Sunday, September 22, 2013

Has Eric Holder Stop Beating His Wife...Yet?



John Cusack wants to know!
Will Eric Holder guarantee NSA reporters' first amendment rights?
The US attorney general vows not to prosecute journalists, but his criminalisation of whistleblowers undermines that assurance
Perhaps someone can explain to John that "journalists" and "whistleblowers" are two entirely different creatures with very different legal standings, and that deliberately conflating leakers, whistle-blowers and jounalists in the fucking headline of your op-ed is the kind of shamelessly dishonest sophistry that I would expect from, say, Glenn Greenwald, but not from...
I should note that I consider both Glenn and Laura friends, as we all sit on the board of the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) together.
OK, then.

Since this is the twentieth or thirtieth time these olives have been pressed, it all tastes pretty much the same as everything else you've read.  Some genuine facts tossed together some half-truths and some outright bullshit: a standard bill of Greenwald fare under Mr. Cusack's signature in which all leakers are whistleblowers, all whistleblowers are Chelsea Manning, all journalists are under imminent threat of arrest by the United States government and every one of them is pretty much automatically doomed to spend eternity like Jesse Pinkman if they set foot in the United States -- tortured by Nazis, kept in a pit and chained to a dog-run forever.

Of course it wouldn't be a real meal if it weren't seasoned heavily with lots of scary Cavutoing

(This is where a Comedy Central video used to be.
But ever since President Worse Than Boosh and John Oliver broke The Daily Show, Comedy Central videos have been autoplaying for no explicable reason.
So no more Comedy Central videos for now.
Thanks a lot Obama!)


Can they practice journalism in the United States, without their hard drives being confiscated, without an unconstitutional search-and-seizure taking place at the border? 
Are they free to enter the United States without being served a subpoena, or even jailed?

That begs the question: will the attorney general, as chief law enforcement officer of the country, now go on record that he will guarantee the safe return and safe passage of journalists who have exercised their rights under the first amendment?

Or would we accept the creation of a generation of exiled watchdogs, who are trying to hold their government accountable from afar?
Lastly, we once again have Mr. Greenwald's partner -- David Miranda -- being ham-handedly shoved around the chessboard depending on what role our storytellers' need him to play in the Passion of the Greenwald.

When Mr. Greenwald needs the US government to be mafia goons --
But to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic. Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members of people they feel threatened by. But the UK puppets and their owners in the US national security state obviously are unconstrained by even those minimal scruples.
-- who go after the innocent family members of Those Who Dare To Speak The Truth, we get this (emphasis added):
“This is obviously a serious, radical escalation of what they are doing. He is my partner. He is not even a journalist.
And once that story falls apart, Mr. Cusack has no compunction about radically revising Mr. Miranda's back-story, retroactively field-promoting him from hapless partner and unwitting contraband mule of Full Blown Hero Journalist to suit the new-new narrative:
"[David Miranda] was detained under the UK Terrorism Act – for an act of journalism."

"We care about the individual journalists under attack – Greenwald, Poitras, Appelbaum, Miranda, Julian Assange, James Risen..."
So I am once again left to ask, why it is so fucking hard for these self-proclaimed crusaders for truth to lay off their exaggerating, their sophistry and their lying?

11 comments:

Frank Stone said...

So I am once again left to ask, why it is so fucking hard for these self-proclaimed crusaders for truth to lay off their exaggerating, their sophistry and their lying?

Because they're clearly not interested in the truth. They just want to be remembered and hailed forevermore as The Heroes of the Revolution™. The story at hand is just the means to that end.

dinthebeast said...

So I guess he either is or isn't a journalist depending upon which point they're trying to make at the time? Can't have it both ways. But that's according to reality, which has a well known bias toward things that are real...
Is there any way you can stop the Jon Stewart video from autorunning? I mean, as much as I like him I'm dealing with a monthly data cap on my internet (and lucky to even have that) and I sort of can't afford videos just now. If not, oh well, and thanks anyway.

-Doug in Oakland

Anonymous said...

Do you think the rise of this overblown "advocate journalism" comes from not enough journalists doing their job al a Chuck Todd? If we had journalists aggressively questioning power and giving a voice to those who feel outraged about the NSA, there wouldn't be a place for this nonsense. Reading their emphatic pleas always makes me think of this clip (that I wish I could properly link to...not safe for work!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEueoC_K3Zg
-aaronintw

Anonymous said...

Mendax.

Unknown said...

Droneglass can only defend Holder and Obama with one endlessly repeated chicken-little squeak - "but the OTHER side is CRAAAZY!"

The truth is, Obama has carried out a far more egregious and effective assault on civil liberties and democratic rights than Bush II.

He and Holder have enshrined in law most of the activities including kill lists, murder of U.S. citizens abroad without charges or trial, warrantless wiretapping, espionage charges against whistleblowers... etc. that Bush carried out as mere crimes...

Anonymous said...

Shorter Lumphead:

"Blah blah blah Droneglass blah blah blah O-bot blah blah blah Greenwald Is My Lord And Savior blah blah blah"

In other words, same shit, different day. Nothing to see here, move along.

DocAmazing said...

Mr. Driftglass, a Mr. Kiriakou on line one, says he cant hold...

driftglass said...

DocAmazing,

Mr. Kiriakou was a whisleblower, who both did a great public service and also readily admits he broke the law.

He was not a journalist and enjoyed no 1st amendment protections.

So to repeat for the umpteenth time for the terminally comprehension impaired, "'journalists and "whistleblowers" are two entirely different creatures with very different legal standings, and that deliberately conflating leakers, whistle-blowers and jounalists ... is the kind of shamelessly dishonest sophistry that I would expect from, say, Glenn Greenwald..."



http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2013/08/this-week-in-do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do-ctd.html

Unknown said...

"When the president does it, it's not illegal"
- Nixon

"When the president does it, and changes the law, it's no longer illegal"
- Obama

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

"When the president does it, and changes the law, it's no longer illegal"
- Obama


You are presenting that falsely by putting it in quotes. I defy you to find an actual quote where Obama says that. whereas Nixon actually said the first thing.

As DG said, sophistry and lying.

dinthebeast said...

Thank you for the link to the autorun fix for Firefox. Now I will find out just how much of my 8gb/mo was getting devoured by shit I didn't want anyway...

-Doug in Oakland