Let ‘Em Die: TEApublican Quotes Bible To Justify Letting Poor Starve To Death
May 20, 2013
In a disgusting display, even by TEApublican standards, Stephen Fincher (R-TN) quoted the “Book of Thessalonians” to justify letting the poor starve. Fincher smugly stated on the House floor:
The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.
Of course, it’s a well-known attribute of conservatives to see things in black and white while often missing more nuanced aspects of real life. In Fincher’s warped mind, people that need help are just lazy moochers who should simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps, even though, as most liberals know, many of these people don’t even have boots–or functioning feet in the context of this analogy–for that matter.
We have three points to make to Mr. Fincher and anyone else who buys into this absurd and disturbing way of thinking.
1. Most people on SNAP are not “unwilling” to work. Food insecurity is a real problem in America, but indolence is not to blame. From a Center on Policy and Budget Priorities (cbpp.org) piece titled, Contrary to “Entitlement Society” Rhetoric, Over Nine-Tenths of Entitlement Benefits Go to Elderly, Disabled, or Working Household:
Some conservative critics of federal social programs, including leading presidential candidates, are sounding an alarm that the United States is rapidly becoming an “entitlement society” in which social programs are undermining the work ethic and creating a large class of Americans who prefer to depend on government benefits rather than work. A new CBPP analysis of budget and Census data, however, shows that more than 90 percent of the benefit dollars that entitlement and other mandatory programs spend go to assist people who are elderly, seriously disabled, or members of working households — not to able-bodied, working-age Americans who choose not to work. This figure has changed little in the past few years.
Conservatives have also proven to be shameless lying hypocrites in many cases. Take Mark Sanford, who just won a congressional seat in South Carolina, for example. After much finger-wagging, Mr. Sanford voted to impeach President Clinton over the Lewinsky sex scandal, yet asked for forgiveness–without any sense of irony–after being caught romping with his mistress in South America on the tax payer’s dime. It would seem Rep. Fincher also fits this mold.
2. Hypocrite Fincher took millions in farm subsidies. From AlterNet:
The reason this is even more egregious than the usual Republican class warfare is that Fincher himself is a poster boy for government dependency. It’s not just that he’s benefited here and there from some government help. That sort of low-level hypocrisy is almost to be expected from these types. But Fincher has received millions – $3.2 million as of June 2010 – in federal crop subsidies. The people who refer to themselves as Tea Partiers threatened to derail his candidacy over this, but then they realized that they have no principles, and supported him anyway. He’s now a member of the “Tea Party Caucus,” which, amazingly, is something that actually exists. Fincher’s brother and father also snatched another $6.7 million in subsidies as Stephen geared up to run for Congress on a platform of eliminating “wasteful government spending.” The “wasteful spending” that he had in mind, of course, was that which serves policy aims with which he disagrees, such as keeping poor people alive.
And, finally, let’s examine the TEApublican’s penchant for cherry-picking documents to suit their agendas. Whether it be the Constitution or the Holy Bible, these folks love to take what fits into their preconceived narrative and leave the rest behind. Fincher is clearly no exception.
3. The Bible also says:
The Old Testament
Psa. 82:3 Give fair judgment to the poor man, the afflicted, the fatherless, the destitute.
Prov. 14:31 Anyone who oppresses the poor is insulting God who made them. To help the poor is to honor God.
Prov28:27 If you give to the poor, your needs will be supplied! But a curse upon those who close their eyes to poverty.
Prov22:9 Happy is the generous man, the one who feeds the poor.
The New Testament
Isa. 58:7 I want you to share your food with the hungry and bring right into your own homes those who are helpless, poor, and destitute. Clothe those who are cold, and don’t hide from relatives who need your help. Isa. 58:8 If you do these things, God will shed his own glorious light upon you. He will heal you; your godliness will lead you forward, goodness will be a shield before you, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind. Isa. 58:9 Then, when you call, the Lord will answer. ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply. All you need to do is to stop oppressing the weak and stop making false accusations and spreading vicious rumors! Isa. 58:10 Feed the hungry! Help those in trouble! Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you shall be as bright as day.
Doesn’t exactly sound ambiguous, now does it? False accusations and vicious rumors, Mr. Fincher–THAT is was you’re spreading, as it’s obvious that your assertions quickly dissolve when bathed in the light of facts. It’s not children, elderly, disabled and working poor Americans who get food assistance that should be ashamed of themselves; it’s you and the rest of your factually-bankrupt, judgmental TEApublican ilk who should.
Bible quotes sources:
http://www.friendships.org/Scriptures.html
http://www.worldvision.org/content.nsf/learn/g8-bibleverses
Thank you to AATTP.org for this story.
The Onion Calls it Quits
by The Troubadour Follow for Writing by David Harris Gershon
SUN MAY 26, 2013 AT 09:10 PM PDT
For nearly 25 years, The Onion has been satirizing American politics and society with unparalleled brilliance. However, the fake news publication – or “America’s Finest News Source” – has sadly and stunningly announced that it will cease operations in 2014.
In a press release, The Onion’s Editor-In-Chief, Will Tracy, explained what led to the publication’s difficult decision:
The Onion has always been recognized as a first-rate satirical publication, making fun of all that is absurd in our socio-political world. However, in today’s contemporary political environment, our brand has simply gotten muddled. And I can say with clarity that today’s GOP is fully to blame.
[…]
It used to be that political satire was easy. All one had to do was find the absurd buried beneath the surface of a given story and employ satire to highlight that absurdity. To shine a light on it.
Now? Now you have headlines showing up in mainstream publications like “Kansas Republican Actually Opposes the Poor Buying More Food” and “Conservatives Less Likely to Buy Energy Efficient Bulbs if Labeled as Environmentally Friendly.”
The absurdity of conservatives in this country has completely destroyed our business. Republicans have ruined us. Period.
New readers to The Onion can’t tell anymore that we are a satirical publication. And established readers have been leaving our pages, finding greater absurdity at places like CNN and USA Today.
The Onion apparently considered changing its business model – shifting to become a ‘real’ news outlet – but eventually decided against it.
Creative Director of the Onion News Network, JJ Shebesta, told The New York Times:
A bunch of us thought that if we wanted to keep doing weird and absurd shit, that we should just start covering the news for real.
But then we were like, Wait, we’re just comedy writers, not journalists. We’re overqualified!
The Onion will continue operations through the upcoming presidential election, with its last issue set to be published on November 6, 2014. When asked why, Shebesta answered, “What better day for a satirical news outlet to close up shop?”
Indeed.
Rest in peace, The Onion. You will be missed.
Thank you to The Daily KOS for this article.
I-5 bridge over Skagit River collapses, cars with people in water
by Associated Press
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River at Mount Vernon collapsed Thursday evening, dumping vehicles and people into the water, the Washington State Patrol said.
The four-lane bridge collapsed about 7 p.m., Trooper Mark Francis said.
Francis said he had no immediate estimate of how many people were in the water or whether there were any injuries or deaths.
He did not know what caused the collapse.
A Skagit Valley Herald reporter at the scene said a sheriff’s office rescue boat has arrived and rescue crews were looking for people in the water.
The reporter saw one person sitting atop one vehicle in the water and could see a second vehicle as well.
Crowds of people lined the river to watch the scene unfold.
The incident has closed northbound and southbound traffic in the area; traffic is reportedly backed up significantly on I-5.
Two-mile-wide tornado kills at least 51 — including 24 elementary school students
Moore, Oklahoma (CNN) — Rescue workers raced against time and the oncoming night Monday looking for survivors after a powerful tornado blasted an area outside of Oklahoma City, leveling homes and killing at least 51 people.
Twenty four of the dead, with one still missing, were children from Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, which lay directly in the path of the monster storm’s wall of wind.
Seventy-five students and staff members had been huddled the school when the storm hit, CNN affiliate KFOR reported.
As nightfall approached, determined searchers in hard hats dug in the debris for students possibly trapped, but authorities described the work as a recovery, not rescue, effort.
A temporary flight restriction was put in place over the school so that aircraft would stay away and emergency officials on the ground might hear any cries for help, said Lynn Lunsford with the Federal Aviation Administration.
After the ear-shattering howl of the killer storm subsided, survivors along the miles of destruction emerged from shelters to see an apocalyptic vision — the remnants of cars twisted and piled on each other to make what had been a parking lot look like a junk yard. Bright orange flames flew from a structure that was blazing even as rain continued to fall.
“Our worst fears are becoming realized this afternoon,” Bill Bunting, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration‘s Storm Prediction Center, told CNN.
Get the latest developments in the story
“We certainly hope everyone heeded the warnings, but it’s a populated area and we just fear that not everyone may have gotten the word,” he said.
Bodies of those killed in the storm were being sent to Oklahoma’s office of the chief medical examiner, said the office’s Amy Elliott. Authorities had no immediate estimate on the number of injured.
The preliminary rating of damage created by the tornado is at least EF4 (winds 166 to 200 mph) — the second-most severe classification on a scale of zero to five — the National Weather Service said.
The tornado was estimated to be at least two miles wide at one point as it moved through Moore, KFOR reported.
Lando Hite, shirtless and spattered in mud, told the affilaite about the storm hitting the Orr Family Farm in Moore, which had about 80 horses.
“It was just like the movie ‘Twister,'” he said, standing amid the debris. “There were horses and stuff flying around everywhere.”
The tornado damaged several barns and he was worried many of the animals were killed.
Hite said he did not hear any warnings or sirens.
“It was real windy and everything stopped. Being from Oklahoma, I knew that was not right.”
Twenty patients, including 12 adults and eight children, were in trauma rooms at Oklahoma University (OU) Medical Center and at the Children’s Hospital at OU Medical Center, said spokesman Scott Coppenbarger.
Injuries ranged from minor to critical.
Moore Medical Center in Oklahoma was evacuated after it sustained damage, a hospital spokeswoman said.
All patients were being evacuated to Norman Regional Hospital and Healthplex Hospital, and residents injured in the storm were being told to go to those centers as well.
Norman Regional Hospital and the Healthplex were treating an unspecified number of people with “signs of trauma, lacerations and broken bones,” spokeswoman Melissa Herron said.
10 deadliest tornadoes on record
Interstate 35 in Moore was closed as a result of debris from the tornado, Oklahoma Department of Transportation spokesman Cole Hackett said. Crews were heading to the north-south highway to start the cleanup process.
“People are trapped. You are going to see the devastation for days to come,” said Betsy Randolph, spokeswoman for Oklahoma Highway Patrol. She did not say how many people were trapped.
More than 38,000 electricity customers in Oklahoma are without power, according to local power providers.
Even as authorities and rescue workers struggle to get handle on the damage, NOAA’s Bunting warned the worst may be yet to come.
“These storms are going to continue producing additional tornadoes. They’ll also produce some very, very large hail, perhaps larger than the size of baseballs. We’re also concerned that there may be an enhanced and widespread damaging wind threat with storms as they merge together,” he said.
“As bad as today is, this is not over yet.”
Oklahoma resident: ‘It’s just all gone‘
The severe weather came after tornadoes and powerful storms ripped through Oklahoma and the Midwest earlier Monday and on Sunday.
Forecasters had said that the destructive weather, which killed at least two people, was perhaps just a preview.
Even before Monday afternoon’s devastation, residents in areas hard hit by weekend storms were combing through rubble where their homes once stood.
“My mind is, like, blown, completely blown,” said Jessie Addington, 21, who found that few pieces of her childhood home in Shawnee, Oklahoma, were still standing Monday.
Addington, who now lives in a nearby town, said her mother huddled in the mobile home’s bathroom when the weekend storm hit. But the tornado still tossed her around like a rag doll, leaving her bruised.
When Addington arrived, she was shocked to find the neighborhood where she had lived for 17 years reduced to ruins.
“I’m feeling cheated, to be honest,” she said, “like, it’s just all gone.”
An estimated 300 homes were damaged or destroyed across Oklahoma in weekend weather, Red Cross spokesman Ken Garcia said.
Two men, both in their 70s, were confirmed dead as a result of an earlier tornado that hit Shawnee, said Elliott, the spokeswoman for the state medical examiner’s office.
As many as 28 tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois and Iowa, according to the National Weather Service, with Oklahoma and Kansas the hardest hit. Some of those reports might have been of the same tornado.
A combination of factors — including strong winds and warm, moist air banging against dry air — means severe weather could continue sweeping across a wide swath of the United States for days, Petersons said.
“Keep in mind we have all the ingredients out there that we need,” she said.
Tornado watches were in effect for portions of southeastern Kansas, western and central Missouri, northwest Arkansas, central and eastern Oklahoma and northwestern Texas until 10 p.m. (11 p.m. ET).
Thank you to CNN for this story.
Two-mile-wide tornado slams Oklahoma City area, killing at least 10
Shawnee, Oklahoma (CNN) — At least 10 people were killed Monday when a powerful tornado blasted an area outside of Oklahoma City, ripping roofs off buildings, leveling homes, and cutting a wide path of destruction the scale of which is just starting to be made clear.
The victims’ bodies were being sent to Oklahoma’s office of the chief medical examiner, the office’s Amy Elliott told CNN, confirming the tornado’s first fatalities. Authorities had no immediate estimate on the number of injured.
After the ear-shattering howl of the killer storm subsided, survivors emerged from shelters to see an apocalyptic vision — the remnants of cars twisted and piled on each other to make what had been a parking lot look like a junk yard. Bright orange flames roaring from a structure that was blazing even as rain continued to fall.
At least one school was in the tornado’s devastation zone in Moore, Oklahoma. Lance West, a reporter for CNN affiliate KFOR, said that rescuers were searching for students trapped in debris at Plaza Towers Elementary School. There were no immediate reports on the condition of the children but rescuers swarmed to the scene to begin a painstaking search.
There were 75 students and staff at the school when the storm hit, KFOR reported.
“Our worst fears are becoming realized this afternoon,” Bill Bunting, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center, told CNN soon after the tornado struck.
“We certainly hope everyone heeded the warnings, but it’s a populated area and we just fear that not everyone may have gotten the word,” he said.
The preliminary rating of damage created by the tornado is at least EF4 (winds 166 to 200 mph) — the second-most severe classification on a scale of zero to five — the National Weather Service said.
The tornado was estimated to be at least two miles wide at one point as it moved through Moore, KFOR reported.
Lando Hite, shirtless and spattered in mud, told the affilaite about the storm hitting the Orr Family Farm in Moore, which had about 80 horses.
“It was just like the movie ‘Twister,'” he said, standing amid the debris. “There were horses and stuff flying around everywhere.”
The tornado damaged several barns and he was worried many of the animals were killed.
Hite said he did not hear any warnings or sirens.
“It was real windy and everything stopped. Being from Oklahoma, I knew that was not right.”
Twenty patients, including 12 adults and eight children, were in trauma rooms at Oklahoma University (OU) Medical Center and at the Children’s Hospital at OU Medical Center, said spokesman Scott Coppenbarger.
Injuries ranged from minor to critical.
Moore Medical Center in Oklahoma was evacuated after it sustained damage, a hospital spokeswoman said.
All patients were being evacuated to Norman Regional Hospital and Health Plex Hospital, and residents injured in the storm were being told to go to those centers as well.
Interstate 35 in Moore was closed as a result of debris from the tornado, Oklahoma Department of Transportation spokesman Cole Hackett said. Crews were heading to the north-south highway to start the cleanup process.
“People are trapped. You are going to see the devastation for days to come,” said Betsy Randolph, spokeswoman for Oklahoma Highway Patrol. She did not say how many people were trapped.
More than 38,000 electricity customers in Oklahoma are without power, according to local power providers.
Even as authorities and rescue workers struggle to get handle on the damage, NOAA’s Bunting warned the worst may be yet to come.
“These storms are going to continue producing additional tornadoes. They’ll also produce some very, very large hail, perhaps larger than the size of baseballs. We’re also concerned that there may be an enhanced and widespread damaging wind threat with storms as they merge together,” he said.
“As bad as today is, this is not over yet.”
Oklahoma resident: ‘It’s just all gone‘
The severe weather came after tornadoes and powerful storms ripped through Oklahoma and the Midwest earlier Monday and on Sunday.
Forecasters had said that the destructive weather, which killed at least two people, was perhaps just a preview.
Even before Monday afternoon’s devastation, residents in areas hard hit by weekend storms were combing through rubble where their homes once stood.
“My mind is, like, blown, completely blown,” said Jessie Addington, 21, who found that few pieces of her childhood home in Shawnee, Oklahoma, were still standing Monday.
Addington, who now lives in a nearby town, said her mother huddled in the mobile home’s bathroom when the weekend storm hit. But the tornado still tossed her around like a rag doll, leaving her bruised.
When Addington arrived, she was shocked to find the neighborhood where she had lived for 17 years reduced to ruins.
“I’m feeling cheated, to be honest,” she said, “like, it’s just all gone.”
An estimated 300 homes were damaged or destroyed across Oklahoma in weekend weather, Red Cross spokesman Ken Garcia said.
Viewed from the air, the extent of the damage was staggering, said John Welsh, a helicopter pilot for KFOR. “Like you took the house, you put it in a gigantic blender, you turned it on pulse for a couple minutes and then you just dumped it out.”
And that was before the monster tornado moved in Monday afternoon.
Two men, both in their 70s, were confirmed dead as a result of an earlier tornado that hit Shawnee, said Elliott, the spokeswoman for the state medical examiner’s office.
As many as 28 tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois and Iowa, according to the National Weather Service, with Oklahoma and Kansas the hardest hit. Some of those reports might have been of the same tornado.
More tornadoes were spotted in Iowa, near Earlham, Huxley and east of Dallas Center, according to the National Weather Service.
The agency also confirmed a twister in the northwestern Illinois county of Carroll.
A combination of factors — including strong winds and warm, moist air banging against dry air — means severe weather could continue sweeping across a wide swath of the United States for days, Petersons said.
“Keep in mind we have all the ingredients out there that we need,” she said.
Tornado watches were in effect for portions of southeastern Kansas, western and central Missouri, northwest Arkansas, central and eastern Oklahoma and northwestern Texas until 10 p.m. (11 p.m. ET).
Thank you to CNN for this article.
Yahoo Tumblr Purchase Approved By Board: WSJ
The Huffington Post | Posted: 05/19/2013 12:45 pm EDT | Updated: 05/19/2013 3:00 pm EDT
Yahoo’s board of directors has approved a deal to buy the popular blogging platform Tumblr, the Wall Street Journal reports.
According to the WSJ, it will pay $1.1 billion in cash for the site. The potential purchase was originally reported by the technology blog AllThingsD on Thursday,which also cited the same cash figure. AllThingsD also confirmed the board’s approval on Sunday.
Yahoo is holding a press conference in New York, Tumblr’s hometown, on Mondaywhere the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Internet company is widely expected to announce the acquisition.
Forbes reported on Saturday that Tumblr’s board also approved the purchase.
The deal to buy the blogging website popular with young people, a demographic that Yahoo has had trouble reaching, will be the largest acquisition of CEO Marissa Mayer’s tenure. The former Google executive took over the reins of the struggling Internet company in 2012 and hasn’t been afraid to make splashy acquisitions. In March, Yahoo bought Summly, a news-summarization app created by a 17-year-old, for a rumored $30 million.
Meanwhile, Tumblr has been under increased pressure from investors to start generating a profit. The site, founded by CEO David Karp in 2007, brought in only $13 million in revenue in 2012. Karp’s goal was to make $100 million in revenue in 2013.
Yahoo will spend about a third of its total cash holdings to make the deal happen.
Thank you to The Huffington Post for this story.
Gay Man Gunned Down in NYC Street, Dies
The wave of antigay violence in New York City reaches a crescendo.
BY NEAL BROVERMAN
MAY 18 2013 7:24 PM ET
A man was subjected to homophobic slurs in New York City’s Greenwich Village in the early minutes of Saturday before being shot in the face and later dying of his wounds.
Two men were walking near Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street when three men accosted them, hurling homophobic slurs and asking them if they were “gay wrestlers.” One of the three aggressors took off, but the other two continued following the men. “Do you want to die here?” one of the aggressors asked before shooting his 32-year-old victim in the face. The Brooklyn man later died at Beth Israel hospital.
The accused killer ran off and headed downtown, but was quickly nabbed by police who are calling the shooting a hate crime.
The night of the shooting, the accused killer was involved in an earlier confrontation, telling a bouncer at a club that he was the killer from the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Connecticut. Read more here.
At least four men, in two separate incidents near Madison Square Garden, have been attacked recently in New York City for their perceived sexual orientation. One attack occurred on May 10, another onMay 5.
New York state senator Brad Hoylman, representing Manhattan, released the following statement: “I am outraged by the recent wave of anti-LGBT violence in our City and it is shocking and extremely distressing that a man was shot to death just this morning apparently because he was gay. Nobody anywhere should have to live with fear of harm because of his or her sexual orientation. It is particularly upsetting that recent anti-LGBT incidents have occurred in neighborhoods in my district on the West Side of Manhattan, home to many members of our community. I applaud the NYPD for making a swift arrest in this case and call on all New Yorkers to unite against hate and gun violence.”
Thank you to The Advocate for this article.
ABC Admits That They Never Read Benghazi Emails That They Smeared Obama With
By: Jason EasleyMay. 14th, 2013
After Jake Tapper exposed ABC’s Benghazi email scoop as edited to make Obama look bad, ABC News admitted that they lied to America. They never actually read the original emails.
In their May 10th exclusive, ABC News claimed that they had obtained the Benghazi emails, “ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.”
Later in the same story, ABC’s Jonathan Karl wrote, “White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department.”
After CNN’s Jake Tapper exposed ABC’s report was based on information that was edited in order to make the Obama administration look bad, ABC tried to explain away their lies by claiming that their inaccurate story, and the actual emails are the same thing, “Assuming the email cited by Jake Tapper is accurate, it is consistent with the summary quoted by Jon Karl.”
In the process of trying to defend himself, Karl exposed his own lies, “This is how I reported the contents of that e-mail, quoting verbatim a source who reviewed the original documents and shared detailed notes.” (In his original story, Karl claimed that ABC News had obtained the emails. This obviously wasn’t true.)
Karl also explained that he and ABC News never reviewed the emails, “The source was not permitted to make copies of the original e-mails. The White House has refused multiple requests – from journalists, including myself, and from Republican leaders in Congress – to release the full e-mail exchanges.”
Jon Karl wrote that nobody could get copies the emails. If this was true, how did Jake Tapper get them?
The truth is that Karl’s source was likely someone within the Republican House, because these emails were made available to the Republicans investigating Benghazi months ago. (Before Karl came to ABC he was a congressional correspondent at CNN, so connect the dots. Plus, it wasn’t a coincidence that this story broke days before House Republicans held another Benghazi hearing.)
However, none of this explains why Karl and ABC News would claim to have obtained and reviewed emails that they never saw or had.
ABC News and Karl lied in their original story. They made claims that were not true in order to hype their exclusive. It was not only misleading of ABC News to present the story in this way, but it was also irresponsible and wrong.
What really happened here was that the so-called liberal media at ABC News lied, and furthered the conspiracy laced agenda of House Republicans.
Tapper’s reporting is a bit of vindication for CNN after John King’s dark skinned Boston bomber has been arrested debacle, but the overall portrait of the mainstream media is discouraging.
The corporate media has proven time and again that they can’t be trusted. For profit news is about getting the story first, not getting it right. They have also shown aren’t beneath lying and smearing a president with a bogus conspiracy if it will make their corporate owners even richer.
Is it any wonder why people are turning them off?
Thank you to Politicususa for this story.
Phone Records of Journalists Seized by U.S.
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and LESLIE KAUFMAN
Published: May 13, 2013
WASHINGTON — Federal investigators secretly seized two months of phone records for reporters and editors of The Associated Press in what the news organization said Monday was a “serious interference with A.P.’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.”
The A.P. said that the Justice Department informed it on Friday that law enforcement officials had obtained the records for more than 20 telephone lines of its offices and journalists, including their home phones and cellphones. It said the records were seized without notice sometime this year.
The organization was not told the reason for the seizure. But the timing and the specific journalistic targets strongly suggested they are related to a continuing government investigation into the leaking of information a year ago about the Central Intelligence Agency’s disruption of a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner.
The disclosures began with an Associated Press article on May 7, 2012, breaking the news of the foiled plot; the organization had held off publishing it for several days at the White House’s request because the intelligence operations were still unfolding.
In an angry letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Monday, Gary Pruitt, the president and chief executive of The A.P., called the seizure, a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its news gathering activities.
“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,” he wrote. “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the news gathering activities undertaken by The A.P. during a two-month period, provide a road map to A.P.’s news gathering operations, and disclose information about A.P.’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”
The development represents the latest collision of news organizations and federal investigators over government efforts to prevent the disclosure of national security information, and it comes against a backdrop of an aggressive policy by the Obama administration to rein in leaks. Under President Obama, six current and former government officials have been indicted in leak-related cases so far, twice the number brought under all previous administrations combined.
Justice Department regulations call for subpoenas for journalists’ phone records to be undertaken as a last resort and narrowly focused, subject to the attorney general’s personal signoff. Under normal circumstances, the regulations call for notice and negotiations, giving the news organization a chance to challenge the subpoena in court.
The Justice Department referred questions about the subpoena to a spokesman for Ronald C. Machen Jr., the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who was assigned by Mr. Holder last June to lead one of two major leak investigations. Those inquiries came amid a Congressional uproar over several disclosures of national security information in the media.
“We must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation,” Mr. Machen’s spokesman, William Miller, said.
“Because we value the freedom of the press,” Mr. Miller added, “we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws.”
But First Amendment experts and free press advocates portrayed the move as shocking in its breadth.
The Newspaper Association of America issued a statement saying: “Today we learned of the Justice Department’s unprecedented wholesale seizure of confidential telephone records from the Associated Press. These actions shock the American conscience and violate the critical freedom of the press protected by the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”
A spokeswoman for Dow Jones, which owns The Wall Street Journal, said the company was concerned about the “broader implications” of the action.
Jay Carney, a White House spokesman, said the White House was not involved in the subpoena. “Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the A.P.,” he said, adding “we are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a question about whether a similar step was taken in the other major government leak investigation Mr. Holder announced last June. It is believed to be focused on a New York Times reporter, David E. Sanger, and his disclosures in articles and in a book about a joint American-Israeli effort to sabotage Iranian nuclear centrifuges with the so-called Stuxnet virus.
David McCraw, a lawyer for The New York Times, said, “We’ve had no contact from the government of any sort.”
Mr. Holder announced the two special leak investigations in June amid calls in Congress for a crackdown on leaks after a spate of disclosures about the bomb plot, cyberwarfare against Iran, Mr. Obama’s procedures for putting terrorism suspects on a “kill list,” and the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The revelations had been published by The New York Times, The A.P. and in several books.
Republicans accused the administration of deliberately leaking classified information, jeopardizing national security in an effort to make Mr. Obama look tough in an election year — a charge the White House rejected. But some Democrats, too, said the leaking of sensitive information had gotten out of control.
Mr. Holder’s move at the time was sharply criticized by Republicans as not going far enough. They wanted him to appoint an outside special counsel, and a Senate resolution calling for a special counsel was co-sponsored by 29 Republican senators.
On Monday, however, after The A.P. disclosed the seizure of the records, some Republican leaders criticized the administration as going too far. Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner, said: “The First Amendment is first for a reason. If the Obama Administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a damned good explanation.” And Doug Heye, a spokesman for Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the majority leader, linked the revelation to a brewing controversy over the targeting of Tea Party groups for greater scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service, saying “these new revelations suggest a pattern of intimidation by the Obama administration.”
The A.P. said Monday that it first learned of the seizure of the records last Friday afternoon when its general counsel, Laura Malone, received a letter from Mr. Machen, the United States attorney. The letter to Mr. Holder said the seizure included “all such records for, among other phone lines, an A.P. general phone number in New York City as well as A.P. bureaus in New York City, Washington, D.C., Hartford, Connecticut, and at the House of Representatives.”
The Associated Press is a nonprofit global news cooperative owned by its American newspaper and broadcast members.
Thank you to the NY Times for this article.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (R) describes Republican attacks on the handling of Benghazi as “Cartoonish”
During an interview with CBS News on Saturday, May 11th, that aired on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday, former Secy of Defense Robert Gates said that had he still been part of the current administration that he would most likely have handled the situation in September the same way and described the Republican attacks on the current administration as “cartoonish”.
“Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were,” said Gates, now the chancellor of the College of William and Mary.
“We don’t have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible.” he explained.
Suggestions that we could have flown a fighter jet over the attackers to “scare them with the noise or something,” Gates said, ignored the “number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libyan leader] Qaddafi’s arsenals.”
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Another suggestion posed by some critics of the administration, to, as Gates said, “send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, would have been very dangerous.”“It’s sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces,” he said. “The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm’s way, and there just wasn’t time to do that.”
Gates also defended former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has increasingly become the subject of Republican criticism. Gates responded with a simple and emphatic “no” when asked if he believed Clinton could possibly be involved in any sort of a cover up, as some Republicans have baselessly suggested.
The Republicans pursuing this are showing just how desperate they are right now to discredit the Democrats, namely Hillary Clinton. All they are doing is discrediting themselves in the process. They should focus on rebuilding their party instead of trying to bring down the Democratic party. This will only hurt them even more than the damage that has been done with them doing everything they can to derail President Obama. Republicans need to break away from the corporations and the top of the 1% who are currently controlling their party. If they let the Koch brothers to continue to control them they will end up destroying the Republican party and if we’re not careful they’ll take down the United States as well.
Thank you to Think Progressives and Adam Peck for parts of this article.
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