternoon that Rick Scott did sign legislation that will expedite the process for prisoners on death row. The Timely Justice Act has a lot of provisions attached to it, but the impetus of it was to cut in half the time that death row inmates wait to face execution in the state (currently it's around 13.7 years. The new legislation would allegedly bring that wait down to 7 years).
This article appears in Jun 13-19, 2013.