No thread about the DOJ spying on AP?

[RandomGuy]

If this doesn't start to make liberals question their messiah I'm not sure what will. The liberal media has been his lap dog, he should tread lightly these days before they too turn on him.

I know of few real liberals who think Obama is a great president. Most, including me, held our noses and voted for him because the Republican party does not let rational people through their primary process. You have to have some real whackadoo creds to get the votes in the GOP anymore.

When I got pissed at Obama in his first term, all I had to do was think... "vice-president Palin" and it all went away.

When I had to hold my nose and vote the second time, the thought "President Romney" made that stench evaporate in a similar manner.

The GOP repeatedly proves it is the part of rich white people, by rich white people, for rich white people. Sorry. You have only yourselves to blame for Obama's second term.

The sooner you take personal responsibility for that, the better off we will all be.

[RandomGuy]

The Obama administration not only did nothing to stop the ball rolling, they picked it up and shot a few baskets with it before sending it on it's way.

+1. I stand corrected.

I have been appalled by this, and should have been screaming about this as well. I must admit a bit of blame for not doing so. I try to weed out the "my guy" thoughts as much as possible, but they do slip through. I have unconsciously given him a pass on this, but it is ing worrysome in the extreme.

[TeyshaBlue]

The thought that frustrates me most is the notion that Obama has what must be, arguably, the worst handlers in the history of the American Presidency. I'm at a loss to explain the administrative missteps that continually land at his feet. The old saw "The Buck Stops Here" applies, but seems contrived from time to time.

[Capt Bringdown]

I swear, the Obama administration could start killing Americans in the street and half the left would say "what's the big deal?"

Your intimation of "left" is erroneous. Obama does not belong to the Left.

[LnGrrrR]

Cool, I hope the media presses him on this. Between this, GTMO, prosecuting whistleblowers, etc etc, it would be nice to get some of that "sunshine" he promised way back when.

[TSA]

I know of few real liberals who think Obama is a great president. Most, including me, held our noses and voted for him because the Republican party does not let rational people through their primary process. You have to have some real whackadoo creds to get the votes in the GOP anymore.

When I got pissed at Obama in his first term, all I had to do was think... "vice-president Palin" and it all went away.

When I had to hold my nose and vote the second time, the thought "President Romney" made that stench evaporate in a similar manner.

The GOP repeatedly proves it is the part of rich white people, by rich white people, for rich white people. Sorry. You have only yourselves to blame for Obama's second term.

The sooner you take personal responsibility for that, the better off we will all be.

I didn't vote for either of these bags and am not a Republican, I take responsibility for nothing.

[RandomGuy]

I didn't vote for either of these bags and am not a Republican, I take responsibility for nothing.

Fair enough.

Let me guess.... Ron "let 'em bleed" Paul?

[TSA]

Fair enough.

Let me guess.... Ron "let 'em bleed" Paul?

Haven't voted for a President since Clinton. I refuse to pick between two ty candidates.

[boutons_deux]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?


And here’s the even more incredible thing: the Bush cabal didn’t just use the IRS for its political hackery – it mounted a full-scale government-wide assault on its enemies, marshaling disparate agencies in its smear efforts.

Bush’s use of the IRS was but one part of that larger assault. As my Salon colleague Alex Seitz-Wald notes today in greater detail, in 2005, Bush’s IRS began what became an extensive two-year investigation into a Pasadena church after an orator dared to speak out against
President Bush’s Iraq War. Not coincidentally, the Los Angeles Times reports that the church targeted just so happened to be “one of Southern California’s largest and most liberal congregations.” That IRS church audit came a year after it launched a near-identical attack on the
NAACP after the civil rights organization criticized various Bush administration policies.

That is not where the story ends, however. The Bush administration’s crusade against its enemies moved from the IRS into the Secret Service.

Under the Republican president, that law enforcement agency was repeatedly deployed to physically block suspected antiwar activists from attending public presidential events. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, the scheme eventually targeted some peaceful antiwar activists for arrest for the alleged crime of “holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the designated zone” of free speech (yes, the Bush White House cemented the precedent that the right to dissent is no longer a fundamental right, but is instead only allowed in certain “free speech zones”). Ultimately, in a case dealing with a man who was arrested for simply telling Vice President Cheney that his “policies on Iraq are disgusting,” the Republican-dominated Supreme Court upheld the Bush administration’s use of “retaliatory arrests” against the administration’s ideological critics.

Then, in 2010, we learned that Bush’s targeting operation was also operating inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recounting findings from the Justice Department’s Inspector General, the Washington Post reported that “the FBI improperly investigated some left-leaning U.S. advocacy groups after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks…citing cases in which agents put activists on terrorist watch lists even though they were planning nonviolent civil disobedience.”

A year later, we learned that along with the IRS, Secret Service and FBI, the Bush administration may have also been using the Central Intelligence Agency against its political enemies. As the New York Times reported, “A former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information” on prominent Iraq War critic Juan Cole. That story had an eerie similarity to the Bush administration’s effort to out CIA operative Valerie Plame as retribution for her husband’s criticism of that same war.

Unlike the noisy outrage that met today’s allegations of IRS misconduct under President Obama, these earlier – and well-do ented – revelations of systemic IRS, Secret Service, FBI and CIA misconduct were met with a collective shrug of the shoulders in Washington. Sure, a few newspapers wrote about them, and a few Democratic lawmakers tried to raise questions about the Bush administration’s actions, but compared to today’s sound and fury over the IRS allegations, there was veritable silence. Indeed, as alluded to before, so little outrage was voiced about this kind of thing during the Bush years that a Fox News’ headline this week summarizing a Karl Rove interview blared: “What if IRS Under President Bush targeted liberal groups?” – as if that never actually happened…even though it most certainly did.


http://www.alternet.org/bush-used-ir...t=9&paging=off

[TSA]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?


And here’s the even more incredible thing: the Bush cabal didn’t just use the IRS for its political hackery – it mounted a full-scale government-wide assault on its enemies, marshaling disparate agencies in its smear efforts.

Bush’s use of the IRS was but one part of that larger assault. As my Salon colleague Alex Seitz-Wald notes today in greater detail, in 2005, Bush’s IRS began what became an extensive two-year investigation into a Pasadena church after an orator dared to speak out against
President Bush’s Iraq War. Not coincidentally, the Los Angeles Times reports that the church targeted just so happened to be “one of Southern California’s largest and most liberal congregations.” That IRS church audit came a year after it launched a near-identical attack on the
NAACP after the civil rights organization criticized various Bush administration policies.

That is not where the story ends, however. The Bush administration’s crusade against its enemies moved from the IRS into the Secret Service.

Under the Republican president, that law enforcement agency was repeatedly deployed to physically block suspected antiwar activists from attending public presidential events. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, the scheme eventually targeted some peaceful antiwar activists for arrest for the alleged crime of “holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the designated zone” of free speech (yes, the Bush White House cemented the precedent that the right to dissent is no longer a fundamental right, but is instead only allowed in certain “free speech zones”). Ultimately, in a case dealing with a man who was arrested for simply telling Vice President Cheney that his “policies on Iraq are disgusting,” the Republican-dominated Supreme Court upheld the Bush administration’s use of “retaliatory arrests” against the administration’s ideological critics.

Then, in 2010, we learned that Bush’s targeting operation was also operating inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recounting findings from the Justice Department’s Inspector General, the Washington Post reported that “the FBI improperly investigated some left-leaning U.S. advocacy groups after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks…citing cases in which agents put activists on terrorist watch lists even though they were planning nonviolent civil disobedience.”

A year later, we learned that along with the IRS, Secret Service and FBI, the Bush administration may have also been using the Central Intelligence Agency against its political enemies. As the New York Times reported, “A former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information” on prominent Iraq War critic Juan Cole. That story had an eerie similarity to the Bush administration’s effort to out CIA operative Valerie Plame as retribution for her husband’s criticism of that same war.

Unlike the noisy outrage that met today’s allegations of IRS misconduct under President Obama, these earlier – and well-do ented – revelations of systemic IRS, Secret Service, FBI and CIA misconduct were met with a collective shrug of the shoulders in Washington. Sure, a few newspapers wrote about them, and a few Democratic lawmakers tried to raise questions about the Bush administration’s actions, but compared to today’s sound and fury over the IRS allegations, there was veritable silence. Indeed, as alluded to before, so little outrage was voiced about this kind of thing during the Bush years that a Fox News’ headline this week summarizing a Karl Rove interview blared: “What if IRS Under President Bush targeted liberal groups?” – as if that never actually happened…even though it most certainly did.


http://www.alternet.org/bush-used-ir...t=9&paging=off

You remind me of my sissy little brother growing up. "but but but mommmmmm................he did it firsssssssst. It's not faiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrr."

My little brother was such a .

[jack sommerset]

I continue to pray for my brother, boutons. His loyalty is commendable but his mind is clutter with much pain. I pray boutons will learn to forgive one day. it will be a glorious day for sure when it happens! God bless

[angrydude]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?


And here’s the even more incredible thing: the Bush cabal didn’t just use the IRS for its political hackery – it mounted a full-scale government-wide assault on its enemies, marshaling disparate agencies in its smear efforts.

Bush’s use of the IRS was but one part of that larger assault. As my Salon colleague Alex Seitz-Wald notes today in greater detail, in 2005, Bush’s IRS began what became an extensive two-year investigation into a Pasadena church after an orator dared to speak out against
President Bush’s Iraq War. Not coincidentally, the Los Angeles Times reports that the church targeted just so happened to be “one of Southern California’s largest and most liberal congregations.” That IRS church audit came a year after it launched a near-identical attack on the
NAACP after the civil rights organization criticized various Bush administration policies.

That is not where the story ends, however. The Bush administration’s crusade against its enemies moved from the IRS into the Secret Service.

Under the Republican president, that law enforcement agency was repeatedly deployed to physically block suspected antiwar activists from attending public presidential events. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, the scheme eventually targeted some peaceful antiwar activists for arrest for the alleged crime of “holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the designated zone” of free speech (yes, the Bush White House cemented the precedent that the right to dissent is no longer a fundamental right, but is instead only allowed in certain “free speech zones”). Ultimately, in a case dealing with a man who was arrested for simply telling Vice President Cheney that his “policies on Iraq are disgusting,” the Republican-dominated Supreme Court upheld the Bush administration’s use of “retaliatory arrests” against the administration’s ideological critics.

Then, in 2010, we learned that Bush’s targeting operation was also operating inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recounting findings from the Justice Department’s Inspector General, the Washington Post reported that “the FBI improperly investigated some left-leaning U.S. advocacy groups after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks…citing cases in which agents put activists on terrorist watch lists even though they were planning nonviolent civil disobedience.”

A year later, we learned that along with the IRS, Secret Service and FBI, the Bush administration may have also been using the Central Intelligence Agency against its political enemies. As the New York Times reported, “A former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information” on prominent Iraq War critic Juan Cole. That story had an eerie similarity to the Bush administration’s effort to out CIA operative Valerie Plame as retribution for her husband’s criticism of that same war.

Unlike the noisy outrage that met today’s allegations of IRS misconduct under President Obama, these earlier – and well-do ented – revelations of systemic IRS, Secret Service, FBI and CIA misconduct were met with a collective shrug of the shoulders in Washington. Sure, a few newspapers wrote about them, and a few Democratic lawmakers tried to raise questions about the Bush administration’s actions, but compared to today’s sound and fury over the IRS allegations, there was veritable silence. Indeed, as alluded to before, so little outrage was voiced about this kind of thing during the Bush years that a Fox News’ headline this week summarizing a Karl Rove interview blared: “What if IRS Under President Bush targeted liberal groups?” – as if that never actually happened…even though it most certainly did.


http://www.alternet.org/bush-used-ir...t=9&paging=off

Hey dumb , this thread is about the DOJ illegally spying on the AP and the chilling effect this will have on the first amendment. You know, that little thing which is basically the only freedom americans had left.

[boutons_deux]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?

[SA210]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?

Sorry Boutons, gotta comment on this spin. Sadly you gotta take the blue blinders off. Obama is the President right now.

Obama did a great job protecting Bush from investigations, criminal charges, etc. (Look forward, not backward). And now the Hope/Change/Transparency Nobel Peace Prize war criminal President continues Bush's work at an accelerated rate. Bush must be proud serving his fourth term.

This man needs to be impeached asap, same as his predecessor should have been.

[TeyshaBlue]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?

lol 3rd grade.

[baseline bum]

Obama is Bush with a (D) in front of his name.

I'll continue with 'Things we have known since 2009' for $400, Alex.

[Winehole23]

it took awhile for Republicans to figure out the continuity with Bush.

they wouldn't hear it in 2009, now they bash Obama with it, since they couldn't bash Bush.

[boutons_deux]

"Obama did a great job protecting Bush from investigations"

no Presidents prosecute their predecessors

My point is that Repugs/Fox were not outraged by dubya doing the same as Barry

[boutons_deux]

Indicting Reagan, Israel, and the God Squads in the Guatemalan Holocaust

hree Guatemalan judges last week convicted General Efraín Ríos Montt, the former military dictator, of genocide and crimes against humanity for leading the "scorched earth" Plan Victoria that killed 1,771 Mayan Ixils during his 17-month rule in 1982-1983. Never before has a national judicial process found a former head of state guilty of genocide, hopefully diminishing the existing impunity of war criminals from the Congo to Crawford, Texas.

More now needs to follow, if only in the court of world opinion. Beside many still unpunished Guatemalans, Rios Montt's conviction leaves untouched a host of never indicted foreign co-conspirators, from former U.S. president Ronald Reagan to Evangelical and Pentecostal missionaries and shadowy Israelis with unspoken connections to their government.

They all played a part in making possible the killing, rape, torture and disappearances of the Ixil people and - according to the United Nations Historical Clarification Commission - as many as 200,000 others, mostly Mayans and poor mestizos. Another 50,000 were disappeared and more than 1 million were displaced as the army razed their villages.

Legal appeals and injunctions from another court could still let the 86-year-old Rios Montt walk free from his 80-year sentence. The possibility is real, especially since the current Guatemalan president, Otto Perez Molino, a former military commander, continues to insist that there was no genocide, only a bloody civil war against leftist insurgents from 1962 to 1996.

Official do ents and the blood-chilling testimony of survivors tell a more truthful story. In brief, successive Guatemalan governments have systematically used genocide to fight the civil war and continue violence against the indigenous Mayans reaching back 500 years to the time of the European Conquest.

http://readersupportednews.org/opini...alan-holocaust

But Ronnie is a Repug saint, which speaks volumes about what bas s the Repugs are.

[boutons_deux]

Jeff Toobin points out that 501(4)c groups with patriot and/or tea party in their names, created in the aftermath of the disastrous Citizens-United ruling, are VERY LIKELY to be mainly and/or overtly political rather than "social welfare". iow, a perfectly legit filter.

[TeyshaBlue]

We're in the AP/DOJ thread, re .

[BobaFett1]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?

where your proof? you have none

[Winehole23]

Which is why the Justice Department went after the AP's phone records. A list of numbers dialed by editors and journalists is in theory a good place to start looking. Under current wiretap law, dialed numbers are not afforded the same protection as calls, and can be obtained without a warrant.


Here's the problem. When the Supreme Court set the legal precedent back in 1979, phone records contained much less information. Nowadays, a phone record's metadata includes not just the phone number, but the time the call took place, the call origin, the call duration, and the carrier.


The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the protection of digital rights, said in a statement released yesterday that it "no longer makes sense to treat calling records and other metadata related to our communications as if they aren't fully protected by the Cons ution."


Electronic communications have improved drastically since the legal precedent was set, and the amount of revealing data now transferred with a phone call is far greater than just a telephone number. But the law has yet to catch up with technology—which means the Justice Department has access to a lot more than just the numbers dialed by the AP's journalists.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/art...-phone-records