May 18, 2013

About that “record number” of Obama leak prosecutions:

We've all heard the claim that Obama has out-Cheneyed Cheney by doubling down on whistle-blower prosecutions. Oh the outrage! But apart from the fact that leakers are not "whistle-blowers," here's what that actually means:


1. The total number of Obama first-term leak prosecutions is six (6). Previous leak prosecutions: three. So technically, yes, the BO has prosecuted more leakers than all previous administrations combined, but all that says is that previous administrations had reasons not to pursue leakers.


2. Obama only calls attention to his leak prosecutions because Congress has accused him of leaking on purpose to flaunt his national security achievements -- like RW administrations do. How they love to accuse Obama of their own sins.


3. There’s no coordinated WH or DoJ policy of cracking down on leaks, and the prosecutions have originate from various sources:

The scattered bureaucratic background of the six cases appears to support the notion that they were not the result of a top-down policy. Two were handled by the Justice Department’s criminal division, while two others were developed by the national security division. A case involving a former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, started with an unrelated inquiry at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and ended up as a leak case by accident. And the case against Pfc. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst accused of delivering huge archives of classified documents to WikiLeaks, was a military prosecution that would most likely have been brought under any administration.

4. The reason Obama has succeeded where previous admins have failed-on-purpose is largely because of accidental developments like growing use of digital devices and policies set in motion during Bushler’s second term:

But a closer look reveals a surprising conclusion: the crackdown has nothing to do with any directive from the president, even though he is now promoting his record as a political asset. Instead, it was unplanned, resulting from several leftover investigations from the Bush administration, a proliferation of e-mail and computer audit trails that increasingly can pinpoint reporters’ sources, bipartisan support in Congress for a tougher approach, and a push by the director of national intelligence in 2009 that sharpened the system for tracking disclosures.

5. Last but not least, “Decisions about leak prosecutions are made by the Department of Justice,” not the White House, and five of these six cases have been pursued by agencies of the DoJ. The sixth, Manning's, is being pursued by the Army.


But that doesn’t get the outrage flowing, does it?


More here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/us/politics/accidental-path-to-record-leak-cases-under-obama.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

May 16, 2013

K/R. Hedges yesterday on Democracy Now

gets my vote for best ratfuck of the week. Hedges to Amy:

That’s what’s so frightening. And it’s a pattern that we’ve seen, with the use of the Espionage Act, to essentially silence whistleblowers within the government—Kiriakou, Drake and others, although Kiriakou went to jail on—pled out on another charge—the FISA Amendment Act, which allows for warrantless wiretapping, the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows for the stripping of American citizens of due process and indefinite detention. And it is one more assault in a long series of assault against freedom of information and freedom of the press. And I would also, of course, throw in the persecution of Julian Assange at WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning as part of that process. . . .

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/15/chris_hedges_monitoring_of_ap_phones

Yes, Chris, go ahead and "throw in the persecution of Julian Assange at WikiLeaks," even though the US has brought no charges against him, and has no plans to:


http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/22/us-wikileaks-assange-usa-idUSBRE87L12W20120822

May 12, 2013

Here's a real surprise:

Ron Paul's top 5 contributors:

1. US Army $113,933
2. US Navy $91,100
3. US Air Force $88,102
4. Google Inc $42,478
5. US Dept of Defense $40,500

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contriball.php

May 12, 2013

Looks like GS didn't get what they wanted.

Obama's top 2012 contributors:

1. University of California $1,212,245
2. Microsoft Corp $814,645
3. Google Inc $801,770
4. US Government $728,647
5. Harvard University $668,368
6. Kaiser Permanente $588,386
7. Stanford University $512,356
8. Deloitte LLP $456,975
9. Columbia University $455,309
10. Time Warner $442,271

11. US Dept of State $417,629
12. DLA Piper $401,890
13. Sidley Austin LLP $400,883
14. Walt Disney Co $369,598
15. IBM Corp $369,491
16. University of Chicago $357,185
17. University of Michigan $339,806
18. Comcast Corp $337,628
19. US Dept of Justice $334,659
20. US Dept of Health & Human Services $309,956

No more GS.

May 12, 2013

The shocking truth: Obama's top 2012 campaign contributor

Barack Obama's top 2012 presidential campaign contributor:

1. University of California - $1,212,245

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00009638&cycle=2012



Mitt Romney's top 2012 presidential campaign contributor:

1. Goldman Sachs - $1,033,204

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286&cycle=2012

.................

Who'd a thunk it?

May 4, 2013

He didn't ratfuck Bush and Cheney. He whitewashed them.

And he's still at it. He blames their wars on Blackwater for example:

Jeremy Scahill blows the lid off "Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan"

http://my.firedoglake.com/jimwhite/2009/11/23/breaking-jeremy-scahill-blows-lid-off-blackwaters-secret-war-in-pakistan/

Scahill's first book is about Blackwater, not Bush or Cheney, and when he has to get personal he goes after Eric Prince, for moving to Abu Dhabi for example.

But he's been tearing into Obama relentlessly since before he was elected or had anything to do with drones. And Scahill can always be counted to make the point that Obama and Holder are worse than Bush and Cheney:

Video: Jeremy Scahill: Drone Killer Obama Is Out-Cheneying Cheney

http://www.qwmagazine.com/2012/06/04/video-jeremy-scahill-drone-killer-obama-is-out-cheneying-cheney/

And Scahill is but one beneficiary of the NYT "kill list" story that's been paying the bills for reliable ratfuckers everywhere for going on a year.

May 4, 2013

Scahill's a whiz when it comes to drones

but I think he's also a ratfucker, i.e. payrolled by undisclosed organizations hostile to the current administration. I came to that conclusion five years ago when Obama was running against Palin and McCain. Listen to one of Scahill's star turns on Democracy Now, another dubious enterprise, and he can't go five minutes without dramatically claiming that Obama and/or Holder aren't just pushovers who let the GOP roll over them, but actually more diabolical, more dangerous, more relentlessly destroying the planet and the Constitution than either Bush or Cheney who come off as boy scouts in comparison. Come on. It's obvious, at least to me. He's a player like Hedges and Greenwald and many another. And Maher is a shameless tool.

May 3, 2013

Nice research.

I'm going to put this link in my journal so I can find it easily.