Who says the Bush administration doesn’t learn from its mistakes? After being whipped by a public backlash over leaked information about illegal domestic wiretapping, the Bushies have come upon a sure fire solution to all their problems: execute journalists.
The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.
[…]
In a little-noticed case in California, FBI agents from Los Angeles have already contacted reporters at the Sacramento Bee about stories published in July that were based on sealed court documents related to a terrorism case in Lodi, according to the newspaper.
Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation, and that they have worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House.
“There’s a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public’s business risk being branded traitors,” said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post. “I don’t know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad.”
A tone of gleeful relish over the prospect of imprisoning those perceived to be the political opposition? Man… we’ve never heard that coming from the right-wingers before. Though.
At Langley, the CIA’s security office has been conducting numerous interviews and polygraph examinations of employees in an effort to discover whether any of them have had unauthorized contact with journalists. CIA Director Porter J. Goss has spoken about the issue at an “all hands” meeting of employees, and sent a recent cable to the field aimed at discouraging media contacts and reminding employees of the penalties for disclosing classified information, according to intelligence sources and people in touch with agency officials.
“It is my aim, and it is my hope, that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information,” Goss told a Senate committee.
The Justice Department also argued in a court filing last month that reporters can be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act for receiving and publishing classified information.
As if the so-called “mainstream” media hasn’t become timid enough under the yoke of its corporate ownership, now the Bush administration wants reporters to face the threat of being tried as spies. Nurses are being investigated for sedition… reporters are being investigated for espionage… I guess cheap consumer goods aren’t the only thing we’ve been importing from China.
This is scary.
You can just hear the NeoCon zombies chanting “Heil! For the Homeland! Crush those who oppose the BushCo!”
We are headed to a showdown. Either these bastards blink and abide by the constitution of the USA..
or
{click click}
Sorry, I have no sympathy for any reporter who decides to taked leaked classified information and report on it.
The people who leaked it to them broke laws to do so, and they should pay the penalty.
Karl, even if the information is about activity breaking the law?
Lots of Germans in the 1930s remained silent.
Not a good idea for America. I personally support protection for whistleblowers.
If it is found that the whistleblower was lying about the information, then that can be dealt with legally.
A government that is abiding by the constitution, and the laws of the country should not fear whistleblowers.
But we know that not all administrations are that honest.
I agree that there can be a case made for when the informations release could outweigh the need for secutity, but the problem is that very little of the resent links really fit that.
And regardless, they have a means to allow that to happen just by repoprorting to congress ot through teir chain of command. There is the Attorney General, and the Inspector General as well.
But when they jump over to the New York Times, well I find it hard to justify, and in some cases it coulf have serious consequences.
Donna, leaking to the press is not a whistleblower.
Leaking to congress maybe. Whistlblowers already have federal protection several systems as well.
Now that the righties have managed to make sure there is no such thing as freedom of the press, they have essentially made sure there’s no such thing as freedom period. This is in effect the end of freedom as we know it. It’s ironic that according to the Bush regime, it’s not okay to leak classified information, unless you happen to be Dickless Cheney and you want to out a CIA agent. The massive meglomania of these people should be causing those who usually don’t care to sit up and take notice.
If Dems don’t get at least one of the houses away from these traitors, we’re doomed folks. Hopefully this will be one of those things that wakes up America. Although, there have been plenty of chances for the country to wake up before now and they haven’t.
I wonder if those of us who really appreciate freedom will have to move to Iraq to find it? Since Bushie is “exporting freedom to Iraq” that may be the only place that’s free.
Now that the righties have managed to make sure there is no such thing as freedom of the press, they have essentially made sure there’s no such thing as freedom period. This is in effect the end of freedom as we know it. It’s ironic that according to the Bush regime, it’s not okay to leak classified information, unless you happen to be Dickless Cheney and you want to out a CIA agent. The massive meglomania of these people should be causing those who usually don’t care to sit up and take notice.
If Dems don’t get at least one of the houses away from these traitors, we’re doomed folks. Hopefully this will be one of those things that wakes up America. Although, there have been plenty of chances for the country to wake up before now and they haven’t.
I wonder if those of us who really appreciate freedom will have to move to Iraq to find it? Since Bushie is “exporting freedom to Iraq” that may be the only place that’s free.
Now that the righties have managed to make sure there is no such thing as freedom of the press, they have essentially made sure there’s no such thing as freedom period. This is in effect the end of freedom as we know it. It’s ironic that according to the Bush regime, it’s not okay to leak classified information, unless you happen to be Dickless Cheney and you want to out a CIA agent. The massive meglomania of these people should be causing those who usually don’t care to sit up and take notice.
If Dems don’t get at least one of the houses away from these traitors, we’re doomed folks. Hopefully this will be one of those things that wakes up America. Although, there have been plenty of chances for the country to wake up before now and they haven’t.
I wonder if those of us who really appreciate freedom will have to move to Iraq to find it? Since Bushie is “exporting freedom to Iraq” that may be the only place that’s free.
I’m doubtful about of about half of what any administration calls secret, but that goes to about 90% concerning the current one.
They set up a group of analysts to re-classify stuff that had been declassified in previous years. Many of the records date to the 1940s and 1950s, and their continued disclosure would pose no conceivable security risk.
And Dick Cheney revealed that he thinks he can change the classification of information himself. A pretty convenient gift for someone who is apt to take political retrubution on critics.
All presidents want to hide their mistakes, but the Bush administration is getting seriously out-of-hand.
If they want to make examples out of a couple of leakers, they can start by executing Dick Cheney and Bob Novak for treason.
7
“the problem is that very little of the resent links really fit that”
Bullshit — there has never been a time in our country’s history when leaking was more essential than right now. The worst excesses of the Bush administration — torture, illegal wiretapping, and corruption — were exposed by leakers. This is exactly the kind of leaking the GOP wants to prevent — i.e., leaks that reveal that party and this administration are violating the Constitution and breaking laws.
DELAY TO SPEND PRIMARY ELECTION NIGHT WITH LOBBYISTS
“WASHINGTON (March 7) – Rep. Tom DeLay, whose association with lobbyist Jack Abramoff has left him politically vulnerable, is spending Texas’ primary night Tuesday at a fundraiser hosted by two Washington lobbyists.”
http://articles.news.aol.com/n.....8;cid=2194
He just doesn’t get it, does he? Or maybe he’s just incredibly arrogant.
A Gallup poll in December strongly suggested DeLay will lose in November — if he survives the primary. http://www.democrats.org/a/200.....stitue.php
Recent polling indicates the GOP is in for an ass-kicking this fall. http://www.hedgehogreport.com/polls2006house.php
In New York, GOP gubernatorial prospects are having a hard time breaking out of the teens. http://www.hedgehogreport.com/polls2006ny.php
Link from my archives:
http://www.bidstrup.com/america.htm
addenum to essay at the above site, by the author:
Friendly Fascism
After I wrote this essay, I came across a book called, “Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America,” by Bertram Gross. It was published in 1980, and has long been out of print, but it has become a classic, in that it made some bold predictions about the direction of American politics and compared what is happening in American politics to the fascism of Europe in the first half of the 20th century.
At first glance, the comparison may not be obvious. But when one stops to look past the concentration camps and jackboots of that earlier era, but closely examines how fascism in Europe came to power and how the machinery of its government actually worked, the parallels with present day America become startling.
The outstanding feature of fascism is not the racism, hatred, and violent repression that people normally associate with it. Instead, the most remarkable feature of fascism is an aspect of itself which it tried very hard to hide: the very close alliance and almost indistinguishable difference between government and big business.
Indeed, this is what distinguishes a dictatorship of the left from a dictatorship of the right: the extreme left proposes government ownership of business, while the extreme right basically proposes business control of, if not ownership of government.
As the fascist governments of Europe in the 1930’s prepared for war, it was big business that was calling the economic shots. Sure, government was allowed prerogatives in foreign affairs and defense, and control of the apparatus of propaganda, but in nearly all other areas, it was the influence of the ultra-rich that set policy.1 Fascists in America are much more enlightened, and have learned from the experience of the jackbooted fascists of Europe. Rather than engage in such violent, hard nosed repression, the fascists of America are much ‘friendlier.’ Indeed, they would be deeply incensed at even being called fascist at all, yet they are just as determined to control, and eventually repress, as their European predecessors ever were. And the basic mechanism is just the same: control of government by big business, in the interests of big business. The interests of the common man are not even worthy of consideration, except as he relates to business by being the customer for its products.
Yet the results are largely the same: workers have no rights in the workplace, consumers have no recourse against the actions their employers or of big business and government, wages and other forms of renumeration are kept as low as possible, and workers rights to organize are repressed. The net result is that wealth and the influence it brings flows from the middle class and working class where it is produced to the upper classes where it is reserved for the exclusive use of the privileged. All of this is made possible by the continued suppression of education, to prevent the working and middle classes from realizing how they are being cheated, and by a sophisticated propaganda machine, operated through corporate-owned media, that works to convince the working and middle classes that all this is good for them.
==================================
Fascism: the old, the ‘friendly,’ and the American forms
Classic Fascism: Gross’ Predictions for the U.S.: How it has actually worked out:
Drives by the laggard capitalist nations of Europe to build new empires at the expense of leading capitalist powers. Drive to maintain unity of the free world capitalist empire, and contain the spread of communism, or else retreat to “Fortress America” Unity of the free world capitalist empire expanded, at the expense of the communist world, often without the consent of the people involved. The collapse was portrayed in the corporate media as being unanimously desired by the subject peoples, when the reality was often the opposite.
A tight government-big business oligarchy with charismatic dictator or figurehead, and expansionist, scapegoating, and nationalistic ideologies. An integrated big-business-government power structure with new technocratic ideologies and more advanced arts of ruling and fooling the public. Through the use of large scale campaign funding and outright bribes, members of the ruling oligarchy move back and forth at will between business and government; this is portrayed in the corporate owned media as ‘enlightened regulation’ of business. Political Action Committees ensure that both political parties function essentially the same way — for the interests of big business, and ensure that the path between big business and government is a smooth one.
Liquidation or minimization of multi-party conflict and open subversion, with little use of democratic machinery and human rights. Subtle subversion, through manipulative use and control of democratic machinery, political parties, and human rights. By subsuming control of both political parties through the campaign financing process, the oligarchy has ensured that little useful difference exists between the two parties, and state laws are manipulated to ensure that third parties have little chance at a fair shot at power. Human rights are abolished, usually through the initiative process, by slick propaganda campaigns, or by legislative repeal or modification of existing rights laws to make them ineffective and unenforcable. To wit: Proposition 209 and 218 in California in 1996, “reform” of Workman’s Compensation currently pending in many state legislatures, etc.
Negative sanctions through ruthless, widespread and high-cost terror; direct action against selected scapegoats. Direct terror applied through low level violence and professionalized, low-cost escalation, with indirect terror, through ethnic conflicts, multiple scapegoats, and organized disorder. Property and privacy rights have effectively been gutted to “fight the drug war” and the increasing use of police SWAT teams to make routine arrests sends a clear signal: don’t mess with us. Inner cities, working class neighborhoods, and people without the means to fight police abuse in the courts are increasingly the targets. Police brutality is glamorized in the popular media; no one is outraged by it unless the abuses are extreme enough they can’t be ignored. The FBI and Justice Department are seeking to end the right to use digitally scrambled telephone calls and email, again to “fight the drug war.”
Ceaseless propaganda, backed up by spies and informers, to consolidate the elite support and mobilize masses. Informational offensives backed by high-technology monitoring, to manage minds of elites and mobilize masses. Oligarchic control of the media has been achieved by simply buying it up; you’ll never see ABC Television do an expose of Disney’s use of child labor, nor will you see NBC Television do an expose of pollution illnesses caused by a General Electric factory. Control has its privileges. The result is that some very important stories never get covered by the media, and the voting public are totally uninformed about them.
Widespread benefits through more jobs, stabilized prices, domestic spoils, foreign booty, and upward mobility for the faithful. Rationed rewards of power and money for the elites, extended professionalism, accelerated consumerism for some, and social services conditional on the recipients’ good behavior. Those who are loyal to “the system” find themselves more likely to be advanced within companies; good behavior is rewarded through promotions and salary increases. CEO’s who are loyal to the system are rewarded through fabulous salaries, stock options and “golden parachutes.” Meanwhile, wages of workers are stagnant at best and declining at worst, and social “safety nets” are being quickly dismantled, so welfare for the poor can be replaced by welfare for the corporations. Workers are assuaged with pie-in-the-sky “trickle-down” promises, cheap consumer goods and subsidized prices and assurances that if one loses his job another one is easily available (even if it is only minimum wage).
Anxiety relief through participatory spectacles, mass action and genuine bloodletting. More varied relief through sex, drugs, madness and cults, as well as alcoholism, gambling, sports, and ultraviolent television drama. Increased availablility of violent entertainment on television, increased availability of gambling through the Indian Gaming Act, widespread popularity of extremist “fundamentalist Christian” cults.
Internal viability based on sustained, frantic, and eventually self destructive expansion. Internal viability based on careful expansion, system strengthening reforms, multi-level co-optation, and mass apathy. Internal viability based on careful expansion, reforms only when needed to shore up a weakened power structure, multi-level co-optation of political reformers and dissidents, forcibly when neccessary.
Yes, go after the reporters, not those that break the law. Ignore that Bush conducted illegal wiretaps and go after who leaked the information, not who violated the law. By going after who leaked the information, you can divert attention from the crime committed.
But if you are Bush and you say it is not a crime because you have the power to do it because you are the President, then why it it a crime if the public knows it? Aren’t the American people entitled to know what the President is doing? Aren’t we entitled to know what the President is doing in our name? You can’t have it both ways and have a free and open democrary. A government conducted in secret and laws intrepreted in secret is not a free society. It is what dictators do If we are a society of laws then we are entitled to know what the consequences orf the laws are are passed by Congress. If Congress intreprets the law one way and the President intreprets it another way then we have a problem. Bush and his Republican corporate cronies feel that because they were elected by the people they can do whatever they want.
The problem is that they never would have been elected if they had told the American people what it was they were going to do. Like “We’re going to invade Iraq. We’re going to weaken environmental protections for clean air and water so corporations can make more money. We’re going to give the wealthy the biggest tax breaks. We’re going to cut money for students and health care.”
HEY WHY DONT ALL YOU LEFTIES PUT YOUR HEADS TOGETHER AND COME UP WITH ONE NAME WHO HAS HAD HIS PHONE TAPED.OR SOMEONE WHO HAS COMPLAINED.GO AHEAD IVE GOT ALL YEAR.
OH AND ROGER SINCE YOUR SO GOOD AT NUMBERS WHY DONT YOU TELL US THE RATINGS FOR DEMOCRATS IN CONGREES ITS LOWER THAN THE PRESIDENTS NUMBERS BUT IM SURE YOU WILL FIND A POLL THAT SAYS THERE DOING GREAT GUESS WE WILL SEE IN 06.
The talking point that motivates most uninformed people is the claim that the press is “blaming” Bush unfairly and that any criticism is just more “Bush Bashing.” Many Americans are just flat out stupid. I’ve listened to them sit there discussing how Jimmy Carter is actually responsible for the Iraq debacle and if you mention that 9/11 happened on Bush’s watch and that he had plenty of warning it’s: “Oh,sure! Blame Bush! Everything’s Bush’s fault.”
11/7/2006 can’t come soon enough.
Many Americans are just flat out stupid
the scary part is that half of all people are stupider than average. And enough of them voted to put Bush in the White House…
DA WO, the most recent pollings for Congress shows the Democrats with anywhere from a 42% to 52% approval rating while the Republicans are between 32% and 43%. If you average all published polls the Democrats average a 47.4% approval rating while the Republicans show a 36.7% approval rating.
http://www.hedgehogreport.com/polls2006house.php
and with the way GWB is damaging the country in every way, shape and form, you can rest assured that the Republican numbers will continue to plummet.
rwb, good comment.
The Second Amendment protects the people’s right to take up arms against a corrupt government. Does anyone have any recommendations for shooting ranges where some of us might go to sharpen our rusty shooting skills? I’m afraid the Bushites will not leave office as scheduled.
wow goldy…first you make the ridiculous jump from reporters who are breaking the law by releasing classified info to this: ” A tone of gleeful relish over the prospect of imprisoning those perceived to be the political opposition?”
opposition??? oh come on…get real here.
you and i both know that’s not what anyone is talking about….they are talking about reporters who break the law and in doing so endanger all americans just so they can have the “first blab”.they are endangering all of us FOR THEIR EGOES. get your little mind around that.
and donna….must you be so completely retarded at all times? when you say “Karl, even if the information is about activity breaking the law?”
and i suppose you are trying in your silly little way to refer to the perfectly legal wiretaps? who was screaming the loudest in recent days [in typical liberal bi-polar fashion] that bush knew all about 9/11 before it happened…..and didn’t use the info gathered to stop it???? i’ll give you a hint…..it was the far left. so bill clinton used wiretaps[and personal IRS files of “his enemies”]and that’s okay….but bush uses wiretaps during AN ACTUAL WAR and that’s not okay?
do you have any idea of just how completely crazy stupid you sound?
damn, who let the xmas hag out of her box again. i thought she had gone to the glue factory already. no body would miss her, except maybe hitler or stalin
Right on Ghost-
RWB (some kind of leftist version of BDS -Bush Derangement Syndrome) You fall into the stupid end of the bell curve yourself. But at least you have plenty of company here with goofballs like Donna, Rabbit and Cougar.
The Second Amendment protects the people’s right to take up arms against a corrupt government. Does anyone have any recommendations for shooting ranges where some of us might go to sharpen our rusty shooting skills? I’m afraid the Bushites will not leave office as scheduled.
Commentby proud leftist— 3/7/06@ 10:03 am
So proud leftist you now want a shooting range to practice your shooting skills. You better talk to your local socialist Democrats about why they shut them all down. The only one’s available is for the criminals and your local police officers. That is the side affects of gun control nuts and the mentally ill running your government.
The problem is that they never would have been elected if they had told the American people what it was they were going to do. Like “We’re going to invade Iraq. We’re going to weaken environmental protections for clean air and water so corporations can make more money. We’re going to give the wealthy the biggest tax breaks. We’re going to cut money for students and health care.”
Commentby Steve Zemke@ MajorityRulesBlog— 3/7/06@ 9:07 am
Steve what planet do you live on? First the majority does not rule in the country and who told you that life was fair? Start reading different web sites that provides mean full information. If you believe all that bull shit you expound about move to Canada they love dumb shits like you.
So, Klake,
Enlighten me as to any gun control laws that have been passed around here lately that have led to shooting ranges being shut down. I’d like citations to the RCWs, county codes, municipal ordinances, that sort of thing. Neighbors often don’t like shooting ranges next door, and zoning laws sometimes get implicated. Otherwise, you are, as usual, full of shit. By the way, there are no elected socialists in our state government, at least not by my definition. There’d be some ass-kicking if there were.
drivel…you could not have chosen a better name for yourself in a million years.
thanks for the laugh.
you are the perfect example of why you liberal idiots won’t be running anything except your mouths any time soon………
as usual.
Klake provides this BS…
“So proud leftist you now want a shooting range to practice your shooting skills. You better talk to your local socialist Democrats about why they shut them all down. The only one’s available is for the criminals and your local police officers. That is the side affects of gun control nuts and the mentally ill running your government.”
I have at least two gun ranges within 3 miles of my house in Bothell …Nice try tho
http://www.wcwinc.org/range/rifleB.htm
Kenmore range is pretty good.
Public range is the link, lots of info on the page. I plan on burning up a few boxes o shells when it gets a little warmer.
:)
Wow, klake @ 33 whoever you are. Great Rebuttal, you overwhelm me. Do you work for GWB?