The Fourth Branch of Government

A mid-length but very clear narrative explanation of the origin of the Fourth Branch (Intelligence Branch) of the Federal Government from Sundance.

Thanks, GWBush and Dirty Dick Cheney!  (Also thanks to Paul Ryan and Jim Sensenbrenner, who voted for it.)

Here's the keynote graf.  Please read the rest at the link.

...The problems we face now as a country are directly an outcome of two very distinct points that were merged by Barack Obama. (1) The post 9/11 monitoring of electronic communication of American citizens; and (2) Obama’s team creating a fine-tuning knob that it focused on the politics of the targets.  This is very important to understand as you dig deeper into this research outline....

Sundance also makes it very clear that your Congressman/Senator probably does not have a clue about the existence of the Intelligence Branch as such, nor how much information that Branch has about you, your mom, your children, your friends, or those of that Congressman/Senator.

But when you notice "conservative" Congress-slime voting against "conservative" interests, you can be damn-shootin' sure that the Intelligence Branch has politely tapped their shoulder and mentioned that "we have pictures, Congressman.  Vote our way."

Yes.  It's that bad.