If Russia Wants Snowden, Let Russia Keep Snowden

edward-snowden

Russia has decided to keep Edward Snowden within their borders, for at least a year. Tiny President (Napoleon complex) Vladimir Putin, because Putin IS Russia, nobody else matters, will use that time to decide whether to confer permanent political asylum on Snowden, the youngish fugitive from three rather serious U.S. charges. Snowden will get at least 365 days of room and board somewhere in the motherland. Ed; a tip: politic for St. Petersburg. My son spent some wonderful time there as an exchange student not too long ago. The rest of Russia? You like freezing your ass off? That’s a given so you might as well do it in one of the more fascinating cities in the world.

National Security Agency (NSA) snitch (as in spilling classified info), Snowden, 30, half Putin’s age, was born in North Carolina and raised in Maryland. By any objective measure, Snowden would be considered, in the vernacular, somewhat of a loser. According to Website, Bio.True Story, his CV, if you could call it that, includes high school dropout, a GED between stops at a local community college for computer study (no indication of an Associates Degree), an unsuccessful attempt at being a Special Forces guy in the Army Reserves, after being discharged, supposedly after he broke his leg. His initial employ with NSA was as a Security Guard.

Who would suspect a young man of such a limited background and even more limited accomplishments would end up with a top-end security clearance and access to the deepest of deep government surveillance secrets. Did anybody do a background check? But after a post-security guard spin through the CIA (how did that happen?), he ended up working for subcontractor Booz Allen Hamilton. This led to another tenure with NSA, working the Japanese beat before being sent to Hawaii, again according to Bio.True Story. His Hawaii salary was a healthy $200,000 for being a phone and Internet snoop.

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That’s a big hunk of dough. Lest you let predictable paranoia seep in, Booz Allen leans Democratic with a lion’s share of their political contributions of late finding their way into progressive coffers. Given that Booz Allen has a huge footprint in all kinds of insider political connections in the major DC issue bins of immigration, health care and yes, security, domestically and especially internationally, it’s no surprise that they surface in this little scenario. Every year, they invite the real power boys and girls to partake of something called the Aspen Ideas Festival. “Understanding big problems to produce better solutions.” Translation: Get the bipartisan power elite to gorgeous Aspen once a year; wine them and dine them, stroke their egos and earn billions in new business. Gates goes.You can find Buffett, Albright and Robert Rubin hanging around, even Karl Rove. You know, those kinds of people.

So, Booz Allen Hamilton is one of the power players few people know about in the little guy and gal sector where most of us reside. Yes, there’s something bizarre going on here. And if America had a single investigative reporter other than the guy (Greg Palast) who lives in England and the lady who defined “fast and furious” in Fortune magazine, we’d find out what it is. Booz Allen really has no reason to try to embarrass the president. They’re making out like bandits with this administration and the timing isn’t particularly, well, timely.

Is Snowden a lone wolf? A deeply ethical and introspective dude? ROTFLMAO!!! So who paid this loser? Somebody connected with the Republicans? Hell, I don’t know, but that’s where I’d put my limited under-the-mattress stash if I were a betting contributor to PoliticusUSA. The scandal continuum, get it?

The president is threatening to forgo attendance at the upcoming September G20 Summit. Go, Mr. President! Chest up to all 5’7″ of Putin and be as friendly as Bill Clinton at the preliminaries of a beauty pageant. Shake his hand, flash a toothy grin and tell Vlad how happy you are that he took this screwball off our hands. “Hell, if he was found guilty, we were planning to deport him to this desolate backwater anyway. Can’t think of a greater punishment. Keep him. He’s of no use to us and we’ll save a ton of money not having to put him behind bars for 40 years.”

We owe you, Putin.

Again, a reminder, I’ll be tweeting, at least a little bit…@demwriter.


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