Friends, Romans, Countrymen- Lend me your ears. I come to bury Casear, not to praise him.

Monday Barack Obama placed an OpEd in the Washington Post (Pravda, meaning "Truth" and the Party organ of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as opposed to Izvestia, meaning "News", the Official, State Sanctioned, Public Record- that would be The New York Times) praising the virtues of the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Edward Snowden (yes, that one) has an interesting piece up over at The Intercept on the moral and ethical difference between leaking for personal benefit (yes, that is bad and deserving of punishment) and whistleblowing to expose corruption and abuse (yes, that is good and should not be punished).

I think an important consideration besides qui bono is also the power relationship of the discloser (to use a neutral term) to the establishment status quo and whether the disclosure is perceived as advancing the establishment's objectives or sabotaging them.

Take for example the Greenpeace exposure (also a nice neutral term) of TTIP proposals yesterday. One could argue that Greenpeace is powerful, but not very in relationship to sovereign governments and certainly the individual members are not very powerful at all. Then there is the fact that public knowledge reveals policies that most people would not support. In Germany TTIP polls only 15% favorable and I'd predict that number would fall except that most of that 15% (which is pretty rock bottom but not as bad as United States citizens is about their Congress) have a vested interest (personal benefit) from its passage.

Have no doubts about it, if Germany doesn't approve TTIP it won't happen.

Anyway here are some excerpts to think about.

In a potentially fatal blow to Investor State Dispute Settlement 3 cases have recently become prominent. The first is a Chevron suit against Ecuador-

Perhaps you think Big Agriculture's influence over Congress and the Executive is limited to Monsanto and other Monopolist Mega-Corporations? Well companies like that have their own lobbying budget, but many Agri-Businesses are also members of mandatory marketing, public relations, and yes, lobbying groups.

In the sense that these ever had a purpose it was to promote family farmers, a breed that barely exists anymore, in the same way that a union in a closed shop does- since all the workers benefit from union representation all must pay dues.

In Big Ag this is called the 'Checkoff System'.

One of the most frustrating policies of the Democratic Party in general and the Obama Administration in particular is the United States' continued involvement in War Crimes.

War Crimes?!

Well, yes actually. The kind which we executed scores of Germans and Japanese for after the Second World War. You know, the good one where we saved the world from fascism? Surely they mentioned something about it in school, it was in all the books.

Whaaa...? Could it be that a CIA Operative is actually going to Prison for "Extraordinary Rendition"?

Sabrina De Sousa is one of 26 CIA employees convicted in absensia of kidnapping Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, aka Abu Omar off the streets of Milan, "The cleric was flown to Egypt, where he was beaten and subjected to electric shock but eventually released."

Recently Bernie Sanders has been accused of not having a plan for breaking up "Too Big To Fail" financial institutions.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Bernie has a plan. A complete plan. Part of it requires action under the existing Dodd-Frank legislation, the other part is laid out in detail in a pending bill he is sponsoring.

Anything else is a gross distortion.

Juan González: Clinton Has "Really Distorted" What Happened When NY Daily News Interviewed Sanders

Time Magazine Front Covers this ignorant screed from James Grant, noted Inflation Hawk and Gold Bug, that contends that at $42,998.12 per person the United States National Debt is insupportable and a grave threat to our economy.

As everyone should know, the only problem with a National Debt of any amount is not it's sheer magnitude, but the relationship of its size to the National Economy. Not that household metaphors are appropriate (and they really aren't), nobody would think twice about signing a mortgage that represented 3 - 5 years of total income payable in installments over 30 years. How many people do you know that are pulling down $100K annually who don't live in $300K+ houses?

In fact the only negative effect from a debt that is too large is that people (lenders) are less willing to give you loans and charge you more money (interest) to offset the risk that you will default and refuse to pay them back anything at all. A side effect is that higher interest rates can fuel inflation because it raises the cost of capital (which is also measured in interest).

So what do we see?

As Larry Wilmore says frequently about Bill Cosby, I haven't forgotten.

The United States tortures. It has tortured non-combatants and innocents without scruple or a break (yeah, that means YOU Mr. Obama) since at least 9/11. The reason that the remaining Guantanamo detainees can not be released from indefinite detention, a lifetime behind barbed wire without a warrant or trial, is because they have been tortured and will testify to it under oath in a real Court of Law and not some Kangaroo Star Chamber Secret Military Tribunal which expressly forbids that testimony. In a real Court statements extracted by torture are no evidence at all, except against the Torturers who in my opinion should rot in Spandau for the rest of their lives in the cells that used to hold Nazis.

At least by body count, Henry Kissinger is the United States' biggest living War Criminal, fully comparable to Hitler and Stalin.