the new FBI: more power, less oversight

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speaking of Tricky Dick...

Bush ordered the CIA to spy on Juan Cole.

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This reminds me of J. Edgar Hoover's spying on John Lennon & Martin Luther King.  Except that at least Lennon & MLK were celebrities who could influence people!  It's astonishing that the Bush White House would obsess about an obscure blogger with no fame; you'd think they had bigger fish to fry. -Andy K.

if Nixon were alive today

"Richard Nixon, if he were alive today, might take bittersweet satisfaction to know that he was not the last smart president to prolong unjustifiably a senseless, unwinnable war, at great cost in human life.  ... He would probably also feel vindicated (and envious) that ALL the crimes he committed against me–which forced his resignation facing impeachment–are now legal." - Daniel Ellsberg.
 

government's case against Thomas Drake is falling apart

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Libya vs. Bahrain

Tuesday at the White House, President Obama justified the illegal war in Libya by repeating the U.S. claim that our actions are "protecting the Libyan people from potential slaughter." Some slaughters are justifiable in the eyes of the U.S. government of course. Conventional wisdom places those our forces commit and those committed by our allies in a special category. The Bahrain monarchy's assault on Shiite pro-democracy protestors is one recent example of this double standard.

On the very same day Obama defended NATO's "humanitarian" intervention in Libya, he held a meeting at the White House with Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa - the Crown Prince of Bahrain. Bahraini troops recently attacked protesters in several villages. The monarch just lifted the country's three-month long emergency rule on June 1st and two days ago 23 doctors and 24 nurses who treated wounded anti-government protestors were charged "with attempting to topple the kingdom's monarchy." Human rights groups have pointed out that our close ally's move against the medical workers violates the Geneva Convention. Democracy Now! reported that the official White House statement regarding the meeting with the Crown Prince unsurprisingly failed to mention the government's recent harsh crackdown. Bahrain also happens to be the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.

WikiLeaks: Haiti's U.S. problem

The Obama administration wanted to keep Haiti's minimum wage at 24 cents/hour.

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Obama's war on whistleblowers

In a sane society, an individual who exposes fraud and illegality within a government agency would be made a hero. Perhaps a parade would be thrown or a film penned by Aaron Sorkin chronicling the whistleblower's courageous endeavors would win an Oscar.

We of course do not live in such a world. We reside in the upside down world of Bush-Obama continuity where the exposure of illegal spy programs result in immunity for the masterminds and their telecommunications accomplices. Prosecutions are reserved for the pesky whistleblowers. 

Jane Mayer's piece for The New Yorker on Thomas Drake, former National Security Agency analyst being prosecuted by the Obama Department of Justice for leaking classified information about the N.S.A. to the Baltimore Sun, shows the Obama administration's attack on whistleblowers to be unprecedented.    

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