Newsflash:
Syria: the threats, costs, claims and lives What the civil war in Syria has exposed is that the massive political and social transformation, and real regime change under way is led by people themselves. US military involvement serves only to escalate the destruction. Read the Full Story
Pentagon Said to Seek $80 Billion for War Amid Withdrawal The Pentagon will ask Congress to approve about $79.5 billion for combat operations, the least since 2005, as U.S. troops withdraw from Afghanistan, according to administration officials. Read the Full Story
Jerry Brown: California’s Mystery Man One of California’s great mysteries is the state’s governor, Jerry Brown. In a time when America’s politicians strive to be everywoman and everyman, Brown goes his own way. While a nation frantically chases youth, the 75-year-old governor who glories in his age and experience, is at the top of his game. Read the Full Story
No Koch News: A Movement to Unsubscribe After years of mismanagement, the Tribune Company newspapers -- including the Chicago Tribune and L.A. Times -- are up for sale.  And one of the potential buyers? The Koch brothers.  And wow are people outraged! Read the Full Story
Video: Pentagon Accused of 'Rewriting Constitution' to Wage Endless War in Senate Hearing Pentagon officials today claimed President Obama and future presidents have the power to send troops anywhere in the world to fight groups linked to al-Qaeda, based in part on the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress days after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Read the Full Story
An urgent message to 200 members of Congress They fanned out across the country from Los Angeles to Phoenix, Chicago, south to Atlanta and Miami, to the towns of Western Massachusetts, in New York City and beyond, and they entered offices on Capitol Hill in a national “Educate Congress” letter-drop campaign. Read the Full Story
When the IRS targeted liberals Under George W. Bush, it went after the NAACP, Greenpeace and even a liberal church.                          Read the Full Story
Logo Lowdown from the 2012 elections. Part 1--donors on the record Here's who is buying America's democracy The spark that ignited tea party wrath in 2008 was not such right-wing bugaboos as "Obamacare," the federal deficit, or states' rights, which were added on later by Koch-created front groups. Read the Full Story
Logo Lowdown from the 2012 elections. Part 2--donors OFF the record, or off the radar The money swamp created by Citizens United: Dark Money, corporate shell games, and SuperPAC plutocrats Some of you might remember "CREEP" from 1972's Nixon-McGovern matchup. It could've been an apt code name for Tricky Dick himself, but instead it referred to the "Committee to RE-Elect the President." Read the Full Story
H.R. 1000, the “Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Training Act” Since 2000 more than 50,000 manufacturing facilities in the U.S. have closed and roughly 50,000 industrial jobs have been lost each month.  Now service sector jobs, where the remaining two-thirds of all workers are currently employed, are disappearing.   Read the Full Story
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark Decries Government's "Big Brother" Seizure of AP Phone Records The Associated Press says the U.S. Department of Justice has secretly obtained a trove of journalists' phone records in what its chief executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion Read the Full Story
MAJOR PUSH AT CONGRESS: PROSPERITY, NOT AUSTERITY More Than 175 Members of Congress to be urged to Support Legislation  to Tax Wall Street, Raise Revenue for Main Street Recovery and Bring a Halt to Austerity

 Read the Full Story
image Syria: the threats, costs, claims and lives
image Pentagon Said to Seek $80 Billion for War Amid Withdrawal
image Jerry Brown: California’s Mystery Man
image No Koch News: A Movement to Unsubscribe
image Video: Pentagon Accused of 'Rewriting Constitution' to Wage Endless War in Senate Hearing
image An urgent message to 200 members of Congress
image When the IRS targeted liberals
image Logo Lowdown from the 2012 elections. Part 1--donors on the record
image Logo Lowdown from the 2012 elections. Part 2--donors OFF the record, or off the radar
image H.R. 1000, the “Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Training Act”
image Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark Decries Government's "Big Brother" Seizure of AP Phone Records
image MAJOR PUSH AT CONGRESS: PROSPERITY, NOT AUSTERITY
Friday, 08 June 2012 02:52

Probing Obama’s Secrecy Games

Written by  Glenn Greenwald | Salon.com
Photo provided by the White House Photo provided by the White House

Will high-level Obama officials who leak for political gain be punished on equal terms with actual whistleblowers?

Over the past several months, including just last week, I’ve written numerous times about the two glaring contradictions that drive the Obama administration’s manipulative game-playing with its secrecy powers: (1) at the very same time that they wage an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, they themselves continuously leak national security secrets exclusively designed to glorify Obama purely for political gain; and (2) at the very same time they insist to federal courts that these programs are too secret even to confirm or deny their existence (thereby shielding them from judicial review or basic disclosure), they run around publicly boasting about their actions. Just over the past month alone, they have done precisely this by leaking key details about Obama’s commanding role in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, drone attacks that have killed allegedly key Al Qaeda figures, sophisticated cyber-attacks on Iran’s nuclear program, and the selection of targets for Obama “kill list”: all programs that are classified and which the White House has insisted cannot be subjected to judicial review or any form of public scrutiny.

Official Washington is now noticing this systematic abuse, and they are at least making noises that they intend to do something about it. The two top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Democrat Carl Levin and Republican John McCain, announced Senate hearings to investigate these high-level leaks. Democrat Dianne Feinstein, Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, pronounced herself ”deeply disturbed by the continuing leaks,” (somewhat ironically) described a “classified letter” she sent Obama objecting to classified disclosures, and said she spoke to Levin “about the possibility of a joint hearing to investigate these leaks.” McCain accused the administration, with good reason, of leaking with the intent to “enhance President Obama’s image as a tough guy for the elections” and said the high-level leaks are a concerted “attempt to further the president’s political ambitions for the sake of his re-election at the expense of our national security” [read complete article at CommonDreams]

Read 1118 times Last modified on Friday, 08 June 2012 02:55
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