Wilson 60^th Anniversary

Curtis and Joyce Wilson were married in Berthoud, Colorado on January 18, 1953 and now, 60 years later, they are having a celebration. In honor of 60 years of wedded bliss, the children of Curtis and Joyce (Michael, Dennis and Cleta) are hosting a gathering at the Wilson home, 749 5th St., Berthoud, on Sunday, June 23 from 2:00-6:00 p.m.  Everyone who has been touched by the lives of Curtis and Joyce and their family are welcome to attend. Your presence is presents enough.

On whistleblowers and government threats of investigation

No healthy democracy can endure when the most consequential acts of those in power remain secret and unaccountable

By Glenn Greenwald

We followed Wednesday’s story about the NSA’s bulk telephone record-gathering with one yesterday about the agency’s direct access to the servers of the world’s largest internet companies. I don’t have time at the moment to address all of the fallout because – to borrow someone else’s phrase – I’m Looking Forward to future revelations that are coming (and coming shortly), not Looking Backward to ones that have already come.

But I do want to make two points. One is about whistleblowers, and the other is about threats of investigations emanating from Washington:

1) Ever since the Nixon administration broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychoanalyst’s office, the tactic of the US government has been to attack and demonize whistleblowers as a means of distracting attention from their own exposed wrongdoing and destroying the credibility of the messenger so that everyone tunes out the message. That attempt will undoubtedly be made here.

I’ll say more about all that shortly, but for now: as these whistleblowing acts becoming increasingly demonized (“reprehensible”, declared Director of National Intelligence James Clapper yesterday), please just spend a moment considering the options available to someone with access to numerous Top Secret documents.

They could easily enrich themselves by selling those documents for huge sums of money to foreign intelligence services. They could seek to harm the US government by acting at the direction of a foreign adversary and covertly pass those secrets to them. They could gratuitously expose the identity of covert agents.

None of the whistleblowers persecuted by the Obama administration as part of its unprecedented attack on whistleblowers has done any of that: not one of them. Nor have those who are responsible for these current disclosures.

They did not act with any self-interest in mind. The opposite is true: …

Edward Snowden: saving us from the United Stasi of America

Snowden’s whistleblowing gives us a chance to roll back what is tantamount to an ‘executive coup’ against the US constitution

By Daniel Ellsberg

In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden’s release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden’s whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an “executive coup” against the US constitution.

Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the bill of rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago. In particular, the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution, which safeguard citizens from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their private lives, have been virtually suspended.

The government claims it has a court warrant under Fisa – but that unconstitutionally sweeping warrant is from a secret court, shielded from effective oversight, almost totally deferential to executive requests. As Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency analyst, put it: “It is a kangaroo court with a rubber stamp.”

For the president then to say that there is judicial oversight is nonsense – as is the alleged oversight function of the intelligence committees in Congress. Not for the first time – as with issues of torture, kidnapping, detention, assassination by drones and death squads –they have shown themselves to be thoroughly co-opted by the agencies they supposedly monitor. They are also black holes for information that the public needs to know. ..

Without a Peep from Fox News

By Bob Cesca · May 08,2013 Foreign Policy

The Republican inquisition over the attacks against Americans in Benghazi has never really gone away, but it appears as though in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and the House Oversight Committee’s Benghazi hearings this week there’s renewed psycho-histrionics over Benghazi.

Lindsey Graham and Fox News Channel in particular are each crapping their cages over new allegations from an alleged whistleblower, while they continue to deal in previously debunked falsehoods about the sequence of events during and following the attacks. Fox News is predictably helming the biggest raft of hooey on the situation — turning its attention to Hillary Clinton in an abundantly obvious early move to stymie her presidential run before it even begins.

So I thought I’d revisit some territory I covered back in October as a bit of a refresher — especially since it appears as if no one, including and especially the traditional press, intends to ask any of these obnoxious, opportunistic liars about why they’re so obsessed by this one attack yet they entirely ignored the dozen-plus consulate/embassy attacks that occurred when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were allegedly “keeping us safe.”

The Benghazi attacks (the consulate and the CIA compound) are absolutely not unprecedented even though they’re being treated that way by Republicans who are deliberately ignoring anything that happened prior to Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009.

January 22, 2002. Calcutta, India. Gunmen associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami attack the U.S. Consulate. Five people are killed.

June 14, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. Suicide bomber connected with al-Qaida attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.

October 12, 2002. Denpasar, Indonesia. U.S. diplomatic offices bombed as part of a string of “Bali Bombings.” No fatalities.

February 28, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Several gunmen fire upon the U.S. Embassy. Two people are killed.

May 12, 2003. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Armed al-Qaida terrorists storm the diplomatic compound killing 36 people including nine Americans. The assailants committed suicide by detonating a truck bomb.

July 30, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan …

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Republican Hypocrisy on Benghazi

Exclusive: Official Washington is obsessing over the Benghazi “scandal,” proof that the Republicans and their right-wing media can make the smallest things big and the biggest things small. It is a disparity that has distorted how Americans understand their recent history, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry (about the author)

You have to hand it to the Republicans and their right-wing media: they are persistent in pushing their conspiracy theories no matter how improbable or insignificant, just as they are relentless in covering up GOP wrongdoing even when that behavior strikes at the heart of democratic institutions or costs countless lives.

So, we have the contrast between the nine high-profile hearings about last September’s Benghazi attack and Republican determination to cover up Watergate, Iran-Contra, Iraq-gate, Contra-cocaine trafficking, and the two October Surprise cases (sabotaging President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam peace talks in 1968 and subverting President Jimmy Carter’s Iran-hostage negotiations in 1980).

In those cases and others, Republicans not only suppressed evidence but mounted counteroffensives against brave whistleblowers, diligent government investigators and conscientious journalists. The GOP and its right-wing media took pleasure in punishing anyone who dug up troublesome truths, even a conservative Republican such as Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh.

The Republicans also showed little or no interest in delving into the facts surrounding terrorist incidents on George W. Bush’s watch, including his failure to protect the nation from the 9/11 attacks, or examining his war crimes, such as his deceptive case for invading Iraq and his approval of torture against “war on terror” detainees.

Granted, part of the blame for those short-circuited investigations must fall on the Democrats and the mainstream news media for lacking the courage and integrity to pursue investigations in the face of Republican obstructionism.

With only a few exceptions, Democrats have shied away from confrontations with Republicans, sometimes fretting that a full accounting might not be “good for the country.” Mainstream news executives, too, have shown a lack of stomach for going toe to toe with angry Republicans and their ferocious propagandists.

Thus, there has been a systematic crumbling of investigative will when the subject of a scandal is a Republican …

WATCH: Maddow’s Epic Takedown of Republican Conspiracy Theories

The Benghazi Story: The Great American Ripoff.

By Robert De Filippis (about the author)

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi! I’m tired of feeling ripped off because I can’t find out what really happened, why it’s so important, and what does it mean?

I can’t find out, not because there isn’t enough information. But because of two other important variables. Variable one: It has been politicized and the Republican’s are using it to condemn both President Obama and cast suspicions on Hillary Clinton in anticipation of her presidential run in 2016. And it’s for these reasons that the administration is   redacting documents and politically posturing as defensive response. The result?   We don’t really know what happened.

Variable two: I’ll call this one the “crying wolf” syndrome. When a party, in this case the Republicans, uses every possible device to condemn, disrupt and deny its opponents, it’s difficult to take anything they say seriously, even if in some cases their positions are based on facts.

Put these two variables together and we’re being ripped off by both parties. I yearn for a time when someone on either side of the aisle actually offers the unvarnished, non-politicized truth. (I didn’t say “the” time. I said “a” time. I doubt there every has been such a time in America politics.)

In an article titled, 13 Benghazis That Occurred on Bush’s Watch Without a Peep from Fox News, by Bob Cesca – May 08,2013, on The Daily Banter, Mr. Cesca makes the point that 13 attacks on US consulates and compounds, including fatalities, occurred during the Bush administration and the Republicans never murmured a word. Nor did Fox news, but that’s no surprise coming from a news source proven by multiple surveys to be responsible for the least informed audience in America.