How on earth can the New York Times call WikiLeaks a source? Shouldn't they know better than anyone what that term means? It's just laughable that they would pretend not to understand the distinction between sources, journalists and publishers. And all too obviously a nod to the Justice Department, declaring publicly that the NYT supports prosecution of Julian Assange.

There are three books on the market that can shed some light on what happened behind the curtains between Assange/WikiLeaks and Guardian/NYT/Spiegel primarily on the other side.


a) "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy" (Guardian)
b) "Open Secrets: Wikileaks, War and American Diplomacy" (New York Times)
c) "Staatsfeind WikiLeaks"/"WikiLeaks, Public Enemy No. 1" (Der Spiegel)

Excerpts of each one have been made available at the corresponding pages. Whether the truth can be found within one of these books, I highly doubt it. But at least "WikiLeaks, Public Enemy No. 1" was an interesting read.

@bmacs27

WikiLeaks' response can be found here, but if we take into account this excerpt from "WikiLeaks, Public Enemy No. 1" published by folks from "Der Spiegel" as well as the latest excerpts from David Leigh's book published by the Guardian, it appears to have turned into one big pissing contest between Bill Keller, David Leigh and Julian Assange.

So far, I have read neither "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy" (Guardian) nor "Open Secrets: Wikileaks, War and American Diplomacy" (New York Times), just "Staatsfeind WikiLeaks" (Der Spiegel). But comments and op-eds at "Der Spiegel" and "Le Monde" differ quite significantly from those at the NYT in particular.

On a different note, how about these two tweets by David House, Bradley Manning's only allowed visitor, together with Jane Hamsher:

Visited Bradley this weekend; his conditions are still intolerable, but we talked at length about Egypt & Tunisia.

Bradley is in a shocked state due to solitary confinement, but his mood and mind soared when I mentioned the democratic uprisings in Egypt.

It could be worse, she could be putting hot sauce in his mouth and making him take cold showers. Don't worry, I'm sure this kid will grow up just fine without any sort of discipline whatsoever.

And to all those who said it was sick, that she was an unfit mother, or even went as far as to say what she did was abuse, about this video; would you say the same about this woman?

In an article from The New York Times, Dr. Shari Barkin, chief of the division of general pediatrics at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University says:

Many parents’ discipline methods don’t work because children quickly learn that it’s much easier to capture a parent’s attention with bad behavior than with good. Parents unwittingly reinforce this by getting on the phone, sending e-mail messages or reading the paper as soon as a child starts playing quietly, and by stopping the activity and scolding a child when he starts to misbehave.

“How many times have you heard someone say, ‘I need to get off the phone because my child is acting up’?” asked Dr. Nathan J. Blum, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “You’re doing exactly what the child wants.”

I argue that this kind of reinforcement only sets this child up for negative attention seeking behavior for the rest of his/her life. And in my opinion this is just as (if not more) abusive as putting hot sauce in someone's mouth or making them take a cold shower as a form of punishment. When that mom told her kid to do something he sure as shit did it, maybe it was done out of fear (and im still not advocating that, just trying to shoot down people who call it child abuse) but it's better that he's afraid of authority imho than unyielding.

This boy is the kind of person that's gonna grow up to be a career criminal, constantly disrespecting authority. The other boy will hate hot sauce, cold showers, and probably his mother. I'll pick the latter any day.

It's become part of the Sift, not unlike Westy's spelling and QuantumMushroom finding a rightist slant that blames leftist forces for everything.


Oh, not EVERYTHING. After all, 98% isn't a 100%.

Liberals' 50 years of dreadful domestic policy
Posted: December 23, 2010

by Larry Elder

For the past 50 years, the Democrats – and many Republicans who should know better – have been wrong about virtually every major domestic policy issue. Let's review some of them:

Taxes

The bipartisan extension of the Bush tax cuts represents the latest triumph over the "soak the rich because trickledown doesn't work" leftists.

President Ronald Reagan sharply reduced the top marginal tax rates from 70 percent to 28 percent, doubling the Treasury's tax revenue. President George H.W. Bush raised the income tax rate, as did his successor. But President George W. Bush lowered them to the current 35 percent.

President Barack Obama repeatedly called the current rate unfair, harmful to the country and a reward to those who "didn't need" the cuts and "didn't ask for" them. If true, he and his party ditched their moral obligation to oppose the extension. But they didn't, because none of it is true. Democratic icon John F. Kennedy, who reduced the top marginal rate from more than 90 percent to 70 percent, said, "A rising tide lifts all the boats." He was right – and most of the Democratic Party knows it.


Welfare for the "underclass"

When President Lyndon Johnson launched his "War on Poverty," the poverty rate was trending down. When he offered money and benefits to unmarried women, the rate started flat-lining. Women married the government, allowing men to abandon their moral and financial responsibilities.

The percentage of children born outside of marriage – to young, disproportionately uneducated and disproportionately brown and black women – exploded. In 1996, over the objections of many on the left, welfare was reformed. Time limits were imposed, and women no longer received additional benefits if they had more children. The welfare rolls declined. Ten years later, the New York Times wrote: "When the 1996 law was passed ... liberal advocacy groups ... predicted that it would increase child poverty, hunger and homelessness. The predictions were not fulfilled."

Education

The federal government's increasing involvement with education – what is properly a state and local function – has been costly and ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst. Title I, a program begun 45 years ago to close the performance gap between urban and suburban schools, burns through more than $15 billion a year, and the performance gap has widened. The feds spend $80 billion a year on K-12 education, as if money is the answer. States like Utah and Iowa spend much less money per student compared with districts like those in New York City and Washington, D.C., with much better results.

Where parents have choices – where the money follows the student rather than the other way around – the students perform better, with higher parental satisfaction. But the teachers' unions and the Democratic Party continue to resist true competition among public, private and parochial schools.

Gun control

Violent crime occurs disproportionately in urban areas – where Democrats in charge impose the most draconian gun-control laws.

Over the objection of those who warn of a "return to the Wild West," 34 states passed laws allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons. Not one state has repealed its law. Professor John Lott, author of "More Guns, Less Crime," says: "There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate: As more people obtain permits, there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect, the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent and robberies by over 2 percent."


"Affirmative action"

Race-based preferences have been a disaster for college admissions. Students admitted with lesser credentials are more likely to drop out. Had their credentials matched their schools, they would have been far more likely to graduate and thus enter the job market at a more productive level.

Preferences in government hiring and contracting have led to widespread, costly and morale-draining "reverse discrimination" lawsuits. Where preferences have been put to the ballot, voters – even in liberal states like California – have voted against them.

Minimum-wage hikes

Almost all economists agree that minimum-wage laws contribute to unemployment among the low-skilled – the very group the "compassionate party" claims to care about.

Economist Walter E. Williams, 74, in his new autobiography, "Up from the Projects," describes the many low-skilled jobs he took as a teenager. "By today's standards," he wrote, "my youthful employment opportunities might be seen as extraordinary. That was not the case in the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, as I've reported in some of my research, teenage unemployment among blacks was slightly lower than among whites, and black teens were more active in the labor force as well. All of my classmates, friends, and acquaintances who wanted to work found jobs of one sort or another."

Obamacare

This ghastly government-directed scheme will inevitably lead to rationing and lower-quality care – all without "bending the cost curve" down as Obama promised.

Any party can have a bad half-century. Merry Christmas Solstice.

I just had an interesting conversation with my Oklahoman, ex-military, gun-loving 87-year-old father. Conservative to the core. Big NRA supporter.

I asked him how he felt about possibly making semi-automatic Glocks with 30 bullet magazines illegal. That the only purpose for them was to kill and kill quickly.

He got mad. Big surprise. "There are no handguns that have 30 bullet magazines. You read that in the New York Times, didn't you?"

When I found on Glock's website that the magazine actually held 33 bullets, he got real quiet. And he agreed that banning such a gun made sense.

There is hope, my friend, there is hope. And it is facts that will lead the way.

That is becoming my mantra. I love facts.

Hope you and your extended family and friends are safe down there, with all the water worries.

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
While America's gun laws remain, so shall the massacres continue.

@WKB

True, but when the Columbine school shooting was perpetrated, conservatives were quick to point the finger at Marilyn Manson's lyrics. I'm not saying they were right, and I'm not saying that Fox deserves all of the blame here either.

I do think though, that the people pumping that kind of rhetoric onto the airwaves deserve SOME responsibility for atrocities like this. Allow me to compare the Woodstock of 1970 to the Woodstock of '99 for an example.

-------------------------------------------------------------

>>>>>>The 1970 Woodstock (billed as "3 days of Peace and Music") resulted in reports like this:

"The New York Times covered the prelude to the festival and the move from Wallkill to Bethel.[13] Barnard Collier, who reported from the event for the Times, asserts that he was pressured by on-duty editors at the paper to write a misleadingly negative article about the event. According to Collier, this led to acrimonious discussions and his threat to refuse to write the article until the paper's executive editor, James Reston, agreed to let him write the article as he saw fit. The eventual article dealt with issues of traffic jams and minor lawbreaking, but went on to emphasize cooperation, generosity, and the good nature of the festival goers.

When the festival was over, Collier wrote another article about the exodus of fans from the festival site and the lack of violence at the event. The chief medical officer for the event and several local residents were quoted as praising the festival goers."

--------------------------------------------------------------

>>>>>>The 1999 version of the event (featuring bands like Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock and the Red Hot Chili Peppers who are all, dare I say, a bit angrier [lyrically speaking] than the likes of Arlo Guthrie or Joan Baez) is painted in a much different color:

"Some crowd violence and looting was reported during the Saturday night performance by Limp Bizkit, including a rendition of the song "Break Stuff". Reviewers of the concert criticized Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst as "irresponsible" for encouraging the crowd to destructive behavior.

Violence escalated the next night during the final hours of the concert as Red Hot Chili Peppers performed. A group of peace promoters led by an independent group called Pax had distributed candles to those stopping at their booth during the day, intending them for a candlelight vigil to be held during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' performance of the song "Under the Bridge". During the band's set, the crowd began to light the candles, some also using them to start bonfires. The hundreds of empty plastic water bottles that littered the lawn/dance area were used as fuel for the fire.

After the Red Hot Chili Peppers were finished with their main set, the audience was informed about "a bit of a problem." An audio tower caught fire, and the fire department was called in to extinguish it.

Back onstage for an encore, the Chili Peppers' lead singer Anthony Kiedis remarked how amazing the fires looked from the stage, comparing them to a scene in the film Apocalypse Now.[12] The band proceeded to play "Sir Psycho Sexy", followed by their rendition of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire". Kiedis later stated in his autobiography, Scar Tissue that Jimi Hendrix's sister had asked the Chili Peppers to play "Fire" in honor of Jimi and his performance at the original Woodstock festival, and that they were not playing it to encourage the crowd.

Many large bonfires were burning high before the band left the stage for the last time. Participants danced in circles around the fires. Looking for more fuel, some tore off panels of plywood from the supposedly inviolable security perimeter fence. ATMs were tipped over and broken into, trailers full of merchandise and equipment were forced open and burglarized, and abandoned vendor booths were turned over, and set afire.[13]

MTV, which had been providing live coverage, removed its entire crew. MTV host Kurt Loder described the scene in the July 27, 1999 issue of USA Today:

"It was dangerous to be around. The whole scene was scary. There were just waves of hatred bouncing around the place, (...) It was clear we had to get out of there.... It was like a concentration camp. To get in, you get frisked to make sure you're not bringing in any water or food that would prevent you from buying from their outrageously priced booths. You wallow around in garbage and human waste. There was a palpable mood of anger."

After some time, a large force of New York State Troopers, local police, and various other law enforcement arrived. Most had crowd control gear and proceeded to form a riot-line that flushed the crowd to the northwest, away from the stage located at the eastern end of the airfield. Few of the crowd offered strong resistance and they dispersed quickly back toward the campground and out the main entrance."

>>>>>>See also, this poignant response from a person in the crowd: http://newsroom.mtv.com/2009/08/17/woodstock-legacy/ (crowdmember comments @ 2:20)

----------------------------------------

Now now easy there big fella, before you start telling me about how correlation does not imply causation consider this: an article recently published by the American Journal of Psychiatry concluded that:

"Childhood exposure to parental verbal aggression was associated, by itself, with moderate to large effects on measures of dissociation, limbic irritability, depression, and anger-hostility." Furthermore, "Combined exposure to verbal abuse and witnessing of domestic violence was associated with extraordinarily large adverse effects, particularly on dissociation. This finding is consonant with studies that suggest that emotional abuse may be a more important precursor of dissociation than is sexual abuse."
See: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/163/6/993

Maybe not the best example I could have found but I've already spent WAY too much time on this post. The point is, WORDS carry a lot of power. Even if the pundits (right OR left) never came out and said it, the implication of violence was certainly there at times.

I KNOW Fox has lead the charge of fear mongering in the name of ratings but anyone else who subscribed to that level of attack should share some of the blame as well. Again, not saying that they should take all or even a lot of the blame, but they should be responsible for the violent laced rhetoric they spout.

I say STOP THE AD HOMINEM ATTACKS and we'll see less violence against PEOPLE and (hopefully) more enthralling arguments where the IDEAS are being attacked (which I'm all for) :-)

p.s. sry for the huge post but i was on a roll

@dystopianfuturetoday, I'm with @mxxcon on this one, RT isn't really out to debunk American propaganda, so much as promote stories that cast America in a negative light. We're not really a big target, so they mostly just elevate AP wire stories and add in a little derision.

That's different from how our propaganda networks work, where utterly fake stories get planted anonymously in 3rd tier blogs, and then wind their way up the media food chain until it's the front-page story on the New York Times, and the lead story on the evening news.

And all of them, every single one, are designed to make sure that no consensus against the status quo ever forms.

RT only sounds like propaganda busting because they unambiguously say "America's status quo sucks." But the criticisms themselves are always based on a fairly tame liberal or conservative complaint, not something really original or deeply insightful.

I say Assange is not guilty. All he did is made public the documents. He did not steal them.

HULU has a documentary on the Pentagon Papers. Titled The most Dangerous man in America.

1971 Daniel Ellsberg, a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, concluded that the war is based on decades of lies and subsequently leaks 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times.

The Most Dangerous Man in America.

Liberals' 50 years of dreadful domestic policy
Posted: December 23, 2010

by Larry Elder

For the past 50 years, the Democrats – and many Republicans who should know better – have been wrong about virtually every major domestic policy issue. Let's review some of them:

Taxes

The bipartisan extension of the Bush tax cuts represents the latest triumph over the "soak the rich because trickledown doesn't work" leftists.

President Ronald Reagan sharply reduced the top marginal tax rates from 70 percent to 28 percent, doubling the Treasury's tax revenue. President George H.W. Bush raised the income tax rate, as did his successor. But President George W. Bush lowered them to the current 35 percent.

President Barack Obama repeatedly called the current rate unfair, harmful to the country and a reward to those who "didn't need" the cuts and "didn't ask for" them. If true, he and his party ditched their moral obligation to oppose the extension. But they didn't, because none of it is true. Democratic icon John F. Kennedy, who reduced the top marginal rate from more than 90 percent to 70 percent, said, "A rising tide lifts all the boats." He was right – and most of the Democratic Party knows it.


Welfare for the "underclass"

When President Lyndon Johnson launched his "War on Poverty," the poverty rate was trending down. When he offered money and benefits to unmarried women, the rate started flat-lining. Women married the government, allowing men to abandon their moral and financial responsibilities.

The percentage of children born outside of marriage – to young, disproportionately uneducated and disproportionately brown and black women – exploded. In 1996, over the objections of many on the left, welfare was reformed. Time limits were imposed, and women no longer received additional benefits if they had more children. The welfare rolls declined. Ten years later, the New York Times wrote: "When the 1996 law was passed ... liberal advocacy groups ... predicted that it would increase child poverty, hunger and homelessness. The predictions were not fulfilled."

Education

The federal government's increasing involvement with education – what is properly a state and local function – has been costly and ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst. Title I, a program begun 45 years ago to close the performance gap between urban and suburban schools, burns through more than $15 billion a year, and the performance gap has widened. The feds spend $80 billion a year on K-12 education, as if money is the answer. States like Utah and Iowa spend much less money per student compared with districts like those in New York City and Washington, D.C., with much better results.

Where parents have choices – where the money follows the student rather than the other way around – the students perform better, with higher parental satisfaction. But the teachers' unions and the Democratic Party continue to resist true competition among public, private and parochial schools.

Gun control

Violent crime occurs disproportionately in urban areas – where Democrats in charge impose the most draconian gun-control laws.

Over the objection of those who warn of a "return to the Wild West," 34 states passed laws allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons. Not one state has repealed its law. Professor John Lott, author of "More Guns, Less Crime," says: "There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate: As more people obtain permits, there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect, the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent and robberies by over 2 percent."


"Affirmative action"

Race-based preferences have been a disaster for college admissions. Students admitted with lesser credentials are more likely to drop out. Had their credentials matched their schools, they would have been far more likely to graduate and thus enter the job market at a more productive level.

Preferences in government hiring and contracting have led to widespread, costly and morale-draining "reverse discrimination" lawsuits. Where preferences have been put to the ballot, voters – even in liberal states like California – have voted against them.

Minimum-wage hikes

Almost all economists agree that minimum-wage laws contribute to unemployment among the low-skilled – the very group the "compassionate party" claims to care about.

Economist Walter E. Williams, 74, in his new autobiography, "Up from the Projects," describes the many low-skilled jobs he took as a teenager. "By today's standards," he wrote, "my youthful employment opportunities might be seen as extraordinary. That was not the case in the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, as I've reported in some of my research, teenage unemployment among blacks was slightly lower than among whites, and black teens were more active in the labor force as well. All of my classmates, friends, and acquaintances who wanted to work found jobs of one sort or another."

Obamacare

This ghastly government-directed scheme will inevitably lead to rationing and lower-quality care – all without "bending the cost curve" down as Obama promised.

Any party can have a bad half-century. Merry Christmas.

So you are fine with Minority Report style's proactive crime prevention?

The point is that Iran is only exercising its legal right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. They were granted that right by abiding by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The whole point of the treaty is to prevent development of nuclear weapons.

Also Iran signed an agreement with Turkey and Brazil, committing itself to sending out the nuclear fuel for enrichment, so that it can't develop weapons. That was what US was asking for, but the Obama administration promptly rejected that agreement.

I highly suggest watching this TYT clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2maR95neOJc

>> ^chilaxe:

"NYT ignores intelligence there is no evidence of Iran nuclear weapons program."
Regardless of whether we're pro or con etc, I'm trying to imagine how gullible someone would have to be to seriously suggest that Iran isn't going to develop nuclear weapons.

“Dogs are the best detectors,” Oates said at an Oct. 20 news conference at JIEDDO headquarters in Arlington, Va.When dogs are teamed with small dismounted teams of U.S. and Afghan troops, they are capable of detecting 80 percent of IEDs, he said. “That combo presents the best detection system we currently have.”

Since it was created in 2006, JIEDDO has eagerly sought out every possible technological tool it could find in government, industry and academia to locate and remotely detonate IEDs, which have caused the majority of U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. So far it has spent nearly $17 billion on new technologies and training programs.

...

Training and educating soldiers is critical in the fight against IEDs, Oates said. It is also the “most underappreciated” piece of JIEDDO’s portfolio. U.S. troops from the get-go face a huge disadvantage in this war because they lack knowledge of local language and culture, Oates said. They also “carry enormous ignorance” about what motivates locals to collaborate with the Taliban or al-Qaida and help them build and bury IEDs. “This is a complicated challenge for us,” Oates said.

BAGHDAD — Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears of rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq’s security forces have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States military and technical experts say is useless.

The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board” — the power of suggestion — said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.

Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles.

That's amazing...he should write that up and give it to the New York Times or something because this is a bunch of BS.

Downvoting because that is some awful reporting. Here is a New York Times article:

Health Rules Are Waived More Often
By REED ABELSON
Published: November 9, 2010

As Obama administration officials put into place some of the new rules that go into effect under the federal health care law, they are issuing more waivers to try to prevent some insurers and employers from dropping coverage and also promising to modify other rules because many of the existing policies would not meet new standards.

Last month, federal officials granted dozens of one-year waivers that were aimed at sparing certain employers, including McDonald’s, insurers and unions who offer plans that sharply limit the coverage they provide. These limited-benefit plans, also known as “minimeds,” fail to comply with new rules phasing out limits on how much policies will provide in medical care each year.

Concerned about the potential disruption that would be created by enforcing the new rules, the administration has granted dozens of additional waivers and also made clear that it would modify other rules affecting these policies. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services issued more guidance, saying it would use a different method of calculating spending for these plans so they would be able to meet new regulations dictating how insurers should use the premium dollars they collect.

While critics say these moves could water down the new law, the administration says it is responding to concerns from employers and others that many workers have no other alternative. The new rules also require that the policies clearly say how much coverage they provide and that they do not satisfy the law’s new standards.

“This new guidance helps improve transparency so that consumers know the value and quality of the plan they have,” said Steve Larsen, the director of oversight in the agency’s office of consumer information and insurance oversight. “In 2014, higher-quality coverage will be offered at an affordable price in the new exchanges. Until then, the annual waiver process preserves limited benefit plans offered by employers, preventing significant premium increase or loss of access.”

But a spokesman for Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat who favored strict rules on insurance company spending, said he planned to hold a hearing on the issue.

Among the waivers recently granted were for employers like Darden Restaurants, which operates the Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants, for 34,000 of its workers. Federal officials have granted 111 waivers to employers, insurers and union plans, who are responsible for covering about 1.2 million people.

Darden said the waiver would allow it to offer employees access to affordable coverage as the health care law is started.

In addition to granting waivers, the administration also said it would establish a different way of calculating the spending for these plans for the first year that “takes into account the special circumstances of minimed plans.”

@dystopianfuturetoday, I think that what's being said here is true also, but that's because it's a logical inference from the facts that no one's really disputing, not because Russia Today is so credible I need not question anything they say.

For example, we recently had this shoot up the charts, where RT had on a propagandist from Reason to basically say that Prop 19 is going to fail because Obama's DOJ is engaging in "voter intimidation" because it truthfully stated that states don't have the power to nullify federal law.

As for better sources on the campaign finance problem, here's a number of articles in mainstream press to paint the picture:

Washington Post - Interest-group spending for midterm up fivefold from 2006; many sources secret
The Economist - Ignore that $800,000 behind the curtain
The New York Times - Top Corporations Aid U.S. Chamber of Commerce Campaign
The New York Times - John Roberts's America
NPR - 'Independent' Groups Behind Ads Not So Independent

So it's more than a gut feeling on my part that this is true, but again, that's because a) it's a reasonable deduction from the facts, and b) lots of people I respect, both inside mainstream press and outside it are saying the same thing.

But the fact that Russia Today decided to say it too doesn't mean they are some sort of unbiased source. On the contrary, I believe they're only giving it airtime because their bias drives them to promote stories like this.