If you vote for Obama, you’re an idiot and here’s why [Reader Post]

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Let’s crank up the Wayback Machine to 2008 and see what President-elect Barack Obama promised us about whistleblowers. What you are about to witness is a collection of words from the most gullible among us- the left wing MSM.

From Rick Piltz

The Obama-Biden transition website says: “Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out…. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance.” This is a critical area for the new administration to make good on its promise.

and…

Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

Joe Davidson at WaPo

Whistleblowers May Have Friend in Oval Office

While Barack Obama’s election victory led millions of Americans to cheer and shout, a much smaller group of government watchers had reason to blow their whistles.

Whistleblowers in the federal government and those who work to protect them see a longtime friend in the next president.

“Attorney Obama and Senator Obama and candidate Obama and President-elect Obama have all supported whistleblower rights,” said Adam Miles, the legislative representative for the Government Accountability Project, a public interest group that bills itself as the nation’s leading whistleblower organization.

Obama’s whistleblower trail starts before his days in public office.
…..

When Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s incoming chief of staff, was a congressman, his office released a list of government workers who “lost their jobs in the Bush administration for telling the truth.”

An Emanuel press release said “one of our most important weapons against waste, fraud and abuse . . . is federal whistleblower protections.”

Will Obama Keep His Promise to Federal Whistleblowers?

Will Barack Obama, a champion of whistleblower protection when he was a state senator, act as strongly to protect them when they blow the whistle on his administration?

Whistleblowers tell ABC News they are encouraged by recent signs from the White House about possible efforts to protect them from retaliation. But, they say, they are still wary after years of brutal confrontations that left many of them jobless, financially drained and emotionally spent.

Late last week, President Obama appointed two individuals to the Merit Systems Protection Board, an administrative panel that hears employment appeals from federal employees, including cases that fall under the recently-passed Whistleblowers Protection Enhancement Act of 2009.

The picks – Susan Grundmann, general counsel for the National Federation of Federal Employees, and Anne Wagner, general counsel for the Personal Appeals Board of the U.S. Government Accountability Office – were hailed by whistleblowers and watchdog groups as a first step in overhauling federal whistleblower protection laws.

“Unlike Bush administration appointees who compiled a 1-44 track record against whistleblowers, these leaders are seasoned veterans with a proven track record of commitment to the merit system throughout their careers,” said Tom Devine, legal director of the nonprofit public interest group Government Accountability Project.

Devine called the appointments “a weathervane that the Obama Administration is serious about its good government rhetoric.”

It will surprise only liberals to learn that this, as with so many other Obama promises, has gone straight down the memory hole. The reality?

This is not your father’s hope and change. You elected a fraud. This is the real Barack Obama.

The Secret Sharer

Few people are more disturbed about Drake’s prosecution than the others who spoke out against the N.S.A. surveillance program. In 2008, Thomas Tamm, a Justice Department lawyer, revealed that he was one of the people who leaked to the Times. He says of Obama, “It’s so disappointing from someone who was a constitutional-law professor, and who made all those campaign promises.” The Justice Department recently confirmed that it won’t pursue charges against Tamm. Speaking before Congress, Attorney General Holder explained that “there is a balancing that has to be done . . . between what our national-security interests are and what might be gained by prosecuting a particular individual.” The decision provoked strong criticism from Republicans, underscoring the political pressures that the Justice Department faces when it backs off such prosecutions. Still, Tamm questions why the Drake case is proceeding, given that Drake never revealed anything as sensitive as what appeared in the Times. “The program he talked to the Baltimore Sun about was a failure and wasted billions of dollars,” Tamm says. “It’s embarrassing to the N.S.A., but it’s not giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”

Mark Klein, the former A.T. & T. employee who exposed the telecom-company wiretaps, is also dismayed by the Drake case. “I think it’s outrageous,” he says. “The Bush people have been let off. The telecom companies got immunity. The only people Obama has prosecuted are the whistle-blowers.

Jane Mayer on the Obama war on whistle-blowers

And that’s to say nothing of the full-scale immunity also given thus far to Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill, and the mortgage fraudsters who have essentially stolen people’s homes. About what motivates Obama’s conduct — his virtually complete reversal from the campaign pledges — Drake offers this speculation:

“I actually had hopes for Obama,” he said. He had not only expected the President to roll back the prosecutions launched by the Bush Administration; he had thought that Bush Administration officials would be investigated for overstepping the law in the “war on terror.”

“But power is incredibly destructive,” Drake said. “It’s a weird, pathological thing. I also think the intelligence community coöpted Obama, because he’s rather naïve about national security. He’s accepted the fear and secrecy. We’re in a scary space in this country.”

Obama’s War on Whistle-Blowers

The Justice Department’s subpoena of New York Times reporter James Risen Monday was the latest sign of how aggressive the Obama administration is being in its campaign against government whistle-blowers. The purpose of Risen’s subpoena is to force him to testify that Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent, gave him confidential information about the CIA’s efforts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. The extent to which the administration is prosecuting leakers has troubled those who see leakers as speakers of truth to power. “In President Obama’s 26 months in office, civilian and military prosecutors have charged five people in cases involving leaking information, more than all previous presidents combined,” reports the Times. Here’s a list of prominent leakers with various agendas currently under pressure from the government.


Obama’s War on Whistleblowers

This is a chilling little speech by Jesselyn Radick, a Bush administration whistleblower who was harassed aggressively by the Department of Justice, on how matters have gotten much worse for government whistleblowers under Obama, both in numbers and the ferocity of the retaliation.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0u1dYz1dSs[/youtube]

Obama’s unprecedented war on whistleblowers

The Obama administration has already charged more people — six — under the Espionage Act for alleged mishandling of classified information than all past presidencies combined. (Prior to Obama, there were only three such cases in American history.)

Kiriakou, in particular, is accused of giving information about the CIA’s torture programs to reporters two years ago. Like the other five whistleblowers, he has been charged under the draconian World War I-era Espionage Act.

That Act has a sordid history, having once been used against the government’s political opponents. Targets included labor leaders and radicals like Eugene V. Debs, Bill Haywood, Philip Randolph, Victor Berger, John Reed, Max Eastman and Emma Goldman. Debs, a union leader and socialist candidate for the presidency, was, in fact, sentenced to 10 years in jail for a speech attacking the Espionage Act itself. The Nixon administration infamously (and unsuccessfully) invoked the Act to bar the New York Times from continuing to publish the classified Pentagon Papers.

Yet, extreme as use of the Espionage Act against government insiders and whistleblowers may be, it’s only one part of the Obama administration’s attempt to sideline, if not always put away, those it wants to silence. Increasingly, federal agencies or departments intent on punishing a whistleblower are also resorting to extra-legal means. They are, for instance, manipulating personnel rules that cannot be easily challenged and do not require the production of evidence. And sometimes, they are moving beyond traditional notions of “punishment” and simply seeking to destroy the lives of those who dissent.

Obama’s War on Whistleblowing: Ex-CIA Agent Indicted Under Espionage Act

The use of the Espionage Act to go after individuals who have shared information with journalists or media organizations is a stunning attack on speech and press freedom. It is a calculated effort to make an example out of these individuals so that current and former employees do not get in the way of the work of agencies or departments in the US government. But, more importantly, this is where the Obama Justice Department is investing resources.

Has the Justice Department prosecuted bank executives that engaged in massive fraud that helped create the economic collapse in 2008? Are they investing resources and taking risks to get these individuals? What about the people who committed war crimes, like torture? Is the Department going after these individuals or are they just interested in the people who blew the whistle on war crimes, including torture? Are Justice Department employees focused on ensuring there is no challenge by former government employees to the national security industrial complex of America?

The Obama Administration will spend capital to push the limits for prosecutions under the Espionage Act. It won’t spend capital to push the limits for prosecutions of people who violated the Convention Against Torture or other treaties and legislation, which prohibits the cruel and inhuman treatment of individuals detained and interrogated in prison.

Obama’s War on Whistleblowers

Here is the simple reality of our moment: the president has definitively declared himself (and his advisors and those who carry out his orders) above the law, both statutory and moral. It is now for him and him alone to decide who will live and who will die under the drones, for him to reward media outlets with inside information or smack journalists who disturb him and his colleagues with subpoenas, and worst of all, to decide all by himself what is right and what is wrong.

The image Obama holds of himself, and the one his people have been aggressively promoting recently is of a righteous killer, ready to bloody his hands to smite “terrorists” and whistleblowers equally. If that sounds Biblical, it should. If it sounds full of unnerving pride, it should as well. If this is where a nation of laws ends up, you should be afraid.

Inside President Obama’s War On The Fast & Furious Whistleblowers

Senator Grassley then pointed out that the first whistleblower to come forward about Fast and Furious (ATF Agent John Dodson) had recently been attacked by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). According to Senator Grassley, “Someone in the Justice Department leaked a document to the press along with talking points in an attempt to smear [Dodson.]” The letter insinuated that Dodson went rogue and started a gun-walking operation on his own. This was easy to prove false; however, if Republicans hadn’t taken control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2010 election (meaning an opposing political party wouldn’t have had the power to do an investigation) then Dodson would have been left dangling in these political winds, as records giving the complete picture would likely not have been available.

Senator Grassley pointed out that the documents DOJ released to smear Dodson were actually supposed to be so sensitive that the DOJ wouldn’t provide them to congressional investigators. But then, to harm a whistleblower, someone from the DOJ provided these specifically selected documents to the press. In fact, the name of the criminal suspect in the documents was redacted, but Agent Dodson’s name was left for all to see. “This looks like a clear and intentional violation of the Privacy Act as well as an attempt at whistleblower retaliation,” said Grassley.

If this isn’t enough to stop you from voting for Obama again, you don’t deserve to vote because you are a complete idiot.

Gitmo is still open, rendition lives, warrantless wiretapping goes on with Obama and Holder as its new defenders. Obama personally oversees assassinations and has ordered Americans killed. Obama is indeed different from Bush. He’s far worse.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice or more, I am a liberal.

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Since you cite one of my earlier posts I’ll offer this comment:
You’ll note that in 2008 I said that protecting whistleblowers was “a critical area for the new administration to make good on its promise.” That was a watchdog statement, not based on gullible trust in Obama. It left open the question of what he would actually do. Since then, I would say that his record on national security-related whistleblowers — as noted by the analysts you cite, including my colleague Jesselyn Radack at the Government Accountability Project, has been terrible in a number of important cases. Pretty right-wing. But I wonder if there is any reason to think that a Republican president would be any less egregious in prosecuting these types of cases. I doubt it.
And I would add that, in whistleblower protection cases not related to the security state and illegal surveillance, the Obama administration has been a significant improvement over Bush-Cheney in some key respects, probably most notably in reforming what had been a hopelessly corrupt Office of Special Counsel, where whistleblower cases formerly went to die, into an office that is actually trying to do its job of protecting whistleblowers who call attention to waste, fraud, and abuse. See the Washington Post June 29: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/under-carolyn-lerner-special-counsel-office-is-doing-its-job-now-observers-say/2012/06/28/gJQApX229V_story.html, in particular the comments by Tom Devine, Radack’s colleague at the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s foremost whistleblower advocacy group. And my earlier post: http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2008/10/24/good-riddance-to-special-counsel-scott-bloch-enemy-of-whistleblowers-forced-out-of-office/
The picture is mixed, and a key question is whether elected officials can stand up to the security and surveillance state power structure regardless of who wins the election.

Rick

Thanks for visiting. My response is to again cite Jane Mayer, who described Obama’s war on whistleblowers as “unprecedented.”

When President Barack Obama took office, in 2009, he championed the cause of government transparency, and spoke admiringly of whistle-blowers, whom he described as “often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government.” But the Obama Administration has pursued leak prosecutions with a surprising relentlessness. Including the Drake case, it has been using the Espionage Act to press criminal charges in five alleged instances of national-security leaks — more such prosecutions than have occurred in all previous Administrations combined. The Drake case is one of two that Obama’s Justice Department has carried over from the Bush years.

That seems pretty clear. Barack Obama is a conniving hypocrite. I don’t know how anyone can support someone whose stances are like sand in the wind.

S@Rick Piltz:

I would say that his record on national security-related whistleblowers — as noted by the analysts you cite, including my colleague Jesselyn Radack at the Government Accountability Project, has been terrible in a number of important cases. Pretty right-wing.

So according to you, any totalitarian behavior is “right-wing.” Because, there’s no such thing as a left-wing totalitarian. This is the “No True Scotsman” defense.

Watching you equivocate and squirm is unpleasant.

Sherman:
I see my comment as based on critical analysis of the evidence, and essentially agree with the criticism of Obama’s record on national security and illegal surveillance whistleblowers. Where’s the ‘squirming and equivocation’? In calling Obama a ‘left-wing totalitarian’ you’re just being a simple-minded ideologue — he’s neither left-wing nor totalitarian — that doesn’t keep him from being a problem — as is Romney. Do you see Romney as some kind of bulwark of consistency and integrity?

@Rick Piltz: I see Romney as preferable, period. I agree with Mr. Sherman that Obama is a left wing and totalitarian. He sees government as the answer to everything.

Obama supporters MUST be idiots.
Why else would they fall for such astro-turfed bandwagons as (for instance) the occupy ”movement,” Sandra Fluke or Girshriela Green?
Yeah, all three are media made up for Obama.
A little bit of digging scratches off the pretend false front they each present to the world.
Never heard of Girshriela Green?
Heh.

Mainstream Obama media http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0701-walmart-protest-20120701,0,5219922.story

Girshriela Green, 45, said that she works at a Wal-Mart on Crenshaw Boulevard and that she “came out today for change.”

“I hope to send a direct message that we will not take the abuse, the disrespect, the impoverished wages, the neglect of communities, associates and small businesses any longer,” Green said.

But bloggers sometimes like to check out these “man-on-the-street” type interviewees to see what their deal is. That’s what geoff* at Innocent Bystanders did, anyway, and lo and behold, here’s Ms. Green’s deal:

Girshriela Green found employment at a Wal-Mart in South Central Los Angeles in 2009, through California’s welfare-to-work program. Two years later, she was injured on the job. Here the mother of six talks about working for low wages, and then living on $511 disability every two weeks, and two hundred dollars in food stamps.http://thevoicesofpoverty.org/poverty-stories/story/girshriela-green

I’m sure we’ve all known egotists like Green, a woman with no job is given a job via a state program and Walmart’s munificence. Then she decides that that’s not good enough, and that Walmart needs to start running its business the way she wants it run.

Green told The Huffington Post, she thought the job would be a career opportunity and was optimistic about her future. Her goal was to get off of welfare and be able to support her three daughters on her own.

What happened to the OTHER THREE CHILDREN???

One glimmer of hope for Green is a labor group conceived by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, called “OUR Walmart.”

She joined OUR Walmart and even has a YouTube video for the organization. Yup, just another random off-the-street regular sort of interviewee who’s not an activist or someone who’s currently suing Walmart (oh, didn’t I mention that?).

Finally, this impoverished woman who’s been so sorely abused by Walmart that she’s practically a cripple and can no longer work, this woman somehow found the money, strength, and time away from her kids to get out to New York City last October:

http://walmartfreenyc.com/index.php/2011/10/walmart-workers-visit-occupy-wall-street-we-are-the-99/
“…[W]e are the 99%” said Walmart worker Girshriela Green. “For too long Walmart has pushed its associates around and its time we got the dignity and respect we deserve.”

PS, She’s also so POOR but has managed to get to DC and to Arkansas, maybe Obama ought to put her in charge of budgeting!

*Geoff, you all know him from his now famous chart comparing Obama’s promised unemployment lowering IF the Stimulus got passed, VS how it would be if the Stimulus were not passed and Geoff’s addition of maroon dots to show what really happened.

@Rick Piltz:

I see my comment as based on critical analysis of the evidence, and essentially agree with the criticism of Obama’s record on national security and illegal surveillance whistleblowers. Where’s the ‘squirming and equivocation’?

You left a whole bunch of stuff out. The general push to extend the reach and pervasiveness of government, the pursuit of ends by fiat and regulatory overreach instead of legislation, the exemptions and favors to preferred groups, the promotion of class and race conflict. Then you labelled the bad stuff you were willing to acknowledge as “right wing.” Obama and the Democratic Pary leadership are statists. Their roots are Marxist, “right wing” is used by them as a pejorative against people like us, and I believe you are fully aware of all of that. To muddy the distinction between the two fundamentally different views of the proper role of government is to equivocate.

In calling Obama a ‘left-wing totalitarian’ you’re just being a simple-minded ideologue — he’s neither left-wing nor totalitarian — that doesn’t keep him from being a problem — as is Romney. Do you see Romney as some kind of bulwark of consistency and integrity?

I did not explicitly call him a left wing totalitarian; that is however the direction in which we are being taken. He is not yet in a postition to be a fully fledged totalitarian. That he is left wing is not debatable.

Neither Romney, nor McConnell, nor Boehner, nor George W. Bush are the kind of leaders that are needed. They are not at all committed to turning back the growth of government. The actions of thr Bush S.C. appointee John Roberts illustrated the RINO problem just a few days ago. But Romney is better than Obama. That is enough for now. He’s all we’ve got. Maybe he really is a sociopath who says whatever he thinks we want to hear. But how is that different from what we’ve got in the White House right now? We will hold Romney’s feet to the fire as best we can and if that fails utterly then it fails utterly.

here you go. This should raise some ire
Obama? INCREDIBLE! How can he get away with this? I know. Do you?The United States Air Force has established two new aircraft squadrons to support President Obama’s travel needs during the campaign season. The 305th and 306th Expeditionary Airlift Squadrons were activated as subordinate units of the 89th Airlift Wing on December 1. The 305th will operate out of New Castle , DE , with 5 C-130H medium lift transport aircraft, 8 full sets of aircrew, 60 assigned maintenance personnel and 12 operations personnel. The 306th will operate out of Andrews AFB, with 4 C-17 heavy lift transports, 7 full aircrew, 60 maintenance personnel, and 10 operations personnel will be assigned. Operations for the two squadrons are to commence in April, and will run through the election. The aircraft and personnel will be released back to their original units after Nov. 2. Well, isn’t that nice of him? NOTE: Considering his disdain for the military forces of America , this is truly incredible! And why doesn’t the Democratic National Committee pay for at least part of Obama’s campaign expenses? Furthermore, since Obama has already accumulated countless millions of dollars to support his campaign, why doesn’t the SOB use those funds for campaign travels? Ignore this or pass it on to others. My colleagues and I are taking action! We’re passing this information to everyone we know, and we plan to file complaints with the news media and every proper member of Congress! Regardless of your political affiliation or personal opinions, this man has no right to have ALL American taxpayers pay for his campaign expenses! This is factual. Read it yourself:
source: http://www.dcmilitary.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111209/NEWS09/712099912/89th-activates-2-eas-squadrons&template=PrinterFriendly

@Disenchanted, #8:

How do President’s usually travel during election campaigns?

I don’t seem to recall George W. Bush getting around from speaking engagement to speaking engagement in an Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Especially when carrier landings were inv0lved.

Why would you feature Sherman and Mr Peabody so prominently? Mr Peabody is an elitist know-it-all and Sherman isn’t a home-schooled kid. THEY BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION!! Clearly, these two are Obama supporters.

I ‘m sure OBAMA doesn’t want to be discover, because he did not even show AMERICANS
his real BIRTH CERTIFICATE, HE CAME IN AS A NOBODY CLAIMING TO BE SOME KIND OF SAVIOR,
he doesn’t want no one to spill the beans, before the election,
but things are coming more and more, and he will leave as a nobody, just as he came, not as he pretend to be.

Not to worry, I would like to think I am a person of [in Martin Luther King’s words] ‘Character’, so…. and I would like to think I am a good judge of it as well….

Sadly, Great distinctions of Men, Women, Young Adults and Children – “Character” – Morals, Integrity, Hard Work, Merit, Success, Responsibility for one’s deeds and their life, dignity, respect for ones self, Honor …

… these great distinctions have somehow been twisted and turned into the complete opposite of their meaning in our ‘new’ Society…Cheat, Lie, Blame, Steal, Smear, Sloth, Fraud, Kill, purposeful ignorance, gaming the system, equality of outcome… [Ugly!! Ugly!!] apparently this is what the left calls… Social Justice??

Oh, and I didn’t vote for Obama. I questioned his Ambiguous, Vague Language when he spoke [speeches]…no meat in what he said and still has no meat, no defined solutions just platitudes….many hypocritical statements, half truths, misleading and out right lies….besides the fact he had no real experience in the Senate or as a working [class] person….[he is an elitist]…all these things have proven to be true….He is an Elitist! a power hungry one at that!… we should all take extreme caution…

Moochelle? Well, she hated America, was ashamed of it, until of course her husband won the Presidency…does she still ‘hate’ America? Is she still Ashamed of it??? – OR was this little speech just another way to ‘shame’ America into voting for her husband?? I question that.

If he was my manager at work, I’d quit… How do you think I will vote in the future? lol

@Nan G: what respect does she deserve– huu’mmm? — she has NO dignity — in fact ho’s on the street corner have more dignity than that bee-otch!!!

Faith7
yes you are a person of character and you sure are a good judge,
we just have to read your comments on so many issues,
best to you

Gracie notes Sherman and Peabody “Believe In Evolution” Radicals

Bees@14 – Thank you Bees, I appreciate that!…And I have to say I have come to FA enough times to sense the good Character in many of the FA community as well….