CPJ Report: the Obama Administration and Press Freedoms 289
dryriver writes "Committee To Protect Journalists reports: U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging open government, but he has fallen short of his promise. Journalists and transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the press. Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources from speaking to journalists. In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press. Those suspected of discussing with reporters anything that the government has classified as secret are subject to investigation, including lie-detector tests and scrutiny of their telephone and e-mail records. An 'Insider Threat Program' being implemented in every government department requires all federal employees to help prevent unauthorized disclosures of information by monitoring the behavior of their colleagues. Six government employees, plus two contractors including Edward Snowden, have been subjects of felony criminal prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act, accused of leaking classified information to the press—compared with a total of three such prosecutions in all previous U.S. administrations. Still more criminal investigations into leaks are under way. Reporters' phone logs and e-mails were secretly subpoenaed and seized by the Justice Department in two of the investigations, and a Fox News reporter was accused in an affidavit for one of those subpoenas of being 'an aider, abettor and/or conspirator' of an indicted leak defendant, exposing him to possible prosecution for doing his job as a journalist. In another leak case, a New York Times reporter has been ordered to testify against a defendant or go to jail."
"I'll sue you.......in ENGLAND" (Score:5, Insightful)
Even South Park made fun of England's libel courts which are absurdly tilted in favor of whomever has the money and the power. Perhaps Obama can start suing them all there. Why not? It's not as if anyone cares whether we live in a tyranny or not.
Re:"I'll sue you.......in ENGLAND" (Score:5, Insightful)
In the Good Old Days whistleblower's leaking "illegally" in the public interest on even greater illegal activities like systematic corruption, war crimes, cover-ups etc were actually afforded some protection (Daniel Ellsberg as one example). Journalists reporting on the whistleblower material were also afforded some protection. Today in the first world there appears to be an all out assault on both reporting and whistleblowing no matter how egregious the crime they are bringing to the publics attention. Libel laws strengthened and extended laws and new ones are being passed like the US Shield law [wikileaks-press.org] - designed to shield the corrupt from exposure and outlaw any media organization that is not complicit from doing investigative reporting.
Hard not to come to the conclusion that those institutions behind the prosecution of journalists and whistleblowers are wholly and irrecoverably corrupted. Guess that is what happens when the population votes in a two headed single party dedicated to serving power and moneydecade after decade...
Re:"I'll sue you.......in ENGLAND" (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Don't Blame me, I voted for Kodos!!!"
- Homer Simpson
Re: "I'll sue you.......in ENGLAND" (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't vote libertarian because I don't want my neighbor having a pet panther in their back yard.
Re: "I'll sue you.......in ENGLAND" (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: "I'll sue you.......in ENGLAND" (Score:5, Insightful)
When I talk about liberty, it's not anarchy. I would just like to see the discussion moved to how little government do we need to live and work together. The current discussion, in the US at least, is always about how much government can we have without fomenting an armed rebellion. How much government control of healthcare, communications, income, etc.
Being opposed to a totalitarian state doesn't presume chaos, unless you're a totalitarian statist which a depressing number of people are. They take umbrage at that description of course and claim they just want to help people. because, you know, if people were allowed to make important decisions, they'd fuck up. Only a vast bureaucracy has the compassion and wisdom to run other peoples lives.
Yes people do fuck up their lives sometimes. God knows I've made bad decisions and will make more. That's called living. And Learning. And not being eternally cast in the role as a child who must always protected by the all knowing state.
Re: "I'll sue you.......in ENGLAND" (Score:5, Insightful)
That includes protecting kids from fuck-up parents. (hey, nobody choses their own parents why should they be punished for them?)
But.. I also want a government that lets me raise my kids as I see fit. (the state should not be our mother of father)
Once you resolve that internal conflict within your own head, perhaps you will have more luck convincing others.
Re: "I'll sue you.......in ENGLAND" (Score:4, Informative)
Ideally no but here in the US if you are voting third party your choices are either really far left or really far right mixing church and state. Libertarian is the closest thing to a middle ground that there is in our third parties.
Re:"I'll sue you.......in ENGLAND" (Score:5, Insightful)
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You, sir, are a shill. That and/or clearly mis/uninformed as to what has REALLY happened in recent years. Here's a taste for you that you are willingly or otherwise ignorant to: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/17/green_partys_jill_stein_cheri_honkala [democracynow.org]
Please tell me how can a third party even hope to be voted for when the incumbent governmental system (not even sure about that) has the third party candidate sequestered and handcuffed while trying LEGALLY enter and attend an election debate?
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Its a single party state. The two parties are a pretense they are just factions
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WTF is a grocer??
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Grocery store.. run by a grocer?
Re:"I'll sue you.......in ENGLAND" (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect it's just "Oh, wait, the public DOESN'T care that we ruthlessly pursue people who dare to speak out against us?
Add to that the NSA and Alexander couldn't give a rat's ass what you care about. He's going to do it whether you like it or not, Constitution be damned. You stopped the Clipper chip in the nineties, and he just went ahead and did it another way, lieing his ass off all the way to everyone who asked.
You don't live in a democratic republic any more. Caeser has spoken. Enjoy the bread and circuses.
You asked for this (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot (/.) overwhelming supported Barak Obama's runs for President.
Slashdotters were warned that Senator Obama would do "bad things like this" if elected. (In the general news/media arena and here on Slashdot.)
Now the blessed, Slashdot Messiah is screwing you over.
Regrettably, it is a bittersweet truth--the sweet is that President Obama is screwing his devotees and followers of his Progressive (Leftist) Way and the better is that he is screwing everyone with his Royal Presidency.
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Yeah, and conservatives supported Bush, even after he started 2 wars.
Everybody fucks up sometime, conservs and libs fucked up back-to-back.
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Bush did not start or go looking for the Afghan war. Try again.
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In the end it was oil interests and the CIA under Reagan who created that beast..
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Ha really? Guess you never frequented a place like Democratic Underground. Fail to click your heels and goose step in line and you'll see a liberal rant.
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You call a completely disorganized protest movement professional astroturfing, while saying "ignore the Koches behind the curtain"?
You've given me a completely new definition for spin, and it isn't positive.
Re:You asked for this (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what would be nice? Being able to have a grown-up discussion about issues like TFA without being distracted by whatever bullshit the GOP is using rise the hackles of their Tea Party base this week (death panels? Benghazi? Who can even keep track?). The signal-to-noise ratio is really low when a conversation about press freedoms needs to be overpowered by "No, really, defaulting on national debts would be Bad, you fucking morons."
Re:You asked for this (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be nice. Unfortunately, the American electorate no longer resembles "grown-up discussion", which is why our political system is so fucked right now.
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You also need to reduce the costs, so that you don't need to be a millionaire to have enough of your own money to fund getting into the primaries. Check out their backgrounds: in the U.S., the number of non-millionaire federal politicians is tiny.
Alas, the U.S. House of Representatives now has a higher (de-facto) property requirement that the British House of Lords (;-))
--dave
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Re:You asked for this (Score:5, Insightful)
And the FIRST step to thoughtful debate is to STOP DEMONIZING YOUR OPPOSITION.
Obama is NOT the anti-Christ (that would be Larry Ellison. . .) and the Tea Party is not the KKK in Izod and Chinos. . .
Re:You asked for this (Score:5, Insightful)
But you ARE right about Larry Ellison
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Re:You asked for this (Score:4, Funny)
OK, what do you suggest ??? Political Combat in Thunderdome ??
Two pols enter, one pol leaves. . .
It would certainly fix the geriatrication of Capitol Hill. . .
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I've looked at your trolling^Wposting history, I'm not going to further engage such a belligerent know-nothing as yourself, thump your chest and go away.
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Canada "fucking NATIONALIZED healthcare." The United Kingdom "fucking NATIONALIZED healthcare." Democrats couldn't even agree among themselves to offer everyone the ability to voluntarily buy into Medicare.
But thanks for proving my point: your inability to even recognize the difference is why We Can't Have Nice Things.
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Hey, that's great for them...really.
You seem to have a problem with the majority of people in the US not wanting to NATIONALIZE heathcare. Its our choice, and most folks here don't want it....and what we got rammed through by the Dems when they had supermajority, seems to kinda blow too, in terms of cost, red tape and confusion.
Many in the US *do* agree something needs to be done, and that maybe starting over
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Can we stop yelling?
Also, I totally want medicare extended all the way down. Lets just cover everyone. It's far more efficient. Yes, I am an American and I want a single payer insurance system.
Re:You asked for this (Score:5, Informative)
Uhm. Wait. Sanity check. Obama did NOT nationalize the auto industry or the healthcare industry.
I know you're refering to the government buying a controlling interest of GM stock. GM was in trouble and needed some money to stay afloat. The government bought a ton of stock (which I happen to think is better than just GIVING them money), it did NOT tell the company how to run, and then it SOLD the stock(I think even at a profit) once GM was on it's feet again. It did all this to prevent GM from folding and causing huge job losses.
I also know that you're refering to Obamacare, AKA, the ACA. I WISH the government had nationalized the healthcare industry, but mandating that you buy insurance from a NON GOVERNMENT insurance company is a far cry from nationalizing anything.
So, basically, you're so wrong we can't even talk to you. Obama didn't nationalize squat. Look to Venezeula if you want to see a country nationalizing private industries. There's none of that here. Your belief is a fantasy. Kool-Aide indeed.
Re:You asked for this (Score:4, Informative)
Re:You asked for this (Score:4, Insightful)
Now THAT is how to do it. Thank you ak3ldama for giving me more information and correcting me. Thank you for the link. I shall correct my thinking and keep that in mind for the future.
It's still better than just GIVING them the money though. /shrug
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A grown-up discussion ignores labels and whimsical associations, and cuts right to the battle of ideas.
Ah, how noble! Well, on one side the idea is "Maybe we could sort of regulate the banks that, when left unregulated, broke the global economy, and wouldn't it be nice if we had a modern healthcare system while we're at it?" On the other we have "HITLER HITLER HITLER ARGLEBARGLE!" Surely there's an enlightened discussion to be had between such well-reasoned views!
Also, citation needed on "defaulting on national debts would be Bad," preferably not one from an op-ed.
You go around natural history museums asking "Were you there?" don't you?
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I have to agree that the discussion does really seem like "lets regulate the banks that took huge gambles with government insured money, that's a bad idea" Vs. "Obama is a socialist muslim and all government is bad".
It's hard to have a grown up discussion with hyperbole. I know many equate the left saying "Damnit, the right is bat shit crazy" with the right saying "Obama and the democrats are executing a long term plan to crash the government and destroy the US dollar so the UN can take over the world!",
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Of course we supported him. Did you see the other guy?
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Slashdotters were warned that Senator Obama would do "bad things like this" if elected.
The problem is that no one better ever had a chance of making it through the primaries. It's not like there was a better viable alternative.
President Obama is screwing his devotees and followers of his Progressive (Leftist) Way
Everywhere in the wide world, Obama is a conservative moderate right. US does not have a "Left" side.
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I seem to recall the candidacy of one Hillary Clinton.
And as for the rest of the world's political spectrum, the US poltical spectrum is simply different. It probably has something to do with the Metric system (grin)
Re:You asked for this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You asked for this (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no recollection of people complaining that Senator Obama would end up being a conservative right wing leader hell bent on attacking our civil liberties at home while exporting undeclared warfare worldwide.
I do remember plenty of idiots rambling about how he is a foreign born Muslim communist. None of those claims panned out, however.
So yes, Obama supporters were misled. They were perhaps naive to think that a candidate supported by one of the two established parties could possibly be a departure from business as usual. However wrong Obama supporters were in their opinion of Obama, the detractors were doubly wrong. None of you asshats was claiming that Obama was a closet conservative, so don't try to spin it like that's what you were saying all along.
Re: You asked for this (Score:2)
Stop bringing your little book of fairy tales into every discussion and then maybe we'll talk. Until then I think I'll keep voting for the adults that aren't afraid of brown people or the big bad gays.
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Absolutely right.
Makes the old complaints about the Patriot Act seem almost quaint, doesn't it?
SlashCrowd most definitely asked for this. Couldn't wait. Stick it to all those old white dudes! (Which since this is Slashdot, most of us are, but we like to imagine we aren't.)
The Achilles' heel of the tech weenie (myself included) is to imagine that since you are smart about something, you must be smart about everything.
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Well, yes, if Cthuhlu was the alternative.
But for the most part, Brand D and Brand R are like toothpaste. Different flavors of pasty abrasiveness. . .
Re:You asked for this (Score:5, Insightful)
Slightly off topic, but I feel the need to push this now more than ever...
The US needs a new voting system [wikipedia.org], one that doesn't favor two-party control. This bickering and extremism in Congress today, and in the White House, starts at campaign time and leaves us with fewer moderates every year.
Imagine what might happen in the US if the Democrats and the Republicans couldn't push their agenda on the American people just because they have a slim majority. What if, heaven forbid, there were a third party with no ties to the other two, and a bill actually were judged on its merits rather than on the party that proposed it?
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Let me flip it back at you: How about a mod of the First Amendment for Political Campaigns:
1. Limited Time for campaigning: say, 30 calendar days prior to election
2. NO political Advertising, period. Each Candidate makes a statement on his or her stands on the issues of the day. Maximum length, 2 pages. All responses are in a booklet mailed to voters 10 days prior to the election.
3. No political parties.
4. One public forum for candidates: each has 15 minutes to sell him/herself and their ideas. Saved
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I like this list, and I'll propose a few alternatives. (Not to go against yours, but because alternatives are useful if only for engaging people to think.)
1. Political advertising allowed, but 100% paid for by taxes and split evenly with all candidates. No campaign contributions allowed.
2. Use an alternative election system like range voting or a Condorcet method.
3. Because of #2 , no political party primaries are needed nor are they allowed. All party candidates are on the final ballot.
And for Congress,
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Your main proposal is unworkable, simply because of the Tyranny of the Majority: it means all the Pro-City candidates would win for a state.
We already see area of states wishing to secede, because their legislatures are dominated by city folk. Because what's perfectly reasonable for a densely-populated city is often unworkable for rural areas. . .
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What I agree with
What I disagree with
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RIght .. so please name these other countries that do not have two party dominant systems and which function so much better? I'm at a loss. Those that have prime ministers either have a dominant party or are in continuous turmoil with one party with slight edge having to cut deals with little hanger-on parties to stay in power. How is that any better or different?
The grass is usually not greener.
Re:You asked for this (Score:4, Informative)
The US needs a new voting system [wikipedia.org], one that doesn't favor two-party control. What if, heaven forbid, there were a third party with no ties to the other two, and a bill actually were judged on its merits rather than on the party that proposed it?
The problem is the corporate media, who have convinced everyone that voting for a loser is a wasted vote. People don't use logic; rub two brain cells together and you'll see that if that's true, everyone who voted for Romney wasted their vote.
Last Presidential election there were five parties on enough ballots that they could win the White House. The people who own the corporate media also own the corporations that bribe candidates with campaign contributions. Give a million to each candidate and it doesn't matter who loses, you win. If the media weren't corrupt they would have covered all five viable candidates, but that would mean they would have to bribe five parties instead of just two.
Personally, I refuse to vote R or D. Everyone has friends and family who smoke pot, why are you voting for men who want your friends and family in prison? That's just madness. The liberal Greens and the conservative Libertarians don't want your loved ones in jail, vote for one of them instead.
If you actually smoke pot yourself and voted for Romney or Obama you're just fucking retarded.
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Nonsense. Our plurality voting system favors two parties. Voting for a third party candidate is like throwing your vote away; people vote for the lesser of two evils, not the best candidate.
People also say that about voting for incumbent (Score:4)
People say, I am am beginning to agree, that voting for the incumbent office holder is throwing your vote away. If that is the case, then you only have two choices: The main party challenger or the third party challenger.
Therefore, voting for the third party is not throwing your vote away. Its voting for one of your only two options for not throwing your vote away.
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If you were asked to only choose between Kang and Kodos you may had a point. There were more alternatives, like voting for other of the candidates (no matter if won or not, what matter is that you didnt choose Kang nor Kodos) or voting for no candidate where is allowed. Not going to vote is to say that let the others decide, going to vote but somewhat telling that you don't like those 2 main options is another kind of message, and if most expressed it it could had lead to some change.
BTW, for the next elec
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Well, yes, if Cthuhlu was the alternative.
The alternative was someone who hates anyone who isn't in the 1%, a corporate pirate who said "I like firing people". How could any working person with half a brain vote for him?
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Re:You asked for this (Score:4, Insightful)
there are more than two candidates... it is people like you that cause this ridiculous shit to occur. use your brain, vote for a third party. if enough ppl actually vote for who they want instead of "the lesser of two evils", we wouldnt have had to deal with obama in the first place.
There is also the option of getting involved earlier in the process.
On the Democrat side tehre were at least 2 candidates: Hillary Clinton, and Barak Obama
On the republican side there were several: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Fred Karger, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Buddy Roemer, Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, Jr., and Michele Bachmann according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_candidates,_2012 [wikipedia.org]
In my own district, there was even a party meeting the night after the primaries where there was a discussion of what should be on the party platform and a group of representatives were selected to go to the next higher level caucus(State?). There were actually fewer attendees at the meeting I went to than there were slots for representatives from our district, so everyone who wanted to go was selected, plus a few people someone knew who had gone in the past.(I did not go as I had a schedule conflict, but I could have).
If you want to fix things, get involved earlier in the process when there are so few people who care, every voice is magnified.
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Well, i think Obama is the lesser of two evils.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.". C.S. Lewis
Transparency (Score:3, Insightful)
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If you count just the amount of information released, maybe. But the people in this administration are control freaks when it comes to deciding which information gets released, and they lash out when someone releases information against their wishes. Also transparency in itself is not enough: for example campaign contributions are public, but they are still a corrupting influence.
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Are you on drugs? Bush was lambasted by the media. Constantly. Now Obama is in office. Remember how we're still fighting a war in Afghanistan? What happened to Guantanimo? The only reason we know ANYTHING about the NSA is because every news outlet would be dumb as a bag of rocks not to report it. It was thrown in their lap.
Who knows what else is going on. There's very little real journalism in today's media. Part of that really is a belief by many in the media that Obama is overall a great man and they shou
Hope and Change (Score:2, Interesting)
How's it working for you these days? There were plenty of people who were screaming that this stuff would be happening. Nobody listened. Maybe next time you will, but I doubt it. The American public is too busy watching American Idol to give a crap about anything important anymore.
Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging open government, but he has fallen short of his promise.
Fallen short? Is that's what it's called when it's the most closed administration in recent history? Fallen short? Give me a break!
Today we are the police state that the likes of Obama told us we were under Bush. People really need to wake up.
Oh, but yeah, I know... it's Apple and the "XBone" that we need to worry about, right?
Bread and circuses (Score:5, Insightful)
There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.
There have been classified documents since 1911 (Score:2)
It's probably a lot easier to try someone under the Espionage Act today since you can deliver a large volume of information electronically and odds are there will be some electronic fingerprint on it pointing back to the leaker unless they're fully aware of all the security precautions. Fifty years ago, if you leaked th
Re: There have been classified documents since 191 (Score:2)
Re:There have been classified documents since 1911 (Score:5, Insightful)
Which, presumably, is why the Obama Administration has brought charges against more journalists (6) than all other administrations combined (3)?
you mean zero. soldier to USSR != journalist (Score:4, Informative)
By 15, mean 0, right? I see that in the 1980s a service member and a CIA agent were prosecuted for selling information to the Soviets. I'm not finding any journalists being prosecuted until Obama.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Good Man + Absolute Power = Bad Man (Score:2)
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I reject your premise. Good people do not seek power in the first place.
That's not to say there are no good people with power. But those who have it almost always have it forced upon them by the circumstances of the moment, and when the moment has passed, they try to get rid of it as quickly as possible.
More examples (Score:3, Informative)
* Hushing up Fast 'n Furious debacle by executive privilege.
* Gagging Benghazi witnesses, even forbidding them from testifying to Congress.
* Blaming Benghazi on a stupid YouTube video for weeks (right before the election -- we have to make the attack seem "spontaneous" so it looks our policies have ended terrorism), knowing full well that it's a lie.
I could go on all day, but I do have to actually work. Most of these things (all three of the cases I mentioned) happened before His reelection, so it was completely obvious to those of us who aren't idiots what kind of president this guy was/is. Now, time to wait for said idiots to try to deflect the issue by talking about how bad Republicans are (happens every time, as if these turds get their marching orders from On High; so predictable).
Well, what did you expect? (Score:4, Interesting)
Obama got the Nobel prize, not the Sakharov prize.
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
...this is what happens when you have a President that makes your leg tingle.
Seriously, though, the press has ALWAYS done a better job covering Republican presidents, as their adversarial role is abundantly clear. Largely, Democratic presidents who ostensibly have the shared outlook, overall sympathies, if not outright vote of reporters (http://archive.mrc.org/biasbasics/biasbasics.asp), have been covered much more gently and with (dare I call it) an almost collaborationist approach.
As politics have become more strident and divisive, it seems like the press itself has found itself more stridently taking a side, with Fox on the Right, and everyone else on the Left.
orly? (Score:3)
Voters duped (Score:3)
How many people voted for Obama believing that he wouldn't use the executive powers expanded by the previous administration? How many were dumb enough to believe he'd actually try to roll them back?
Worse yet, how many are OK with their guy abusing his new authority?
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How many people voted for Obama believing that he wouldn't use the executive powers expanded by the previous administration? How many were dumb enough to believe he'd actually try to roll them back?
Worse yet, how many are OK with their guy abusing his new authority?
According to the latest gallup poll 37% are just dandy with what Obama is doing. You can thank the Liberal press for being his lapdog while he bends them over without a reach-around.
The sad part is, if Obama ran for a 3rd term he would still win because he gets 98% of the Black vote, 99% of the Democrat vote and 85% of the women's vote. Once amnesty passes he'll also get 90% of the Hispanic vote. Nevermind that black unemployment is higher than its ever been, that the real war on women is being waged by Dem
The press has turned on the administration (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure they like to flout that Obama has conducted more interviews than any president before him. But Obama intentionally selects outlets where he can evade scrutiny. His "interviews" have largely been on entertainment shows. When preparing for the precious few press interviews, Obama selects journalist
If you did nothing wrong... (Score:3)
then you should have nothing to hide. That they make such big efforts to actively hide everything (even to the point of rerouting the president of Bolivia plane just for suspecting that Snowden may be there) means that they did, and probably keep doing, something very wrong. And it must be far bigger than anything we know they are doing (not mass snooping or subverting internet security protocols, not favoring big corporations, no giving chemical weapons to syrian rebels to blame the government, etc), and at difference of the current situation, should be something that if disclosed it really would have most of the population very upset.
Re:Right.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Could it be that Slashdot is rasist as fuck against a black president? No, it couldn't be that.
Grow up.
That isn't even a good troll. Crying 'racism' at any criticism of Obama is actually in and of itself racist. He gets plenty of criticism for his actions, not so much the color of his skin. You're the one who really should consider growing up.
Re:Right.... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it isn't be that. Because nobody is talking about the color of his skin.
See, being a person who is working against your freedoms and trying to keep government activities a secret isn't an issue of the color of your skin.
It's an issue of your integrity and your campaign promises. If your president isn't working to improve or maintain your liberties, he's working against them.
We're not seeing a whole lot of 'audacity of hope' these days. We're seeing someone who is helping reduce your freedoms and curtail your press from telling people what it is they're actually doing when that might be illegal.
This is very much a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" kind of thing.
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Wow, I be typing goodly today ...
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There's a lot of like for Obama due to his race too. Do you think White Candidate Obama would have won?
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Channel 666.
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Don't forget, the presidency is the first election he ever won against a solid opponent. In all previous elections he either had no opponent, an opponent who could never win (a Republican in his solid Democratic state district), or a last-minute swap-out who had no chance (Alan Keyes). He even won state senate primaries mainly by having the opposition disqualified, or running unopposed. In 2000 he ran a primary against the incumbent for his Congressional district and lost badly (he got the upper class vote,
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Romney challenged Ted Kennedy, an absolutely sure losing proposition since everybody knew The Swimmer would keep his fat ass in that seat until he died. But Romney still managed to get 40% of the vote, which is incredible.
For governor of MA, Romney was trailing in the polls up until the end against a strong opponent.
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When you have to deal with people who work for you and claim to be on your side and who you feel you should be able to trust only to find leaked confidential documents and conversations online and in the press ...can you blame the administration for tightening their safeguards and access by the media?
Yes, yes I can. Those documents should have been public from day one.
This isn't what he wanted. He believed in his mission of "Hope and Change".
Then why hasn't he done anything about it? Not one damn thing.
Pe