It is almost as if the Obama administration is intent on making every possible PR (and of course governance, but it's really the Fed that is in charge of the US so that part is irrelevant) mistake, and then some more.

Recall that on Friday, to much fanfare, the president took credit for the revelations presented by Edward Snowden (because, you see, he would have publicly addressed all the top secret NSA issues regardless, ignoring for a minute that without Snowden all speculation about pervasive NSA domestic surveillance would still be dismissed as simply more conspiracy theory), and announced that he would conduct a review of the policies and espionage procedures in place at the NSA.

Also recall that in a Senate hearing this March, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Senator Ron Wyden that the NSA did not collect phone records of millions of Americans. This was just three months before the revelations of an NSA leaker made it clear that Clapper was not telling the truth. Pressed on his false testimony before Congress, Clapper apologized for giving an “erroneous” answer but claimed it was just because he "simply didn’t think of Section 215 of the Patriot Act." As Ron Paul said: "Wow."

We have no idea what Ron would exclaim at this latest reveleation from the government, although we have a few phrases in mind. Moments ago, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported the following:

DNI Clapper Announces Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies At the direction of the President, I am establishing the Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies to examine our global signals-intelligence collection and surveillance capability. The Review Group will assess whether, in light of advancements in communications technologies, the United States employs its technical collection capabilities in a manner that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust. The Review Group will brief its interim findings to the President within 60 days of its establishment, and provide a final report with recommendations no later than Dec. 15, 2013. James R. Clapper

Director of National Intelligence

A question arises: how does one know they are living in an unmitigated disaster of a banana republic where not even an attempt at hiding the crime and corruption takes place? Well, we are not absolutely certain, but we have a distinct feeling that when the president appoints as his impartial "reviewer" of the ultra top secret NSA's policies and capabilities the one man who was caught and exposed and subsequently apologized for lying to Congress, that may be a pretty damn good sign.

Sadly, that is precisely what just happened.

And speaking of comedy and banana republics, here is the memo from the president: