AP Says Government Seizure Was Unconstitutional

Well, they’re right

And Has Terrified Sources

That’s the idea, I believe.

We are right to criticize AP and other legacy media for their 12 years of spinelessness.

But we also have to speak up for freedom of the press, which means speaking up in their defense. Not doing it for them, but for ourselves.

I loved David Swanson’s article “An Itty Bitty Pity Party for the AP,” but after we gloat a bit, we got principles to fight for.

A sentence of 20 years is enough.

I admire you and am in awe of your accomplishments, but respectfully disagree on this one. I think he’s a whistle-blower straight up and should be freed with time served.

Do you feel Bradley Manning is an alleged criminal, whistleblower unjustly prosecuted by the government, or something in between?

If in fact he goes ahead and prosecutes Julian Assange, he will pass Nixon. He’s close to Nixon now,” the former general counsel f0r the New York Times, James Goodale, said of President Barack Obama on “Democracy Now!”

That is a fantastic quote. Kudos to you for having said it, Mr. Goodale.

I think it’s because Obama is a Democrat, because he’s black/bi-racial, because he’s articulate, simulates empathy (much like Bill Clinton) and has an inspiring life story (also like Clinton). So he’s supposed to be one of The Good Guys(TM). People can’t see past partisan descriptions to underlying core principles. One reason I’m not a Dem. anymore.

David Swanson has written sarcastically (and, in my opinion, justifiably) about the fact that the AP has its jaws in an uproar over the way its journalistic rights have been violated, but has expressed no concern over the astonishing infringements of press freedom by both Junior Bush and Obama over the last 10 years so long as only the alternative press was involved.

Do you feel the mainstream — or, as many of us in here would say, corporate — press has been asleep at the switch, thinking that their status as members of the Gentlemen’s Club would insulate them from these outrages?

My God, I’ve had it wrong all these years.

For so long, I thought the victims at Guantanamo were the prisoners, innocent Muslim men and boys kidnapped, beaten, tortured and deprived of their legal and human rights, stuffed into a Caribbean hellhole and stripped of their humanity.

But now, courtesy of CNN, America’s finest news source, I see the error of my ways.

The true victims at Guantanamo are the guards — heroic, red-blooded Americans fighting to keep us safe from Islamofascists endowed with super powers such as the ability to gnaw through hydraulic cables on C-5A transport planes. And they can throw urine and feces in a single bound!

This is what our brave hero-soldiers have to contend with. What valiance! What courage! How could anyone be more patriotic than they?

And to think of all the petitions I’ve signed, the marches I’ve gone on, the contributions and calls I’ve made. But I see the light now! Yes, I do! Hallelujah, I see the light! Thank you, CNN!

If Reid can’t abolish the filibuster, at least he could think about the possibility of abolishing it. Or he could consider the possibility of thinking about abolishing it. And if the Republicans truly enrage him (but who among the Republicans would have the temerity to do that?), he could ruminate about considering the possibility of thinking about whether or not to abolish the filibuster. Go, Harry, go! Searchlight, Nevada’s favorite son to the rescue!

Well, I hope the good people — Elizabeth Warren, Sheila Bair, Brooksley Born — will at least raise their voices about this. Under our fatally corrupt system, I guess that’s about the best we can hope for.

“Misspoke,” under oath, before congress? Really?

Does that have any penalties?

Not for someone of Holder’s rank these days, but it’s a great idea.

Obama’s going to do what his corporate sponsors want? Wow, who could have predicted?

If the head of a government agency is going to remove themselves from this chain of responsibility on what is supposedly a “very serious” matter; it should in writing, dated, with a clear explanation of why, and explicit instruction about who responsibility has been handed off to. Otherwise proper accountability becomes impossible.

Dagnabbit, maybe that’s the idea.

But…but…wasn’t George W. Bush trying to protect us by blowing the shit out of a Muslim country that didn’t threaten us? This is all so confusing…

Terry McAuliffe? The Clinton apparatchik who helped to undermine Howard Dean in 2004? That Terry McAuliffe? And he’s got a D after his name? I’m so jazzed! Go, Terry, go!

Well, fighting for truth, justice and the American way (as that term used to be understood) will do that to you these days.

You must feel at times like one of those Irish monks keeping civilization alive during the Middle Ages while most people were illiterate.