Sunday, September 9, 2018
Flashback: Obama prosecuted staff leakers, gave lie-detector tests, ‘paranoid’
According to reports at the time from even New York Times journalists, no administration was tougher on leakers and punishing to the media than Obama’s, a saga reinforced by reporters who have called Trump’s team more forthcoming.
Criticism of Obama’s attacks on the media and leakers did not just come in tweets and TV appearances by journalists but in an official report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, authored by former Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr.
“This is the most closed, control freak administration I’ve ever covered,” said David E. Sanger, veteran chief Washington correspondent of The New York Times, in the report.
USA Today said of the report, it “portrays an administration gripped by strict policies about information flow and paranoid about leaks across all executive branch departments.”
It detailed prosecutions and even the use of lie-detectors on staffers. Some have encouraged Trump to use lie-detector tests on his staff, something he has so far ignored.
While Trump has ripped leakers and the anonymous Times writer of being cowards and traitors, it was Obama who took the war to a higher level by targeting staff and reporters while also cutting out the media to promote its story via social media.
“The administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in the Washington Post’s investigation of Watergate. The 30 experienced Washington journalists at a variety of news organizations whom I interviewed for this report could not remember any precedent,” wrote Downie in the report that was criticized by Obama officials.
The campaign was so aggressive it even had a name, said the report: “The Insider Threat Program.”
Said the 2013 report, “The Insider Threat Program being implemented throughout the Obama administration to stop leaks—first detailed by the McClatchy newspapers’ Washington bureau in late June—has already ‘created internal surveillance, heightened a degree of paranoia in...
The Elephant Rope
As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.
He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”
The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.
Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?
Failure is part of learning; we should never give up the struggle in life.
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Clinton UK Contact For Trump/Russia Collusion Hoax Reported Missing & Presumed Dead
As of this week, the DNC is publicly stating Mr. Mifsud is presumed dead.
Via The Hill:
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Friday raised the prospect that the London-based professor who told former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton may be dead.
DNC lawyers wrote in court filings Friday that Joseph Mifsud, who spoke to Papadopoulos during the 2016 presidential election, “is missing and may be deceased,” Bloomberg News reported. The lawyers did not elaborate.
The DNC stood by its claim in a statement to The Hill on Friday. The committee indicated that an investigator had been used to find Mifsud, who has been missing for months, and was told the Maltese professor may be dead.
“The DNC’s counsel has attempted to serve Mifsud for months and has been unable to locate or contact him. In addition, public reports have said he has disappeared and hasn’t been seen for months,” DNC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.
Mifsud was reportedly teaching at a private university in Rome before he vanished late last year, shortly after his name emerged as a key figure in the investigation into Russian interference in...
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #374
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
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