THIS JUST IN! USA TODAY EMPLOYS PSYCHICS!

BULLY BOY PRESS &   CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

USA TODAY'S GREGORY KORTE USED TEA LEAVES AND A CRYSTAL BALL TO WRITE THE FOLLOWING:

The scandal at the Internal Revenue Service goes far beyond the treatment of Tea Party groups and includes larger issues of abuse of power, the chairman of the House's chief tax-writing committee said at an oversight hearing Friday morning.
"With all due respect, this systematic abuse cannot be fixed with just one resignation, or two," said Rep. Dave Camp, R. Mich., who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee. "This is not a personnel problem. This is a problem of the IRS being too large, to intrusive, to abusive."


THAT HEARING STARTS IN AN HOUR IN FIFTEEN MINUTES.  REPEATING, THAT HEARING, THAT GREGORY KORTE IS TELLING US ABOUT, HAS NOT YET STARTED.

AS THE SCREEN SNAP DEMONSTRATES, PSYCHIC KORTE ACTUALY POSTED HIS STORY LAST NIGHT "11:40 p.m. EDT May 16, 2013." 

THURSDAY NIGHT PSYCHIC KORTE 'REPORTED' ON THE HEARING.  AS C.I. OF THE COMMON ILLS HAS LONG NOTED, THE BULK OF THE 'REPORTING' ON CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS THAT THE PRESS DOES IS NOTHING MORE THAN READING THE WRITTEN STATEMENTS SUBMITTED TO THE COMMITTEE 24 HOURS AHEAD OF TIME. 



FROM THE TCI WIRE:


Monday came news of the Justice Dept secretly spying on the 167 year-old news organization Associated Press by seizing their phone records for April and May of 2012.  Earlier this month, May 5th, US Ambassador to Iraq Stephen Beecroft observed:

Today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the UN General Assembly’s proclamation of World Press Freedom Day, an occasion for the international community, governments, media organizations, civil society, and average citizens to promote press freedom around the world, to recommit to defend the media from attacks on its independence, and to pay tribute to the journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession. Freedom of speech and expression is a cornerstone of all our democratic rights, for an uninformed citizenry cannot be a democratic citizenry.  In the United States, our Founding Fathers saw this right as so crucial that they placed it first in our Bill of Rights,  decreeing that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….”
World Press Freedom Day is an opportunity for us all to oppose repression of the media, to remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression, to protect journalists, and to tolerate opinions with which we may disagree. As democracy has increasingly replaced dictatorship around the world, the right of free expression has become a vital mechanism to maintain those hard-won freedoms. Journalists and bloggers keep citizens informed, keep governments honest, and often reveal uncomfortable truths.  We must work to ensure that journalists are not persecuted, threatened, attacked, or killed for seeking to inform and educate citizens; we must prevent newer online technologies – sophisticated media tools, networking groups and bloggers reaching millions – from being censored, firewalled, or closed.

It's a message the Justice Dept apparently missed.  In its 167 years this month, the Associated Press has won 51 Pulitzer Prizes, has lost over 30 journalists who died while practicing journalism and witnessed the changing technology:  "AP delivered news by pigeon, pony express, railroad, steamship, telegraph and teletype in the early years. In 1935, AP began sending photographs by wire. A radio network was formed in 1973, and an international video division was added in 1994. In 2005, a digital database was created to hold all AP content, which has allowed the agency to deliver news instantly and in every format to the ever expanding online world."  The Economist observes, "All manner of people who might have wanted to keep their contact with the press secret will have been caught in this dragnet; others might now hesitate to speak to reporters. That concern is not far-fetched: under Barack Obama’s watch, the government has indicted six officials for leaking secrets under a law called the Espionage Act, which had only previously been invoked against government officials three times since it became law in 1917."

Based on Attorney General Eric Holder's testimony to the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, this report by Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo from May 2012 is what has angered the government.  It opens with, "The CIA thwarted an ambitious plot by Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, the Associated Press has learned."

Today on his radio program The News Dissector (Progressive Radio Network, airs Thursdays at 5:00 pm EST), host Danny Schechter observed that the Justice Dept's actions have "outraged people left, right and center."  On parts of the left, sure, parts.  As Danny quickly found out when he spoke to his guests.  Cult of St. Barack member Al Gioradano (who will never live down his disgraces in 2008) declared it a "big yawn."  Hobbyist Gioradano then referred to it as "pout rage."

Pouting is accurate -- in terms of describing certain elements of the left.  For everyone decrying, you have a large number of pouters.  Chris Hedges pouted yesterday on Democracy Now!, whining that his personal stories of choice (no, not his October 2001 front page New York Times article falsely linking Iraq to the 9-11 attacks) of choice didn't get coverage by the AP so what did it matter, the AP was silent, so what does it matter?  Well the AP isn't silent on Bradley Manning.  They do file repeatedly on Bradley Manning.  That was one of his two stories. On Julian Assange?  AP doesn't do feature writing.  Julian Assange is yesterday's news.  It's really not breaking news.  AP is a wire service that covers breaking news.  Some would journalist Chris Hedges would understand but those people probably missed his October 2001 front page effort to sell the war on Iraq.  Before there was Judith Miller, there was Chris Hedges.

On Danny's radio program, it was said who could name a reporter at AP?  Who can name a reporter anywhere these days other than TV? Most people can't.  I can name a ton of AP reporters off the top of my head including Sameer N. Yacoub, Adam Schreck who are among the reporters covering Iraq.  I can name former AP reporters such as Chelsea J. Carter but I'm someone who pays attention.  I can track the career trajectories of the last ten years, for example, of  Liz Sly and Sam Dahger -- two reporters who have changed outlets repeatedly.

AP stood alone in its coverage of the March 12, 2006 gang-rape and murder of 14-year-old  Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi by US soldiers stationed in Iraq. Brett Barrouquere owned that story.  And though he wrote very important reports and would probably have emerged as the best in a crowded field, the reality is others ignored it after the initial revelations.  There were court-martials of the soldiers still in the service and there was the trial of the ringleader who had already left the military.  Pacifica Radio, Democracy Now!, The Nation, go down the list, didn't give a damn.  In fact, Katha Pollitt only covered (half a sentence in a column) one of the most outrageous War Crimes of the Iraq War because she was shamed into doing so by the fact that non-feminist Alexander Cockburn had called it out and she hadn't.  When readers and critics began noting that, she finally did a half sentence on a 14-year-old Iraqi girl at home with her family when US soldiers broke into her home, took her parents and her five-year-old sister into another room as they started gang-raping Abeer.  As the gang-rape took place, Abeer could hear the gun shots and the screams as her parents and her sister were killed.  Then Steven D. Green came back into the living room, took his part in the gang-rape and then shot and killed Abeer which was followed by an attempt to set her body on fire.

This wasn't news to The Nation magazine.  This wasn't worthy of a column for feminist Katha Pollitt. When Green's trial started, the AP had a little competition -- local media in Kentucky and Arianna Huffington who, to her credit, saw this as a story worth paying for and The Huffington Post had regular coverage as a result.  The trial kicked off April 27, 2009 in Paducah, Kentucky. Apparently, although I thought it was a nine hour drive from DC, it's actually all the way around the world and unreachable by our so-called 'independent media' who couldn't be bothered to cover it.  By the same token, AP's the only US news organization filing regularly from Iraq now.  Every day they're filing, several times a day.

The pouters on the left who can't be bothered by AP are joined by the Cult of St. Barack which will make you eat lead paint and tell you it's broccoli.   Yesterday, Jason Linkins (Huffington Post) exposed Media Matters for America which was working a list of talking points about how the Justice Dept's seizure of records was no big deal:

Finally, the most obvious thing needs to be said: I'm pretty sure that if this probe of the Associated Press had been conducted by a Republican administration, you would not be doing all of this "Let's give the snoopers the benefit of the doubt."
I am pretty sure that your anger over the breach of these journalists' privacy would be epic and righteous and uncowed.
ThinkProgress! You guys need to check yourselves as well!
There are some deeds, I'm afraid, for which having the favored party identification is not an affirmative defense. It is not OK that the DoJ did this because the DoJ is being run by the guys who you perceive to be wearing the white hats. Snooping through the phone records of reporters doesn't become OK because Democrats are doing it, and it doesn't become evil by dint of the fact that Republicans are doing it. IT IS EITHER ALWAYS RIGHT, OR ALWAYS WRONG.
The thing is, Media Matters, you have painted yourselves into a corner here. Someday, in America, there is going to be a Republican in the White House. They will run the DoJ. They will contend with leaks of their own. They will face a choice as to whether to abridge the rights of the press to hunt that source down. They might even choose to do something very much like the DoJ did in this instance.



 Linkins is kind enough to add a statement from Media Matters where they insist it wasn't them, it was Message Matters.  Here is Message Matters -- above their name at the top of the screen is "Media Matters Action Network."  Message Matters is a division of Media Matters.  Yesterday evening Michael Isikoff (NBC News) filed a report that even put into question the supposed reason for the investigation:

Within hours after the AP published its May 7, 2012 story, then-White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, currently the director of the CIA, held a background conference call in which he assured television network commentators that the bomb plot was never a threat to the American public or aviation safety.
 The reason, he said, is because intelligence officials had “inside control” over it.


Stephen Walt (Foreign Policy) observes, "The greater but more subtle danger, however, is that our society gradually acclimates to ever-increasing levels of secrecy and escalating levels of government monitoring, all of it justified by the need to 'keep us safe.' Instead of accepting that a (very small) amount of risk is inevitable in the modern world, our desire for total safety allows government officials to simultaneously shrink the circle of individual freedoms and to place more and more of what they are doing beyond our purview."  On the first hour of today's The Diane Rehm Show, Diane's topics were the IRS and AP scandals.  Her guests were (all men -- how sadly normal for Diane's pathetic show) attorney Scott Fredericksen, NPR gadfly David Folkenflick and the ACLU's Gabe Rottman.  We'll note Rottman on the AP scandal.



 Gabe Rottman:  Absolutely. And it's important to realize here that the First Amendment and the freedom of the press that it protects is not protecting the press. It's protecting the public. It's protecting our ability and our right to know what the government is doing in our name. And that's all the more important when it comes to national security cases like this where the government has vast authority to make secret its activities. And this particular subpoena is so chilling because of two reasons. First, it's extremely broad. It covered 20 phone lines in offices where more than 100 reporters work. And then in addition to that and perhaps more troubling, the Department of Justice elected to delay notifying the Associated Press that it had issued the subpoena for these telephone records. What that means is the Associated Press was robbed of the ability to go to court to challenge the subpoena.




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"THIS JUST IN! ERIC HOLDER'S IS CONFUSED!"

THIS JUST IN! ERIC HOLDER'S IS CONFUSED!

 BULLY BOY PRESS &   CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

 ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER RANTED, GRUNTED AND SPEWED YESTERDAY AT THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

HOLDER APPEARED TO THINK HE HAD BEEN ELECTED TO SOME OFFICE AND NOT GRASP THAT AS AN APPOINTED OFFICIAL, HE HAS A DUTY TO ANSWER EACH AND EVERY QUESTION THE PEOPLE'S REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS PUT BEFORE HIM.  HE SEEMED TO THINK HE WAS ABOVE THE PROCESS AND ABOVE ACCOUNTABILITY.

AND HE NEVER KNEW AN ANSWER AS EVEN THE WASHINGTON POST POINTS OUT:


On and on Holder went: “I don’t know. I don’t know. . . . I would not want to reveal what I know. . . . I don’t know why that didn’t happen. . . . I know nothing, so I’m not in a position really to answer.”

DID NO ONE EVER TELL HOLDER THAT ATTORNEY GENERAL WAS A FULL TIME JOB?  THAT IT REQUIRED ATTENTION TO DETAIL?

REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS THIS MORNING, HOLDER REPLIED, "YOU MOTHERF**KERS BETTER GET OFF MY DAMN PORCH BEFORE I SICK THE IRS ON YOUR S**TY ASSES!"


FROM THE TCI WIRE:




This afternoon,  House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte  noted that "just two days ago, it was revealed that the Justice Dept obtained telephone records for more than 20  Associated Press reporters and editors over a two month period. These requests appear to be very broad and intersect important First Amendment protections. Any abridgment of the First Amendment right to the Freedom of the Press is very concerning and members of the Committee want to hear an explanation today."   Ranking Member John Conyers noted, "I'm bothered by that our government would pursue such a broad range of media phone records over such a long period of time."  Conyers used the occasion to call for the passage of his Federal Press Shield bill.  Appearing before the Commitee today, Attorney General Eric Holder stated he supported such a law ("I continue to think that it should be passed") in response to questions from US House Rep Sheila Jackson Lee.

Monday came the shocking news that the Associated Press had been targeting the AP, secretly obtaining phone records for the months of April and May 2012.  Lynn Oberlander (The New Yorker) observed:

The cowardly move by the Justice Department to subpoena two months of the A.P.’s phone records, both of its office lines and of the home phones of individual reporters, is potentially a breach of the Justice Department’s own guidelines. Even more important, it prevented the A.P. from seeking a judicial review of the action. Some months ago, apparently, the government sent a subpoena (or subpoenas) for the records to the phone companies that serve those offices and individuals, and the companies provided the records without any notice to the A.P. If subpoenas had been served directly on the A.P. or its individual reporters, they would have had an opportunity to go to court to file a motion to quash the subpoenas. What would have happened in court is anybody’s guess—there is no federal shield law that would protect reporters from having to testify before a criminal grand jury—but the Justice Department avoided the issue altogether by not notifying the A.P. that it even wanted this information. Even beyond the outrageous and overreaching action against the journalists, this is a blatant attempt to avoid the oversight function of the courts.


From this afternoon's hearing, we'll note this section.

Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte:  It was recently reported that the Justice Dept obtained more than two months of phone records of more than 20 reporters and editors with the Associated Press -- including both work and personal phone lines. There's been a lot of criticism raised about the scope of this investigation.  Including why the Dept needed to subpoena records for 20 different people over a lengthy two month period?  Why was such a broad scope approved?

Attorney General Eric Holder:  Yeah, I mean, there's been a lot of criticism, the staff of the RNC called for my resignation in spite of the fact that I was not the person who was involved in that decision.  But be that as it may.  I was recused in that matter as I described in a press conference that I held yesterday, the decision to issue this subpoena was made by the people who are presently involved in the case, the matter is being supervised by the Deputy Attorney General.  I am not familiar with the ca[se] -- with the way the subpoena was constructed in the way that it was because I'm simply not a part of the, uh, of the case. 

Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte:  It's my understanding that one of the requirements before compelling process from the media outlet is to give the media outlet notice.  Do you know why that was not done?

Attorney General Eric Holder:  There are exceptions to that rule.  I do not know, however, with regard to that particular case, why that was or was not done.  I simply don't have a factual basis to answer that question.

Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte:  And it's also been reported that the Associated Press refrained from releasing this story for a week until the department confirmed that doing so would not jeopardize national security interests.  That indicates that the AP was amenable to working with you on this matter.  If that is the case, why was it necessary to subpoena the telephone records?  Did you seek the AP's assistance in the first place? And, if not, why not?

Attorney General Eric Holder:  Again, Mr. Chairman, I-I don't know what happened there with the, uh, interaction between the AP and the Justice Dept, I was recused from the case.

Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte:  I take it that you or others in the Justice Dept will be forthcoming with those answers to those questions as you explore why this was handled in what appears to be contrary to the law and standard procedure.

Attorney General Eric Holder:  Uh, well, again, there are exceptions to some of the rules that you pointed out.  And I have faith in the people who actually were responsible for this case that they were responsible for the rules and that they followed them.  But I don't have a factual basis to answer the questions that you have asked because I was recused. I don't know what has happened in this matter.

As disclosed before, I know Eric Holder. I like Eric.  That doesn't mean he gets a pass here.  We didn't cover Fast and Furious -- it didn't strike me as story nor was it part of our scope, sorry.  Rebecca did cover it and when it was tossed out -- I believe by one of her readers -- that it was probably making me mad, she asked me for a comment and I told her she needed to cover what she believed was important and that there was no problem.  (Rebecca and I are friends from college, nothing will harm that friendship.)

With that out of the way, on the above, not acceptable.  Holder isn't there to be cute or funny or political or angry.  He had no reason to bring up the RNC.  His job is to sit there, shut his mouth until he's asked to speak and then answer the question.  That is his job.  And it is Congress' time, not his.  So if they ask a question in the midst of a reply, he needs to be silent.  He is not elected to office and he is before Congress -- before The People's House, in fact.  These are the people citizens elected to represent them.  So when he's insulting or silly or anything but professional, it's unacceptable.  If he were a private citizen, fine and dandy.  But he's unelected official appearing before Congress to answer questions.  His behavior was unacceptable.  (Marcia will cover more of this at her site tonight.)  I don't care for Condi Rice.  I don't believe half of what she told Congress at hearings that I've attended.  But she's the one to hold up as the example of an official in front of Congress for the way she carried herself.  No member of that administration was treated as hostilely as Rice was.  That's in part because she's a woman and in part because people like Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft only served one term while Condi was there the full 8 years.  But while I rarely felt she was fully honest, I never faulted her for the way she conducted herself before the Committee. And she was treated rudely.  I have no problem saying that.  What Senator Barbara Boxer did to her in a hearing was the rudest thing I've ever seen.


Holder's behavior also includes his press conference that he noted.  But, more importantly, the interview he did with Carrie Johnson (Morning Edition, NPR) that aired this morning.

Carrie Johnson: And Holder only raised more questions when he told reporters he had seen a draft of Cole's letter beforehand.  And is that normal practice when you're recused from a case?

Eric Holder: Well, no.  I just wanted to see the letter.  I saw the draft letter this morning and I just wanted to have an opportunity to see what it looked like so I'd have at least some sense of the case, in case there were things in the letter that [I] could talk about with the press.



Regardless, once you're recused, you stay out of it.  That means you don't read a letter because, in your kind, beautiful heart, you want to help the press.  I don't care.  You recused yourself, you stay out of it.  Recusing means you wall yourself off.  You don't get to choose which parts you have access to and which parts your review.  If you are recused from the matter, you are out of it.

The wall is not porous.  Out of it means out of it.  That also means you don't make statements of 'faith' about employees.  You are out of it. You cannot offer judgments, you can offer facts.  You are out of it.  Eric Holder's actions are appalling because he is over executing the laws for the Executive Branch and he fails to follow the recusal.

He did clear up that when the Attorney General is recused from a case, the Deputy Attorney General becomes Acting Attorney General on that case.  This goes to the issue of the law requiring Holder to sign off on the subpoena.  As he explained it to US House Rep Jim Sensebrenner,  Deputy Attorney General James Cole would have signed off.  (There's more on that which Kat will cover at her site tonight.)


As Attorney General, he is over the Justice Dept and that means he needs to know what's going on.  So when he explains that he was recused  because he had been interviewed on this case, that's allowed.  [Holder knew the information leaked.  He was interviewed to determine whether or not he was the leak.  For this reason he recused himself.]  That's expected.  When he's asked by Sensebrenner if Cole was also interviewed in the investigation that caused your recusal" and Holder responds, "Uh, I don't know. I don't know. I assume he was, but I don't know," you've got a problem.

He is the Attorney General.  Part of recusing himself was ensuring that whomever took over also had no appearance of a conflict of interest.  I have no idea whether Cole was interviewed or not.  But I'm not Attorney General.  That is something Holder should know.  If the answer was "yes," Cole shouldn't have been put in charge?  Correct.  But Cole shouldn't have been put in charge -- yes or no -- before it was determined whether or not he too was questioned for the investigation.  It was Holder's job to not only ensure that he had no appearance of conflicted interests but that the person who the case was handed off to did not have a conflict of interest.  Eric Holder didn't do that part of his job.

Nor did he put his recusal in writing.  This is an issue.  It's not minor.  Holder is under the opinion that all he needs to do is say, "Tag, you're it."  No.  He cannot just tell his Deputy AG that he is recusing himself and the Deputy AG is in charge.  It needs to be formal.  It wasn't.  Under questioning from US House Rep Spencer Bachus, he admitted that it was not done in writing.  Did he inform the White House?  No, he said because it was an ongoing investigation.  I'm sorry but the White House nominated Holder for the post.  He reports directly to the White House, he should have informed the White House that he was recusing himself and he should have done so in writing.  Holder disagrees.  He does allow that it might have been helpful to have put it in writing.  Bachus pointed out, "Well it would be in this case becuase you don't know when you recused yourself."  To which, he replied, "Well I don't know precisely but I have said that it was at the beginning of the investigation."  He also testified that he put two people in charge of the investigation as part of his recusal.  Why is he staffing the investigation if he's recused?  If he turned power over to the Deputy Attorney General than the DAG should be the one appointing people to lead the investigation.

We'll note more of the hearing throughout the snapshot.  Wally's tackling an issue the hearing raises about Congress (he'll be writing at Rebecca's site tonight) and, at Trina's site, Ava's covering nonsense from a member and the member's failure to redeem himself.






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"THIS JUST IN! WHY BARRY O ATTACKS THE PRESS AND WHISTLE-BLOWERS!"

THIS JUST IN! WHY BARRY O ATTACKS THE PRESS AND WHISTLE-BLOWERS!

 BULLY BOY PRESS &   CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW -- MUST CREDIT  BULLY BOY PRESS &   CEDRIC'S BIG MIX  -- CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O REVEALED TO THESE REPORTERS THIS MORNING THE  REASON BEHIND HIS WAR ON WHISTLE BLOWERS AND THE PRESS.

"I'M ALWAYS THE LAST TO KNOW," BARRY O WHINED ASKING THAT SOMEONE CUT HIS GRAPEFRUIT FOR HIM.

"AND," HE CONTINUED AS VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN CUT THE GRAPEFRUIT, "WHISTLE BLOWERS AND THE PRESS MAKE ME LOOK STUPID AND UNINFORMED.  SO IF I CAN JUST PUT AN END TO BOTH OF THEM, I'LL LOOK SO MUCH SMARTER."

BARRY O SMILED, TOOK HALF A GRAPEFRUIT, STUCK A FORK IN AND BEGAN SCREAMING.


"OH, MY EYE!  MY EYE!  THE JUICE SHOT IN MY EYE!" BARRY O EXCLAIMED.


FROM THE TCI WIRE:



Starting with the latest US government assault on the First Amendment in the name of the so-called 'war on terror,' Dylan Byers and Katie Glueck (POLITICO) speak with AP staffers about their reaction to the news that the US Justice Dept had secretly grabbed the news organizations' phone records for April and May 2012.   One person states, "People were outraged and disgusted.  No one was yelling and screaming, but it was like, 'Are you kidding me?'"

The Port Huron Times-Herald editorial board observes, "The seizure of journalists' phone records is an attack on press freedom and the constitutional protection of the public's right to know. The American people must see Obama account for this deplorable action."  Today, AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe (link is video) and spoke about this assault on the First Amendment with hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and guests journalists Carl Bernstein (of Watergate fame)  Mike Barnicle.  Excerpt.

Kathleen Carroll:  Well obviously, we're distressed that the Justice Dept felt the need to seize our records and not tell us about it and certainly distressed as our CEO said in his protest to the Justice Dept that the scope of the inquiry's so huge.  More than 100 journalists for the AP work at the places whose phone numbers and phone records were seized by the Justice Dept. 

Mike Barnicle:  Kathleen, the origins of the story have to do with a story that the AP broke on a plot in Yemen that originated in Yemen, correct?

Kathleen Carroll: Well, we're not entirely sure about that but that's our best guess, Mike.

Mike Barnicle:  But at the time that that story ran, it ran after the Associated Press cooperated with the government's request to delay the story, is that correct?

Kathleen Carroll: That is correct.

Mike Barnicle:  When did you find out from the Dept of Justice, from the government, that these records were subpoenaed, that the Justice Dept was eavesdropping on reporters?

Kathleen Carroll: We got a very brief e-mail Friday afternoon from the US Attorney of the District of Columbia saying that they had these records of these 20 phone lines.

Mike Barnicle: And did it outline in that notification to you, did it outline the time frame in which they were eavesdropping on reporters? 

Kathleen Carroll: April and May of 2012.

Mike Barnicle:  That vague?

Kathleen Carroll: Yep.

Joe Scarborough: So Kathleen, you say over 100 reporters' phones were -- phone records -- were seized by the government?

Kathleen Carroll:  It's 20 different phone lines, Joe, and they -- the phone lines -- include main numbers.  If you count all the journalists who would be making calls in and out of those phone numbers, it would be more than 100.

Joe Scarborough: And what's so surprising here, Mike, is, of course, other administrations have done this, have made mistakes.  In 2004, the FBI mistakenly did this and apologized for an Indonesian office.  Kathleen, this goes right to the core of the Associated Press mission.  What is the impact of having the phone records of 100 reporters of the Associated Press seized by the government?

Kathleen Carroll:  Well it's clearly distressing to think that -- without our knowledge -- someone is looking at phone calls that we make in the course of daily business and obviously not all of them would be involving this kind of reporting on the story that Mike mentioned, the national security story.  It would be calling police officers to see what's going on on a burning house, it would be calling hospitals,  it would be talking with government officials of every level -- city, state, federal, in the normal course of business.

Joe Scarborough: Well, Kathleen, it would also be talking to whistle blowers, members of the federal government, people and agencies -- sources saying things not only about the administration that the administration wouldn't want, but other government officials.  Do you find this to be a chilling intimidating breach of the Associated Press' constitutional -- You're, you're smiling.  I see Carl smiling here.  If I'm a reporter and I just found out I was chasing a story with sources that were scared to talk to me and now the federal government, the Justice Dept has their phone numbers inside their agencies, that's chilling not only to the Associated Press but to your sources.

Kathleen Carroll:  Well obviously we find this very distressing and I think the CEO put it best in the very strongly worded letter that he sent yesterday to Eric Holder, the Attorney General.  I mean, I've been in this business more than 30 years and our First Amendment lawyers and our lawyers inside the AP, and our CEO, also well known First Amendment Lawyer, none of us have seen anything like this.


Carl Bernstein noted, "This administration has been terrible on this subject from the beginning.  The object of it is to intimidate people who talk to reporters. This was an accident waiting to become a nuclear event and now it's happened.  There's no excuse for it whatsoever.  There's no reason for this investigation especially on this scale."  I know Carl and I want to be clear that he's an investigative journalist.  I've shared the tale before of two would-be screenwriters (news reporters) who wrote a (bad) script and wanted input on it.  I said, "Your main character's an investigative reporter and we never see any drive or passion for that.  There's not even a token reference to Woodward and Bernstein."  To which one of the two (the one who reported for the news section of the New York Times) asked, "Who are Woodard and Bernstein?"  So to be clear, Watergate was the scandal that buried the administration of Richard Nixon (Tricky Dick).  It came to light because of the dogged pursuit of reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  So just to be clear on who Carl is.  Reporters Without Borders issued a statement calling out the action and they quoted RWB's secretary-general Christophe Deloire stating:



 We share the view of AP president and CEO Gary Pruitt, who called it a 'massive and unprecedented intrusion' in a letter yesterday to US attorney general Eric Holder.  We urge the DOJ to comply immediately with the AP's request for the return or destruction of the seized phone records.

We also think that such a flagrant violation of constitutional guarantees needs to be the subject of a congressional commission of enquiry. We regret to see that the federal government has not ended the practices that prevailed during President George W. Bush’s two terms, when officials sacrificed the protection of private data and, above all, the First Amendment right to be informed. This case has demonstrated the need for a federal shield law that guarantees the protection of journalists’ sources, a principle that 34 of the Union’s states already recognize to varying degrees in their legislation.

WBAP's Ben Ferguson discussed the attack on press freedom with the AP's Interim General Counsel Laura Malone.  The interview will be broadcast tomorrow morning but WBAP has put on some of it on the web late today.

Laura Malone:  They didn't give us any reasoning.  The time frame is April and May 2012.  They gave us a list of the telephone numbers.  We internally matched the telephone numbers to our journalists and that's how we found out what the telephone numbers pertained to.  There were some specific journalists who were named in the notification and they gave us the phone numbers but the rest of it was just a string of numbers that we had to go through.  That's when we discovered that they had the general telephone numbers and the fax numbers of some of our bureaus.  And, again, as I say, the time frame, it simply says from April and May 2012, not limited in any fashion and they don't give a reason why.

Ben Ferguson: For all you know, and I want to clarify this -- my guest Laura Malone, AP Interim General Counsel -- they could have been for months on end or even currently now is there a possibility that the Justice Dept is continuing to do what they told you they were doing in the past?

Laura Malone:  Of course they could be doing this now.  We would have no idea, no way of knowing if they were really on this general exception.  There is a requirement under this set of guidelines that once they do it they have a time under which they have to notify you after the fact. And it's a 45-day notice period but it also can be extended by another 45 days.  So the potential is that they subpeonead these records and as a little as a day or two [later] we got the notice or as much as 90 days before we got the notice.  So could they be doing this currently?  There's no reason to think that they couldn't. 

Ben Ferguson: What do you -- my guest Laura Malone AP Interim General Counsel -- from the Associated Press,  Atorney General Eric Holder has just said that his deputy ultimately authorized the subpeona  to secretly obtain phone records from the Associated Press and he said that he had recused himself early on in the related investigation into leaks of sensitive information that they claim put the American people at risk.

Laura Malone:  Mmm-hmm.  Well there are a couple of different parts of your question.  First of all, under the rules, the Attorney General is supposed to sign off on any kind of subpeona like this.  He is now saying -- and we're hearing the same thing that you're hearing -- that he recused himself and assigned this to his Deputy AG and his name is Jim Cole.  We just, in the last several minutes, got a letter from Mr. Cole in response to our letter and I have to tell you that I have not reviewed it yet.  But we did -- we did just get it and we're reviewing it internally.


As David Jackson (USA Today) observes, "Already facing criticism over the Benghazi attack and Internal Revenue Service problems, President Obama and aides must now deal with news that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of journalists who work for the Associated Press."  As Mike observed last night, "Barack Is A Many Scandaled Thing."  Let's move to the IRS since targeting critics of the government is targeting free speech -- Trina covered this in "The IRS as an instrument of intimidation."  Lucy Madison (CBS News -- link is text but includes video of Charlie Rose addressing the topic on CBS This Morning) reports on a USA Today column today by IRS' Acting Commissioner Steven Miller .  Madison notes, "CBS News has confirmed that Miller, who replaced former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman who resigned last year, was informed of the IRS's targeting policy in May 2012.  On July 25, 2012, Miller testified before a House Ways and Means Oversight subcommittee, but did not mention the agency's heightened scrutiny for the applications of conservative groups. After learning of the controversial IRS practice, he also wrote at least two letters to Congress explaining the process for reviewing tax-exempt status applications; in neither of those letters did he mention the targeting."

The Inspector General of the Treasury has a report due out on the IRS' targeting.  Several news outlets have advanced copies.  Joseph Tanfani and Richard Simon (Los Angeles Times)  explain, "The report looked at records for 298 organizations that the IRS specialists scrutinized for their level of political activity, determining that 96 were pulled out because they had the words “tea party,” 'patriots,' or '9-12' in their names, while 202 did not. ('9-12' refers to a conservative movement to restore the national unity felt on the day after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.)" Lindsey Boerma and Steve Chaggaris (CBS News -- link is text and video) state the report pins the blame on "ineffective management."



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"THIS JUST IN! OLD CRUST LIPS DISHONORS THE DEAD!"

THIS JUST IN! OLD CRUST LIPS DISHONORS THE DEAD!

BULLY BOY PRESS &   CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE


CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O EARNED A NEW NICKNAME YESTERDAY, "OLD CRUSTY LIPS." 

OLD CRUSTY LIPS YAMMERED AWAY 'ABOUT' BENGHAZI YESTERDAY FOR OVER 900 WORDS.  

HE HAD THE NERVE TO ACCUSE OTHERS OF DISHONORING "4 DEAD AMERICA" BUT HE NEVER SAID THEIR NAMES.  WHO'S DISHONORING THE DEAD?

HE MANAGED TO SAY "MIKE MULLEN," "TOM PICKERING," "MATT OLSEN," "SUSAN RICE" AND "HILLARY CLINTON."

BUT HE DIDN'T SAY "GLEN DOHERTY" OR "SEAN SMITH" OR "CHRIS STEVENS" OR "TYRONE WOODS."

WHO DISHONORED THE DEAD?


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

 The so-called 'war on terror' wounds another democratic institution.   Mark Sherman (AP) reports that his news organization's phone records for April and May 2012 were seized by the US Justice Dept.  Sherman quotes a statement from Associated Press President and CEO Gary Pruitt: 

 There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of the Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.

 Revelations of the seizure emerge ten days after World Press Freedom Day. The news also emerges after AP won their 51st Pulizter Prize -- last month photo journalists Rodrigo Abd, Manu Brabo, Narciso Contreras, Khalil Hamra and Muhammed Muheisen were honored,  and it emerges after AP photo journalist David Guttenfelder was awarded the Infinity Award for Photojournalism only days ago.  167 years ago this month, the Associated Press began as "five New York City newspapers got together to fund a pony express route through Alabama in order to bring news of the Mexican War north more quickly than the U.S. Post Office could deliver it. In the decades since, AP has been first to tell the world of many of history’s most important moments, from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the fall of the shah of Iran and the death of Pope John Paul."  Over 30 correspondents have died in those years in the pursuit of news stories. The story of the Associated Press is the story of changing technology, "AP delivered news by pigeon, pony express, railroad, steamship, telegraph and teletype in the early years. In 1935, AP began sending photographs by wire. A radio network was formed in 1973, and an international video division was added in 1994. In 2005, a digital database was created to hold all AP content, which has allowed the agency to deliver news instantly and in every format to the ever expanding online world."

So what led to the US government's assault on the First Amendment?  The AP believes it is this report by Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo from May 2012 which opened with, "The CIA thwarted an ambitious plot by Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, the Associated Press has learned."

What's the problem with the story?  That the government didn't want AP to cover it for another 24 hours.  At the start of the month a year ago, AP learned of this story -- presumably from US government sources.  The report ran May 7th, a day before the administration planned to grab headlines with a news conference announcing the foiling of the plot.  (As Goldman and Apuzzo noted in their original report, the White House and the CIA knew AP would be reporting this and AP delayed the story for a week at their request.)  Though this appears to fall into what has already been established in Brave New Films' documentary War On Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State, the US Justice Dept insists in a statement that they have done nothing wrong.  They tell the Australian Business Insider:

We take seriously our obligations to follow all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations.  Those regulations require us to make every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media.  We must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation.  Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws.


The targeting of the venerable news organization comes as the White House is already reeling from another abuse scandal: the IRS went after conservative political organizations.  That scandal emerged Friday.  Lucy Madison (CBS News -- link is text and video) quotes US President Barack Obama declaring today, "If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous and there's no place for it."  If?  Chip Reid (CBS News -- link is text and video) reported Friday on the emerging scandal and included the IRS' Lois Lerner stating of her agency's inappropriate behavior, "They used names like tea party or patriots. And they selected cases simply because the application had those names in the title. That was wrong. The IRS would like to apologize for that." Over the weekend, Gregory Korte (USA Today) reported that while Lerner maintained that the targeting took place only in 2012, she "was briefed in 2011" of the same actions taking place that year.  Though no supposedly left or liberal groups were targeted, Lerner has insisted on Friday that this wasn't partisan or political.  Juliet Eilperin (Washington Post) reported yesterday afternoon, "The documents, obtained by The Washington Post  from a congressional aide with knowledge of the findings, show that on June 29, 2011, IRS staffers held a briefing with senior agency official Lois G. Lerner in which they described giving special attention to instances where 'statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run'."  That makes it partisan.  In addition, we've repeatedly noted here the violations in tax exempt status on the left.  Whether it's then-WBAI executives going on the air of WBAI (a public radio station with tax exempt status) to endorse Barack Obama in the 2008 general election or NOW repeatedly claiming an 'oopsie' each presidential year as it goes around saying "NOW has endorsed" whatever Democrat when, in fact, NOW can't endorse. NOW can't have its tax exempt status and make those endorsements.  That's why they created NOW PAC -- which is cheap and shoddy way -- but legal -- to get around that.  So NOW PAC makes the endorsements but the president of NOW always knows no one knows or gives a damn about NOW PAC so, for example, then-NOW president Kim Gandy went on NPR in 2008 to discuss  the endorsement. From the interview Renee Montagne did with Gandy for Morning Edition on September 16, 2008:

Ms. KIM GANDY (President, National Organization for Women): Good morning, Renee. 

MONTAGNE: Who will NOW be endorsing? 

Ms. GANDY: NOW is going to be endorsing the Obama-Biden ticket a little bit later on this morning. 

MONTAGNE: Just list for us briefly the main positions held by Barack Obama that you think would make him the right man to become president, and alternatively, John McCain, why he's the wrong man.

Repeating, NOW does not endorse.  From their own FAQ sheet, "NOW's Political Action Committee, or NOW/PAC, supports candidates in federal elections (for Congress and the Presidency).  You must be a member of NOW to contribut to NOW/PAC.  NOW/PAC is the only part of the national organization that can endorse federal political candidates."

Do you get that?  Because NPR didn't.  And when the then-president of NOW Kim Gandy announces on the airwaves that NOW has endorsed, NOW has violated its tax exempt status.

That's where you pull the tax exempt status.  These PACs never should have been created to begin with, they're dishonest and spit on the spirit of the law and make a mockery of our elections and they are as damaging as so-called 'soft money.'  But once they were allowed, the deal was, the PAC endorses, not the organization.  NOW's tax exempt status should have been pulled over that.  And that's before you get into the use of NOW -- the organization's -- data base being used to promote NOW PAC's actions and those letters and e-mails also failing to note the it's "NOW PAC" and not NOW doing the endorsing.

So, yes, this was partisan.  If you abused your tax status to help Barack's election, the IRS didn't investigate you.   But if you used it to speak out against the government, then they harassed you.  For audio reporting of this scandal, click here for The Takeaway with John Hockenberry's discussion with correspondent Todd Zwillich.

As the scandal over the IRS targeting the White House's political opponents continues to make waves, the White House now takes aim at the Associated Press.


Meanwhile, four years and two days after a man took aim and launched a killing spree that left five dead, there is a conviction.  Kim Murphy (Los Angeles Times) reports US Sgt John Russell has been declared guilty today for the murders of 5 US service members in Iraq.  Dropping back to the May 11, 2009 snapshot:

Today the US military announced a Camp Liberty shooting at 2:00 p.m. Iraq time in which five US service members were shot dead.  In a second announcement, they added, "A U.S. Soldier suspected of being involved with the shootings is currently in custody."  Luis Martinez and Martha Raddatz (ABC News) encourage people to watch ABC World News Tonight with Charles Gibson this evening for a report on the shooting.  Tom Leonard (Telegraph of London) states three more US soldiers were wounded in the shooting as does CNN; however, Jenny Booth (Times of London) goes with "at least two others were wounded" and she quotes Lt Tom Garnett (military spokesperson) stating, "The shooter is a US soldier and he is in custody."  CNN states the shooting took place at a clinic for US service members seeking assistance with stress.  Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) cites a US military official: "The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the incident shook up soldiers, many of whom are in their third and even fourth tours.  Some broke down in tears, he said."  Yochi J. Drezen (Wall St. Journal) draws the conclusion that many are drawing (and they may be right or they may be wrong) which is that it was likely fratricide, "Such crimes were more common during the Vietnam War, but have occurred only sporadically in Iraq. In 2003, Sgt. Hasan Akbar killed two soldiers and wounded 14 others in a grenade attack in Kuwait; he was convicted and sentenced to death. In 2006, Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez was charged with murdering two officers in a suspicious explosion in Tikrit, though he was later acquitted. And last year, an American soldier was arrested in the shooting deaths of a pair of other soldiers at a base near the Iraqi city of Iskandariya."

AFP explains, "Russell, who has previously denied responsibility, admitted the killings last month, in a plea deal worked out by his lawyers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), in the northwestern US state of Washington."  BBC News adds, "Russell, a 14-year-veteran, will now begin the sentencing phase of his court martial, where a judge will determine whether he will spend the rest of his life in prison or have the possibility of release one day."

The five killed were identified in two separate news releases by DoD in May 2009.  First, the Navy member killed:

Commander Charles K. Springle, 52, of Wilmington, N.C., died May 11 from injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident at Camp Liberty, Iraq. 

A day later, DoD identifed the four members of the Army who were killed:

                Maj. Matthew P. Houseal, 54, of Amarillo, Texas. He was assigned to the 55^th Medical Company, Indianapolis, Ind.;

                Staff Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, 25, of Paterson, N.J. He was assigned to the 3^rd Battalion, 66^th Armor Regiment, 172^nd Infantry Brigade, Grafenwoehr, Germany;

                Spc. Jacob D. Barton, 20, of Lenox, Mo. He was assigned to the 277^th Engineer Company, 420^th Engineer Brigade, Waco, Texas; and

                Pfc. Michael E. Yates Jr., 19, of Federalsburg, Md. He was assigned to the 3^rd Battalion, 66^th Armor Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, Grafenwoehr, Germany.

In May of 2009, CBS Evening News featured a report by Bob Orr in which Orr spoke with people who knew Sgt John Russell -- including his son John Michael Russell.  Excerpt.


22-year-old John Michael Russell: For him to do something like that, he couldn't have been in his right state of mind. They had to -- they had to put him to a breaking point and just -- he just had to have lost it. Just lost all train of thought to do anything like that.

Bob Orr: [Sgt] Russell's father said he may have snapped fearing his military career could be ended by a stress diagnosis

Kim Murphy notes that at Sgt Russell's "mother and sisters" were present in court today as the verdict was announced.

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  THIS JUST IN! WHITE HOUSE REFUSES TO STAND UP FOR THE PEOPLE!

  2 days ago

THIS JUST IN! WHITE HOUSE REFUSES TO STAND UP FOR THE PEOPLE!

BULLY BOY PRESS &   CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, THERE'S FIRE. 

AND TODAY THERE WAS SMOKE IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

WHICH DIDN'T STOP EVERYONE FROM TALKING ABOUT BENGHAZI.

WHY, IF A STATE DEPT. EMPLOYEE (VICTORIA NULAND) HAS NOW BEEN CAUGHT MANIPULATING INFORMATION TO THE PUBLIC IN ORDER TO MAKE THE STATE DEPARTMENT LOOK BETTER, HASN'T BARRY O CONDEMNED IT?

THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO LIE TO THE PEOPLE. 

THE ACTIONS OF VICTORIA NULAND AND THE STATE DEPT. MUST BE CONDEMNED BY THE WHITE HOUSE.

REACHED FOR COMMENT, BARRY O INSISTED, "I HAD SO MUCH MORE FUN ON MY FIELD TRIP TO AUSTIN.  I WISH I WERE STILL THERE."


FROM THE TCI WIRE:




Today Military Families Speak Out notes the passing of Charlie Richardson "on May 4th, 2012 at home after a six-year battle with cancer".  They note:


The seeds of MFSO were sown in the summer of 2002 when Charley’s son, a U.S. Marine, was being deployed and it became clear he would most likely be ending up in Iraq. As life-long peace and labor activists, Charley, and his wife Nancy Lessin, knew they couldn’t sit by silently while their son was being sent into harm’s way, to a war that should not be happening, an illegal and immoral war of aggression. They brought a sign to anti-war protests with their son’s picture on it that said, “Our Son Is A Marine – Don’t Send Him to War for Oil!” Charley and Nancy were overwhelmed by the response they received to the power of their voice as a military family protesting the war.
At one of these rallies they met another a father whose son was facing deployment to Kuwait. Together, they formed Military Families Speak Out to organize and amplify the voices of military families in opposition to an invasion of Iraq. Just months later, Nancy and Charley spoke at a press conference, offering their home phone number for MFSO; within days, two hundred families from around the country joined the organization.
In February, 2003 Charley and Nancy were lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit against then-President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, calling for a temporary restraining order that would prevent the U.S. from invading Iraq until there was a congressionally mandated declaration of war. Three active-duty service members, other MFSO members and twelve Members of Congress were part of that lawsuit. The case went two rounds in the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and finally failed on March 18, 2003. The bombs dropped on Baghdad the next day.
For the next two years MFSO existed in Charley and Nancy’s living room. On top of their day jobs as prominent labor activists, Nancy and Charley wrote grant proposals, helped members start chapters, trained families on how to speak to the media and pushed tirelessly to create a home for families like them, who had loved ones in the military and were opposed to the war. Families came to them with the same story. “Thank God I found you. I thought I was the only one! What can I do to be a part of this?”

Staying with the topic of peace, Yavuz Baydar (Al-Monitor) notes, "Sticking to its promises, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) appears to have started pulling out from Turkey as agreed with Ankara. At least 50 militants are said to have crossed into Iraqi Kurdistan since May 8." At her site last night, Betty continued the conversation about how ridiculous Nouri looked for declaring Thursday that the PKK could not come into Iraq.  World Bulletin News quotes Turkey's Foreign Ministry, "This announcement seems to result more from the contestations between Baghdad and Erbil.  It is obvious that the PKK withdrawing from Turkey will not be a threat to anyone, and that they will leave behind terror.  We are not sending terrorists to another country to organize attacks.  Therefore there is no reason to worry.  The PKK came from Iraq anyway and would enter and exit periodically.  Why are they now a problem?"


Background.  Turkey has been the part of many histroical empires -- including the Hittite, Byzantine and the Ottoman Empire.  From 1918 to 1922, Constantinople was occupied by the French, British and Italians.  The native population fought back, expelled the occupiers and the Republic of Turkey was created.  That's a very brief and incomplete history of Turkey.   Aaron Hess (International Socialist Review) described the PKK in 2008, "The PKK emerged in 1984 as a major force in response to Turkey's oppression of its Kurdish population. Since the late 1970s, Turkey has waged a relentless war of attrition that has killed tens of thousands of Kurds and driven millions from their homes. The Kurds are the world's largest stateless population -- whose main population concentration straddles Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria -- and have been the victims of imperialist wars and manipulation since the colonial period. While Turkey has granted limited rights to the Kurds in recent years in order to accommodate the European Union, which it seeks to join, even these are now at risk."  May 8th saw the start of a process the two sides had spent some time negotiating.

While the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in the north is where the PKK will go, it has been the central government out of Baghdad which has spent the week complaining.  Along with Nouri, you've had his Cabinet members launch various verbal attacks on Turkey.  How bad is it?  So bad that Nouri's government figured they better make nice with another neighbor.  Al-Shorfa reports, "Iraq has re-opened its land border crossing with Jordan two weeks after closing it for security reasons, Anbar's local government said Friday."

Jordan, like Turkey on Sunday and Syria previously, has been accused by Nouri and his Cabinet in the past of being responsible for the ongoing protests in Iraq which kicked off December 21st and continued today.  Iraqi Spring MC reports that a Reuters reporters has been detained in Anbar while attempting to cover a protest.  In related news, the National Iraqi News Agency reports, "Police forces prevented the media and journalists from entering the Mosque of Muhammad Rasoolollah in the city of Kirkuk to cover the unified Friday prayers."  Falluja is in Anbar and the sit-in continues there.  In this Iraqi Spring MC video, the speaker in Falluja rejects the division of Iraq.  Today's protests were about unity and dignity and a unified Iraq.  Alsumaria notes the Ramadi protest  saw tens of thousands turn out to celebrate dignity and choose peace.  They called on the United Nations and the religious authorities to curb Nouri's lust for power.   NINA reports that the Ramadi and Falluja protesters "demonstrated after Friday unified prayers on The international road condemned the double standard policy of Maliki government in dealing with Iraqi people component and demanded to bring down such a government."


It was another bad day for prime minister and chief thug Nouri al-Maliki.  Alsumaria reports that cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr declared his sympathy for the Iraqis who've lost family members as a result of the purchase and use by Nouri's government of 'magic' wands -- which have been known not to work since 2009.  Moqtada urged the families who lost loved ones and those who were injured as a result to sue the person who purchased the items. (That would be Nouri.)  April 23rd (see the  April 24, 2013 snapshot), James McCormick, the man who made and sold the wands, who was on trial for those wands, was pronounced guilty on three counts of fraud.  And still Nouri has allowed -- no, insisted that the wands be used.   May 2nd, McCormick was sentenced to a maxium of 10 years.  Jake Ryan (Sun) quoted Judge Richard Hone stating, "The device was useless, the profit outrageous and your culpability as a fraudster has to be placed in the highest category.  Your profits were obscene.  You have neither insight, shame or any sense of remorse." And yet last Friday, Ammar Karim (AFP) reported that the 'magic'  wands to 'detect' bombs (and drugs and, no doubt, spirits from the other world) are still being used in Iraq.  He spoke with a police officer in Baghdad who admits that everyone knows that they don't work but that the police are under orders to use the wands.

Last Saturday,   NINA reported,  "Leader of the Sadrist Trend, Muqtada al-Sadr, demanded Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to apologize and stand before Parliament to answer about the deal of the explosives detection instruments."  Moqtada suspects some Iraqis were bribed in this deal and wants names he also demands that the 'magic' wands stop being used immediately stating that they are "an insult to the Iraqis' intelligence."  Moqtada and Iraqiya have called for Nouri to appear before Parliament and explain why the wands were purchased, who profited from them and the various details of the deal that was made for them.

Al Mada reports that the Ministry of the Interior claimed today that they would recover all the money spent on the magic wands.  Ministry of the Interior Inspector General Aqeel Turaihi states that they have known and acknowledged since October 2010 that the magic wands do not work.

Regardless of whether money is recovered for the purchase, as Moqtada al-Sadr points out, lives have been lost and people have been injured.  The violence continues today.  National Iraqi News Agency reports Mohammed al-Rawi (Director of the Statutes Civil Dept in al-Qaim) was shot dead in Anbar Province, a Diyala Province car bombing left a wife and husband injured, and a Babil Province sticky bombing claimed 1 life and left another person injured.   All Iraq News reports an armed clash in Mosul that left 1 police officer and 3 rebels dead and, in southern Mosul, police shot dead 1 rebel.  Al Jazeera notes a bombing targeting the al-Sultan mosque in Mahaweel.  Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) reports 3 people were killed in the bombing and seven more injured.







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THIS JUST IN! A NEW IDEA?

BULLY BOY PRESS &   CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

FOR BARRY O, IT'S ANOTHER TOUR AND MORE WORDS.

FIVE YEARS NOW, THAT'S FAILED TO PRODUCE RESULTS. 

BUT HE LOVES TO BE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERAS.

REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS, BARRY O SAID A NEW IDEA WOULD PARALYZE THE COUNTRY, "WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING.  TRUST US.  WE'RE THE ADULTS IN THE ROOM.  WHAT!!!! OH COME ON!  GUYS, WHO TOOK MY JUICE BOX?  YOU KNEW THAT WAS MY JUICE BOX!"


FROM THE TCI WIRE:



Lynne Stewart is a US political prisoner.  For the 'crime' of issuing a press release, she was eventually tossed in prison.  The'crime' happened on Attorney General Janet Reno's watch.  Reno has her detractors who think she was far too tough as Attorney General.  She also has her supporters who see her as a moderate.  No one saw her as 'soft.'  Reno had her Justice Department review what happened.  There was no talk of a trial because there was no crime.  No law was broken.  The Justice Department imposes guidelines -- not written by Congress, so not laws -- on attorneys.  Lynne was made to review the guidelines and told not to break it again.  That was her 'punishment' under Janet Reno.  Bully Boy Bush comes into office and the already decided incident becomes a way for Attorney General John Ashcroft to try to build a name for himself. He goes on David Letterman's show to announce, after 9-11, that they're prosecuting Lynne for terrorism.

Eventually tossed in prison?  Even Bully Boy Bush allowed Lynne to remain out on appeal.  It's only when Barack Obama becomes president that Lynne gets tossed in prison.  It's only under Barack that the US Justice Depart disputes the judge's sentence and demands a harsher one (under the original sentence Lynne would be out now).  Lynne's cancer has returned.

Her husband Ralph Poynter  and Mya Shone and Ralph Schoenman provide an important update this week:


A major milestone has been reached in the struggle for Lynne Stewart's freedom. Lynne Stewart wrote on April 26 to confirm that the Warden at FMC Carswell recommended Compassionate Release to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
“So Happy that the Compassionate Release was granted at Carswell and we are on the road!!!
"Who DID It? --- The People Yes – and we certainly deserve a VICTORY and this is one for sure!!”
With this dramatic development, the International Campaign to Save the Life of Lynne Stewart crossed a critical threshold. We directed our attention immediately to Charles E. Samuels, Jr., the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Following two expedited communications from former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a probation officer charged with inspecting the residence designated for Lynne Stewart's recovery was dispatched to the home of her son, attorney Geoffrey Stewart. Soon afterwards, we were notified that the residence was approved.
Thus, another hurdle has been overcome, paving the way for Lynne Stewart's Compassionate Release.
There is no time to lose. Lynne Stewart has been in quarantine for several weeks at FMC Carswell since her white blood count dropped precipitously. As Ramsey Clark wrote to BOP Director Samuels:
"Further medical tests reveal that the cancer that had metastasized rapidly to her lungs, lymph nodes and shoulder remains aggressive. If the series of chemotherapy treatments slowed its spread in certain areas, it has not attenuated in her lungs. … The sustained treatment and preparations by the medical team at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City are critical to her survival.”
This is the moment to intensify our global mobilization. We must prevail upon the director of the Bureau of Prisons to file the motion for compassionate release with Judge John Koetl, the sentencing judge.
ASK FIVE OF YOUR FRIENDS OR COLLEAGUES TO SIGN THE PETITION. PUT THE PETITION ON YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE AND SEND A TWITTER MESSAGE NOW.
Among the latest signers are: Fr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, Bianca Jagger, Margaret Ratner Kunstler, Mark Lane, Noam Chomsky, Medea Benjamin, Rosa Clemente, Kathy Kelly, James Ridgeway and William Blum. 


On Law and Disorder Radio last month, Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) provided the work address for BP Director Charles E. Samuels, Jr.:


Charles E. Samuels Jr.
Federal Bureau of Prisons
320 First Street, NW
Washington, DC 20534

Lynne's been there when people have needed her -- everyone from so-called 'respectable' people to people no one else would help.  That's how she earned the title of "The People's Attorney."  She never should have been put in prison in the first place and she needs to be out now to get the treatment she needs, to have the support system of her family and her friends (and a support system is very important when you're being treated for cancer).  She turns 74 this year.  She's not a threat to anyone and she needs to be home.




Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.  I referred in the Tuesday snapshot to how Julian loses his case.  A number of people want clarification.  If the goal is to get Julian Assange out of London to Ecuador, then they're again bungling everything.

Julian Assange is a divisive figure.  You may not like that fact if he's your hero or someone you support but the ugly truth needs to be told and it needs to be recognized.  What his legal team wrongly thinks is that they can 'humanize' Julian Assange.  No.

That will not happen.  Assange is not an unknown where the problem is people just don't know him.  He's not a cypher that you can write a new pattern over.  He is a known.  And he pisses a number of people off.  If you want him out of the Embassy in London, you need to quit lying and start recognizing reality.

Before the rape allegations emerged, Julian Assange were already divisive.  Long before they emerged, South Park was mocking him (he was a rat).  He's also seen as an ego maniac.  We can list all of his negatives but, if you're honest with yourself, you know how he's seen.

The key to Assange's freedom is not Celebrity Profile Assange!

And every time one of those appears, he looks stupid (and trivial) to all but his small fan base.  That's not enough support.  To garner more support, his legal team needs to grasp that WikiLeaks is more popular than Julian.  When he gives interviews, he needs to be talking about WikiLeaks.  No one needs his thoughts on today's 'hot topics.'  He needs to give interviews where he talks about what WikiLeaks has done but, most importantly, what WikiLeaks can do, what's up next.

Julian Assange's value is limited.  He's one person and not someone who polls well.  (As his legal team knows from repeat polling but they keep kidding themselves that they're just one soft feature away from convincing the people that they actually love Assange.)  WikiLeaks is where the value is -- provided WikiLeaks is publishing.  WikiLeaks as a curio from the past?  Not going to motivate people.  WikiLeaks still active today (which it is) and that the focus of any Julian Assange interview is what lets his issues become issues that matter.

You tie him into WikiLeaks, you make the case for WikiLeaks.  He doesn't become more likable in the process but he's off the table.  It's no longer bout what Julian does as Julian Assange it's about what WikiLeaks does.  I've made this argument repeatedly.  People nod (I'm thinking of two of his attorneys) and claim insight.  But then we get the nonsense like the Chris Hedges interview.  Chris is going to softball Julian.  He's going to fluff.  He's the best (most favorable) interviewer Julian could have.  And Julian and Michael Ratner wasted that interview with crap like what Julian Assange thinks about gay people in the military.

No one cares.  Leave aside that the repeated use of "homosexual" at a time when most say "gay and lesbian" made it seem as if Julian was ridiculing gays and lesbians, there was no need for the topic and it had nothing to do with WikiLeaks.  Every time he goes off topic, he risks saying something offensive and his favorables are so low he can't afford to turn off any more people.

The topic has to be WikiLeaks.  By hard selling its past impact, its current work and, most important, where the future leads for WikiLeaks, you're suddenly on the issues that more people care about and you're making a case for extraditing Assange by sketching out something much more important than one person.

Matt Sledge (Huffington Post) reports, "Fed up with the military's limits on access to the court martial of Bradley Manning, the Army private who has admitted to sending hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents to the transparency organization WikiLeaks, a nonprofit group announced Thursday that it is crowdfunding a court stenographer to create daily trial transcripts." That's a topic that should have been raised with Chris Hedges.  That's the sort of thing that WikiLeaks needs to be doing.

Vivienne Westwood revolutionized fashion beginning with the punk movement in the 70s so she was a natural for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's gala this week celebrating the exhibit PUNK: Chaos To Courture (which runs through August 14th).  Karen Dacre (Evening Standard) reports, "The inimitable Vivienne Westwood -- a vision in a pale pink kimono and grey ruched waist dress from her own label -- led the charge.  And rightly so, the British designer is the godmother of the era this whole evening was devised to celebrate." But not everyone was impressed.  Lucy Waterlow (Daily Mail) explains that, on the red carpet, Vivienne was questioned by Vogue's Billy Norwich on a live feed and Norwich quickly cut her off.  Norwich was bothered by her brooch and her discussing it.  Michael Dickinson (CounterPunch) explains Vivienne's brooch was a large photo of Bradley Manning with the word "TRUTH" on it and that Norwich cut her off after Vivienne said:

The most important thing is my jewelry, which is a picture of Bradley Manning.  I’m here to promote Bradley.  He needs public support for what’s going on with secret trials and trying to lock him away.  He’s the bravest of the brave, and that’s what I really want to say more than anything. Because punk, when I did punk all those years ago, my motive was the same: Justice, and to try to have a better world. It really was about that. I’ve got different methods nowadays.



The background on whistle blower Bradley Manning.  Monday April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took place in December. At the start of this year, there was an Article 32 hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be moving forward with a court-martial. Bradley has yet to enter a plea. The court-martial was supposed to begin before the November 2012 election but it was postponed until after the election so that Barack wouldn't have to run on a record of his actual actions.  Independent.ie adds, "A court martial is set to be held in June at Ford Meade in Maryland, with supporters treating him as a hero, but opponents describing him as a traitor."  February 28th, Bradley admitted he leaked to WikiLeaks.  And why.


Bradley Manning:   In attempting to conduct counter-terrorism or CT and counter-insurgency COIN operations we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and not being suspicious of and avoiding cooperation with our Host Nation partners, and ignoring the second and third order effects of accomplishing short-term goals and missions. I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A tables this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as [missed word] as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over a long period of time by different sectors of society might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to even to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the effected environment everyday.





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