ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW 6-1-2014 President Obama announced this week that he is delaying a review of his administration’s controversial deportation practices until after the summer, after earlier ordering Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to look into ways he could take executive action to scale back deportations after civil rights groups dubbed him the deporter-in-chief. But during a hearing on immigration policy Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia made it clear that they remain highly skeptical of negotiating with the president. Immigration rights groups continue to express frustration over the lack of political traction on comprehensive immigration reform. The White House now says it wants to put off any potential reforms in order to avoid angering House Republicans and dooming chances of passage of the comprehensive immigration reform bill this year. ============================================ Excerpts from article written by Dave Lindorff in Nation of Change Secretary of State John Kerry told NBC’s Brian Williams last week that fugitive National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden should “man up” and return to the US to “stand in our system of justice and make his case.” He surely knows from his carefully buried past as a critic of the Vietnam War plenty of fellow American veterans, as well as Vietnam-era deserters and also draft resisters, who did just that -- they “made their case” in “our system of justice.” And Kerry also surely knows what happened to them: most ended up getting shuffled off to jail by an American “justice” system that, particularly when it comes to national security and opposition to the state, operates on the Lewis Carroll principle of “verdict first, trial afterwards.” Yet Kerry, in that same NBC interview with Williams, forged right on and declared that Snowden is guilty as charged, saying, “This is a man who has betrayed his country.” Kerry is not alone in convicting Snowden in absentia and without a trial. He is only echoing the sentiments of his boss, President Barack Obama, who has already made it clear that he thinks Snowden is guilty under the Espionage Act. The nation’s top prosecutor, Attorney General Eric Holder, has also said he thinks Snowden belongs in the slammer (though he promised Russia that Snowden, if handed over to the US for arrest, would not be tortured, and that if convicted, would not be executed). As Holder put it, in a question-and-answer session worthy of Lewis Carroll held at the University of Virginia Law School, his office would be “willing to discuss” a deal with Snowden, but only if Snowden first pleaded guilty! Let’s be clear here. As Kerry surely knows, Snowden, under the Espionage Act, would not even be allowed to present -- even at the sentencing phase of any trial -- an argument justifying his decision to copy the NSA data, and to provide it to journalists. Nor, under the Espionage Act, would he be permitted to argue that the data had been unconstitutionally obtained by the NSA, or that it was improperly classified as secret. None of that would be permitted. All he would have a right to do would be to attempt the impossible and try to prove that he did not steal the data. =========================================== Excerpts from an article by Norman Soloman in Nation of Change In a memoir published this year, the CIA’s former top legal officer John Rizzo says that on the last day of 2005 a panicky White House tried to figure out how to prevent the distribution of a book by New York Times reporter James Risen. Officials were upset because Risen’s book, State of War, exposed what -- in his words -- “may have been one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA.” The book told of a bungled CIA attempt to set back Iran’s nuclear program in 2000 by supplying the Iranian government with flawed blueprints for nuclear-bomb design. The CIA’s tactic might have actually aided Iranian nuclear development. But more than eight years later, the Obama White House is seeking retribution. The people running the current administration don’t want to pulp the book -- they want to put its author in jail. The Obama administration is insisting that Risen name his confidential source -- or face imprisonment. Risen says he won’t capitulate. ===================================================== This from a president who, after his election, refused to pursue charges against the Bush administration for crimes against humanity, torture, and lying to Congress and the American people because he didn’t want to look backward, he wanted to move forward. Yet, 8 years after Risen’s book was published, Obama’s Justice Department is pursuing action against him. Anyone notice the contradiction here? D. Alpert
Posted on: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 14:34:52 +0000
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