At that point, the discussion of hiring me turned into a discussion of a temporary part time hire. I should have balked at that point...

Part of my is trying to feel sympathetic. Temp-to-hire propositions, "spec work," NCAs, work-product waivers --these rent traps will never disappear. I know jobs that suck even when one can command a four- or five-figure day rate. Which is one reason why one demands bank and per diem or the press credential, if that's what one needs, to produce original, not derivative, work and walk away.

But another part of me has a low opinion of DKos' dedicated-DNC farm league ambitions. The reluctance to read into Patriot Act I-II in real time was a side of blind loyalty. "Criminal" conduct that congress dealt the agencies with plausible deniability was plain in the shear volume and novel construction of "sharing" info. Homeland Security, DNI--FFS! And slews of law firms were publishing notes on the web about business records liability!

Instead there was DNC fundraising, DNC fan fiction, and DNC skepticism about DNI [!], NSA, CIA, FBI "whistleblowers". Risen and Scahill reporting --to whom EW compares her "expertise"-- were sandbagged by *Post and *Times columnists years before Greenwald and Christ Snowden shopped a hard drive. At DKos that obscurity was met with incredulity, because that was a group that could not imagine bureaucrats willing --required by duty in fact NEW! "national security" privileges -- to lie to the public until some newsfeed produces the fait accompli. A decade later, anyone still deconstructing narratives instead of interrogating congressional reps and mid-career bureaucrats oe highjacking shredding machines is still behind the curve. Fine. Education is never wasted.

But please. stroking Schiff and polishing "reform" of corrupt police powers first injected by PAT I (2001) into USC is not news. Filtering telecom data that should not in the first instance be collected is not protection. Hell. Who can name one successful § 702 conviction or civil suit?

Of course USA Rights amendment did not pass the House. Agreement on § 702 in principle for 17 years is plainly nonpartisan.


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.