I have previously expressed my view of the meeting ordered by President Barack Obama of Attorney General Eric Holder with representatives of the media. This feeble response was taken in lieu of the more obvious step of firing Holder for his attack on the free press. The proposed meeting was, in my view, an insulting gesture of effectively having Holder investigate Holder. It was made even more transparent by the decision of the Justice Department that the meeting had to be off-the-record. That was too much for two principled media organizations New York Times, CNN, and Associated Press which have refused (correctly) to attend. Continue reading “Media Refuses To Attend Holder Confab Over Monitoring Of Reporters”
Category: Politics
The Iranian government is continuing its crackdown on non-Muslim faiths this month with a shocking arrest of a minister in the middle of a service at Iran’s largest Persian-language Pentecostal church. One can only imagine the response of Muslims in the country if a Muslim cleric was arrested in the middle of a service in another country. However, the Iranian government pulled Pastor Robert Asserian off the altar and literally dragged him out of the church. The move is viewed as a warning to non-Muslims before the June 14 presidential election to replace President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
We recently celebrated the showing of tolerance in Arizona when the legislators allowed an atheist member to give the opening “prayer.” Democratic Representative Juan Mendez, of Tempe, is an atheist and opened the session by asking his colleagues not to bow their heads but look at each other. That did not sit well with Arizona State Rep. Steven Smith who proceeded the next day to give not one, but two prayers. The second prayer was to express “repentance” of the secular invocation offered the day before by Mendez. He was joined by half of the Arizona lawmakers in using prayer as a condemnation of Mendez and atheists.
Here is today’s column in USA Today calling for the firing of Attorney General Eric Holder (I have added a couple lines removed in editing). Holder is not the only individual who needs to leave federal office but he is the first. Equally responsible are his deputy, James Cole, and Ronald Machen Jr., the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia who played critical roles in the investigation of journalists with Associated Press and Fox News. Notably, Obama reportedly “fired” IRS Director Steve Miller (who was reportedly already leaving) over the IRS scandal though there is no indication of any knowledge on his part. In Holder’s case, he was personally involved in targeting journalists (in the Fox case) and launched an attack on the media that has been condemned by a wide array of public interest and media groups. Yet, Holder has been asked to hold a simple meeting with aggrieved media representatives by Obama.
There is an interesting conflict that has arisen between Interpol and the Putin government. Putin’s government has demanded the arrest of UK-based fund manager William Browder for his alleged tax evasion and told Interpol to put him on its list of wanted individuals. In a rare denial, Interpol decided that the Putin regime was pursuing Browder for offenses “of a predominantly political nature” and refused to assist the Russians.
Continue reading “Interpol Rebuffs Putin On Demand For Whistleblower’s Arrest”
Truong Duy Nhat, 49, is a leading blogger in Vietnam who has been challenging the government on its authoritarian laws. The Communist government has now responded by arresting him for “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state.” This truly Orwellian charge could result in a seven year sentence for the blogger.
Continue reading “Leading Blogger Arrested In Vietnam In Major Crackdown On Free Speech”
While Attorney General Eric Holder is legitimately taking the heat for his scorched Earth policy toward journalists and whistleblowers. His deputy, Jim Coles, is also being criticized for signing off on the investigation of the Associated Press. However, a third prosecutor has largely escaped attention in the scandal and is equally worthy of immediate termination for his role in this scandal. He is Ronald Machen Jr., the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. As with Holder, Machen was a friend and campaign contributor to Obama when he was selected to serve as U.S. Attorney. He proceeded to discard any concern for the freedom of the press in his investigation, particularly his pursuit of sources for Fox reporter James Rosen. He was also involved in the refusal to prosecute Holder for contempt of Congress in refusing to turn over critical documents in the “Fast and Furious” scandal.
Continue reading “Meet Ronald Machen: The Obama Administration’s Media Menace”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
Recently I wrote an article that discussed how the FDIC and the Bank of England had written a joint paper agreeing on how to deal with failing large banks in the post Dodd-Frank world. Banksters In my research for a follow-up to that article, I discovered that Congress was busy at work trying to do everything in its power to water down or eviscerate Dodd-Frank. I guess I should not be surprised that Congress might be trying to defeat a law that was passed in an attempt to make sure that ordinary citizens would not be asked to bail out the large banks once again. While Dodd-Frank is far from perfect, it is a step in the right direction. At least for the taxpayers. Continue reading “Do the Big Banks Control Everything?”
Below is today’s column in the Washington Post’s Outlook Section on the dangers of America’s growing administrative state. Ask any elementary student and you will hear how the Framers carefully designed a tripartite, or three-branch, system to govern the United States. This separation of powers was meant to protect citizens from tyranny by making every branch dependent on each other to carry out the functions of government. These three branches held together through a type of outward pressure – each holding the other in place through their countervailing forces. Add a fourth branch and the structure begins to collapse. That is precisely what is happening as federal agencies grow beyond the traditional controls and oversight of the legislative and executive branches. The question is how a tripartite system can function as a quadripartite system. The answer, as demonstrated by the last two decades, is not well. The shift from a tripartite to a quadripartite system is not the result of simply the growth in the size of the government. Rather, it is a concern with the degree of independence and autonomy in the fourth branch that led me to write this column.
Continue reading “The Rise of the Fourth Branch of Government”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
About a year ago I wrote a guest blog titled: PBS: Why I Watch But Don’t Contribute. In it I wrote about the history of PBS and of its’ seminal station WNET Channel 13 in New York. Through the years I’ve been privileged to watch some wonderful television on PBS from great plays to superb documentaries. Much of what PBS and channel 13 supplied to me was culture that was somewhat inaccessible from any other venue. What was so new and novel about the Public Television movement was that it was commercial free and so could greater explore subjects that were verboten in prime time commercial television. It also showed Americans the great programs being produced by the PBS analogue in Great Britain, the BBC. Far from being the “vast wasteland” of commercial TV described by JFK’s FCC head Newton Minnow, PBS showed what a wonderful medium television could be. At the core of this excellence was the fact that there were no sponsors to muzzle production values and dumb down the product.
Originally there was an organization called NET (National Education Television) which merged with New York’s Channel 13 in 1963. It had been operating under various names producing educational television programs that were distributed to various stations around the country. It had originally been funded via a grant from the Ford Foundation to produce educational programs. With the merger in 1963 the philosophy changed drastically in that the aim was to become America’s “Fourth TV Network”. When in 1966 the Ford Foundation began to withdraw funding the Federal Government stepped in.
“In 1966, NET’s viability came into question when the Ford Foundation decided to begin withdrawing financial support because of NET’s continual need for additional funding. In the meantime, the affiliated stations tried to keep the network alive by developing a reliable source of revenue.
The U.S. government intervened and created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1967 to fund the network for the time being. However, the CPB’s intent was to create its own public broadcasting network. The CPB embarked on that course of action because many NET affiliates were alienated by the programming that network offered. These affiliates further felt that NET’s simultaneous production and distribution of programming constituted a conflict of interest.
PBS first began operations in 1969, with NET still producing several shows. However, NET’s refusal to stop airing the critically praised but controversial documentaries led to the decision of both Ford and the CPB to shut the network down. In early 1970, both threatened to cut their funding unless NET merged its operations with Newark, New Jersey public station WNDT-TV. (This did not, however, end the production and distribution of hard-hitting documentaries on public television, since PBS itself continues to distribute and CPB continues to help fund series including Frontline, POV and Independent Lens to this day.)
On Monday, October 5, 1970, the exact day that PBS began broadcasting, NET and WNDT-TV officially completed their merger. NET ceased to operate as a separate network from that point, although some NET-branded programming, such as NET Journal, was part of the PBS schedule for another couple of years before the identity was finally retired. WNDT’s call sign was changed to the present WNET shortly thereafter. Some shows that began on NET, such as Sesame Street, continue to air on PBS today.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Educational_Television
When the government took over the formerly independent WNET the changes were at first unnoticed. However, as is the nature of bureaucracy the independence of content and programming began to be subject to political needs and as a medium, the product became diminished into what can only be seen as TV, that while on occasion is daring and revolutionary, is purposed to support and glorify the corporate state and the elite that runs it. Occasionally, really courageous insightful programs will slip by and air. This though is happening less frequently as outside pressures force self censorship on producers. What follows are current examples of why this is true. Continue reading “PBS: Why I Watch But Don’t Contribute: Part Deux”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
About one year into Barack Obama’s first term as President I began calling the White House demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder should be fired. I was disturbed by the lack of prosecutions and by the trend towards stricter enforcement of the Drug Laws. Clearly this was not the change I envisioned from a Constitutional Law professor, or his Attorney General. I guess my support in the election wasn’t important enough to get The President to hear my plea to rid himself and us, of both Holder and Geithner. Here we are now more than four years later and both of these bozos are still on the job and doing harm to our Constitution and our economy. With the Associated Press eavesdropping scandal we have just the latest contretemps committed by the Justice Department and its hapless leader. Having lived through Attorney General’s John Mitchell and Ed Meese, I understand full well the importance of the position and how if it is filled with the wrong man mischief will arise. Eric Holder is in the tradition of both these men since he too seems nonplussed when it comes to upholding the constitution. This article was in reaction to reading about Holder signing off on the AP probe in Thursday’s Huffington Post, I give credit to them for this story and I will provide links. Here are six instances of Holder’s using his office to achieve what I see as disastrously wrong actions. Continue reading “Eric Holder Should Go!”
If you want to know what kind of man could commit the grotesque act this week in butchering a man on a London street while posing for cameras, you might want to meet his teacher. In Tripoli, Lebanon, Syrian-born cleric, Omar Bakri, founder of banned British Islamist group Al Muhajiroun, saw the same video that we saw. While we recoiled at the savagery, Bakri rejoiced in what he called the “courage” and faith of Michael Adebolajo in murdering Lee Ridgy. Our disgust was matched by the cleric’s delight in seeing a former student murder in the name of Islam. He gave the interview as his son, Osama, played at his feet . . . yes, named after that Osama.
Continue reading “Mentor of A Murderer: Cleric Praises London Killer and Former Student”
President Barack Obama recently came out to remind people that “Leaks related to national security can put people at risk.” He however denied knowledge of this and the other scandals. In the past, Obama has been able to weather criticism by civil libertarians due to his iconic status with many citizens. This time is different. The media (rather belatedly) is seeing his Administration in a different light as a true threat to liberty. Now, Obama has given a speech proclaiming that he now thinks that reporters should not fear investigation for just doing their jobs so he has ordered an investigation . . . by Eric Holder and the Justice Department. Of course, it was disclosed on the same day that it was Holder who approved the abusive targeting of Fox reporter Jeff Rosen.
Continue reading “Obama Orders Holder To Investigate . . . Holder?”
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) is a pro-life Republican who has long run on family values. Those values however were no where in sight in the recent findings of the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners which ordered DesJarlais to pay a fine for having sexual relations with patients and allegedly pressuring one patient to get an abortion. However, the cost of such conduct will be $500.
I previously discussed the slew of recent conservatives who has “had a change of heart” on equal rights of gays and lesbians after a family member who out as homosexual. Like some conservative women who reject most privacy principles except abortion rights, it is hard to celebrate belated endorsements of civil liberties which happen to benefit these politicians or their families. I had the same reaction to some journalists who gave only passing attention to President Obama’s various attacks on civil liberties over the last four years. However, now that his Administration has turned on journalists, we are seeing editorials like today’s New York Times column stating “the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news.”
Continue reading “New York Times Editors Blast Obama For Attack On Free Press”