Category Archives: whistleblowers

Snowden taking flight to Moscow

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Edward Teller at FDL has this up on Snowden leaving Hong Kong for Moscow and then on to…?

Someone put up this link in the comments.  They’re taking the technology and selling it to other countries….why isn’t that illegal?  And they’re worried about ordinary Americans disclosing secrets?? How is Snowden being charged with espionage while Booz is not?

Also in the comments is a link to Glenn Greenwald’s smackdown of psuedo journalist David Gregory.

In the comments, someone mentioned Naomi Wolf’s comments on Snowden…so naturally, I went in search of her article. She has it on…wait for it…f_cebook….of all places.  So, I went to gawker and found this.

I agree that her comments are bizarre.  They make no sense at all–because he’s articulate he should be considered a spy? Seriously?

…and he’s too organized.  Say what??  She infers that because he has a GED that he couldn’t possibly be that analytical.  Um…he does have expertise with sophisticated software, correct?

She questions why Hong Kong–Snowden answered that question–he stated that they were actually more open…than the U.S.

From the gawker:

This is why our surveillance apparatus operates using secret orders that are secretly overseen by a closed court, whose decisions are classified. This is why the technology and communications companies cooperating with the surveillance program are forbidden to acknowledge that the surveillance program exists. This is why the Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress about what the surveillance program collected. Because they all wanted you to know about it.

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Here’s another take on Wolf from Dave Lindorff at counterpunch.  He also notes the condescending attitude of Wolf’s disbelief that a person with a GED could make reasoned, intelligent arguments:

[quote] As a long-time investigative reporter, I also dispute Wolf’s self-serving claim that her own experience in dealing with whistleblowers shows them to be uniformly disorganized and inarticulate. In my experience, some are very disorganized and hard to follow because of their focus on the trees in their personal forest, but some whistleblowers are intensely organized and know exactly what they want to tell you as a journalist. They are also apt, organized or not, contrary to what Wolf says, to highlight the danger they are in, and that they may be putting the reporter in. Sometimes this may be simply to make sure you are interested and recognize the seriousness of what they have to say, and sometimes it is out of genuine fear for themselves and concern for the journalist’s safety, and perhaps also to make sure you fully understand what you’re getting into and that you will not cave and reveal their identity the moment you are put under pressure yourself.

Wolf, who always makes a point of mentioning she’s a Yale grad and a Rhodes Scholar who studied at Oxford, should take care in assuming that someone with only a high school diploma speaking in whole sentences or paragraphs is probably reciting “talking points” from a script. Her assumption reeks of class-based stereotyping. I have met car mechanics, who besides working miracles on my old cars, can speak in multiple paragraphs about politics, often with more wisdom and insight than most of the ivy-league pundits on the tube. [/quote]

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Love that he states that he’s not against outing fakes, but Wolf’s accusations are without hard evidence.  Not only that, but she is apparently ignorant that there would be hiding places for folks in Hong Kong.  On another site, Lindorff makes this statement in the comments section:

Reply to Rob Kall:   
No, it’s not the same at all Rob…

I was presenting pieces of evidence. Not rank speculation. As I demonstrate in this article, Naomi Wolf has not one shred of evidence to support her wild speculation, and she is even ignorant of such things as the easy ability to hide in Hong Kong, which is a teeming city of many small apartments, set in a large, mountainous jungle environment, with 8 million people, many of them hiding from authorities for one reason or other.

I have no objection to someone raising questions, but not something like: The US government lies and makes up stories, so maybe Ed Snowden is a fraud. Please. Not saying that whistleblowers are disorganized and incoherent, and Snowden is articulate and organized, so he must be reciting a script. That’s not journalism. That’s just stupid stereotyping.
Dave Lindorff

Submitted on Sunday, Jun 16, 2013 at 2:57:46 PM

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More on Hastings

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There are a few who don’t believe it was an accident and are not questioning whether it was the McChrystal incident, rather, they question the Clinton connection.

I found these here and here and here. 

I dunno, folks, Hastings does ask some pointed questions about what else the Clinton State Dept. left behind if they failed to pick up something as crucial as Stevens’ diary for evidence of what happened. ..

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With that, I’m off for a few days…I’m way more upset than I can adequately express here about the stuff I put up yesterday.  What the hell happened to my country?

Anyway, I’ll be back in a few.

 

AP sources grow silent

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In Communications, they call an infringement on the First Amendment the “Chilling Effect”, because the flow of information suddenly grows quiet.  That’s what has happened with the sources supplying the AP with news tips. (hat tip to FDL)

Since the disclosure of the DoJ’s subpoena, Pruitt on Wednesday said AP reporters have experienced a chilling effect on newsgathering. Sources are “nervous and anxious” about talking with reporters, he said, and it goes beyond just the AP. “What I learned from our journalists should alarm everyone in this room and should alarm everyone in this country,” he said.

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A thriving democracy demands the free flow of information.  A thriving democracy requires a press that can report on the happenings of the government to the people that are governed by it.

Wright requests Swartz documents

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…but doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

Related to the whole secrecy for us, nothing for you…apparently Barack Obama was wiretapped in 2004.

Well, it’s official, folks…the NSA is running this country, and we’re all guilty until proven innocent.

I don’t care if Obama was a candidate for the Senate, unless there was a warrant, what the NSA  did was illegal and against the Fourth Amendment.

From the column:

What did the NSA find out? All Obama’s phone calls and emails were scooped up – was there anything damaging? Such an action would be a great way to gain leverage over a politician and make sure they don’t cancel your program – Tice alleges it was also done to a wide variety of politicians and officials.

“I was worried that the intelligence community now has sway over what is going on,” Tice said.

Knowledge is power, especially knowledge about embarrassing and/or illegal activities by politicians. No wonder Congress is scared to hold the NSA accountable.

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BINGO!!  Did I say this was Watergate on steroids?!! Yes I did. Over and over.  Well, now, Congress, your Patriot Act has now come around and bit you on the ass….ready to rein in the NSA yet?  Oh, wait….

…and now we have a new word: data plantation.  Good grief.

Fighting for public schools

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L.A. Parents fought back when Parent Revolution tried to take over yet another public school.

From the article link:

Gone are the days when slick, professional organizers can disguise school upheaval as parent empowerment by marketing laptops to every student, bullying parents into signing petitions, threatening families with loss of immigration status, or silencing teachers and principals trying to answer parents’ questions. These are just some of the tactics parents and teachers have reported experiencing at the hands of Parent Revolution.

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Love that they didn’t let the bullies intimidate them when they tried to intimidate them by cutting in line and other tactics.

 

 

More on Flight 800

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Democracy Now has a piece up featuring the controversy over Flight 800.  When I wrote the piece yesterday, I was unaware that Borjesson was the director of the documentary.

There are some serious questions raised about what happened.  These folks raising the questions are not hysterical people.  They are intelligent folks with great analytical skills who see something that just isn’t right.  I just wish we had a press that did the same thing.

**a side note~ a heart tug at hearing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” during the interval between the segments.  It was the song I sung to my Mom as she began to pass from this world.

The rape culture pushback

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(getting a migraine…spoke to soon. Pfft.  I’ll be back when I’m back.)

Wanted to put this up before things go downhill:

A guy sends a shot of his nether regions to a woman, unsolicited.  He’s basically a stranger she met on a date site who plays the victim when she calls him on his bullsh*t…and sends it to his mother.

I really wish I had acted proactively as she has done with men who have harassed me.  Women are not taught to be proactive like this.    We are taught to be nice.  We are taught that we are uptight bitches when we tell a man our boundaries.

Links to the other articles mentioned:  Yes means Yes

and Salon.…

I may have more to say when I get back from the migraine…see you then…

Top Chef Colicchio on GMO’s

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“…spraying Agent Orange on our food….”  A pretty stunning statement…glad to see Melissa Harris-Perry allowing him to speak out.

Green Pasture has this up on Dr. Huber’s speech on glyphosate.  (Purdue is pooh-poohing his assertions.  I found a web page from Purdue that says that Dr. Huber was exaggerating the implications.  Um-hmmm….a Purdue scientist with many, many years of experience is now suddenly incompetent?  I don’t think so.   There might be some reasons $$$ why…Purdue and other universities speak against Dr. Huber.)

From the article:

Huber spoke about a range of key factors involved in plant growth, including sunlight, water, temperature, genetics, and nutrients taken up from the soil. “Any change in any of these factors impacts all the factors,” he said. “No one element acts alone, but all are part of a system…When you change one thing,” he said, “everything else in the web of life changes in relationship.”

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Word.

Anybody who has grown a garden can attest to all the factors named above that impact your garden’s productiveness.  Like I said, it truly is a miracle how a plant can grow from a tiny seed.  The wonder of it all never ceases to amaze me.   And it also never ceases to amaze me how scientists feel they know better than nature.

 

As Dr. Huber asserts–if a plant is in a weakened state, it will not be able to fight off disease (or pests).  Everybody thinks that you *have to* spray bug killer and you *have to* use fertilizers to have a healthy plant, when it is a healthy soil (through composting) that creates the healthy plant and subsequently, the ability to fight off disease and pests.

More:

Huber reported on what he described as a newly discovered pathogen. While the pathogen is not new to the environment, Huber said, it is new to science. This pathogen apparently increases in soil treated with glyphosate, he said, and is then taken up by plants, later transmitted to animals via their feed, and onward to human beings by the plants and meat they consume.

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He said laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of the organism in pigs, cattle and other livestock fed these crops, and that they have experienced sterility, spontaneous abortions, and infertility.

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Pretty sobering, eh?

Here’s the Rodale report on organic versus conventional farms.  This is one of the best reports I’ve ever seen.  I used this report back in 1999 (?) to counteract a Hudson Institute toadie’s assertion that organic farms did much worse than conventional—if I recall correctly, it was Dennis Avery who made the assertion.

He actually said in the article that he read in Organic Gardening that they had problems with low yields and bugs.  I happened to subscribe to it at the time, and there was no such thing in that article!  It reported the opposite:  that yields were good, and only a few plants were affected by bugs….and the best part was that with composting, the organic fields were able to retain moisture much better than the conventional soil, therefore, the organic field’s plants weathered a drought better than the conventional field.