If Udall was really a stand-up guy, he stop with the oblique allusions and emulate Sen. Gravel . Take advantage of the Speech or Debate Clause and its immunity and read his secret Senate report into the Congressional Record.
I see articles like this and I get all upset, but then I remember bellyfeel freedom is slavery and all is well againā¦
Bring 'em back to new hearings, flanked by US Marshals, and let them know in no uncertain terms that there are immediate consequences to lying to Congress.
Next thing you know is theyāll start using psy-ops on Senatorsā¦ Oh, waitā¦
We should ask that reporter what he thinks of the current situation.
Thatās a great idea. I do think it would fall under intense scrutiny and get derailed. But itās worth a shot. A senator like Bernie should do it. He risks everything, though.
[quote] In that same year, the Court issued a ruling in a second case involving a United States senator. In Gravel v. United States, it upheld the right of a grand jury to inquire into the circumstances under which a member obtained security classified government documents and arranged for their private republication. āWhile the Speech or Debate Clause recognizes speech, voting and other legislative acts as exempt from liability that otherwise might attach, it does not privilege either Senator or aide to violate an otherwise valid criminal law in preparing for or implementing legislative actsā (p. 626).
Read more: Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions
[/quote]
Nothing to see here folksā¦nothing to see.
After years of excusing and justifying almost every executive overreach and transgression with fawning praise, itāll be interesting to see irrelevant mainstream journos put on their big-boy pants and try to act independent again. Im not sure they even remember how.
Illegally spying on another branch of government is the kind of thing that actually should justify impeachment. Not blowjobs or other silly bullshit, but actually seeking to circumvent and destroy the underpinnings of your constitutional state, that should qualify for impeachment.
It wonāt of course. But it makes a hell of a lot more sense than impeachment over a BJ.
The wording here is a bit funny. It sounds, from reading the quotes in the article, that Obama is NOW aware of it. Iām not sure I see the implication that he knew about it as it was happening. I wouldnāt even be remotely surprised, but thatās not how I read it.
These people are undermining the country. GET RID OF THEM!
It sounds just that way to me too. But who are we to slow the mob, with our reading comprehension and assumption of innocence prior to guilt being proven?
Sure does bring up some good questions, and I hope the Senator finds appropriate closure for his concerns.
Well, at least the Guardian had enough sense to add ā, senator claimsā to the end of their headline. Coryās headline is a typical Cory headline (and yes, yes, I know, (partially?) his website and all that, and why stick to the facts when you can get so many more clicks this way?)
I see your point, though I donāt put BB on the same playing field as the Guardian. Thatās my own choice, and it helps prevent me from experiencing disappointment and then trying to blame someone else for it.
I have a hard time even calling the post title a āheadlineā as that word choice communicates some notion that BB is a newspaper with accompanying responsibilities. Itās a blog curated by some interesting opinionated people, one of whom is a snarky opinionated fiction writer. Takes all sorts to fill a freeway.
I dunno - a blog post reporting a news story isnāt really any different, to me, than a news website reporting a news story. In this particular instance, Cory is supposedly reporting on a story in the news - itās not an opinion piece, or an editorial. Itās straight up reporting, no different from the reporting in the Guardian. Call it a āpost titleā if you want, but it serves the exact same purpose as a headline in a newspaper - grab the readerās attention. And when itās a misleading headline, it serves to alienate a certain subset of your readership. And thatās fine - thatās an editorial decision that Cory has chosen to make time and time again, and heās free to do so (as I mentioned above)ā¦ But when one is reporting on the actual news, even if one is not a reporter, I find it distasteful when one deliberately mis-reports it in order to generate more outrage (and thus, web traffic). It should be outrageous enough that a senator is implying it (though, Iām not sure the senator actually is, as per my above post), thereās no need to ramp up the outrage even more.
Iām aware the BoingBoing is a blog, and not a news site, but I like to think that theyāre generally much higher quality than shitty linkbait sites like BuzzFeed or HuffPo, and Coryās fairly consistent mis-representing of stories in headlines (even if he then actually goes on to report accurately on the story itself, as he mostly did in this piece - my disagreements about the actual implied allegations notwithstanding) tends to drag the site down somewhat.
But I digress (quite verbosely) - back to the subject at hand, Iām still not convinced that Obama is being accused of anything by the good senator in question. I went in and read the original letter, and it feels like a big stretch to say that the senator was subtly implying that the President had ongoing knowledge of the spying in question. Considering that the report about said spying came out on Wednesday, and the senatorās letter was sent on Tuesday, it doesnāt sound all that crazy to me that the senator was referring to the CIA Inspector Generalās Office pending actions on Wednesday. Again - I would not even be remotely surprised to find out that Obama DID know about it as it was ongoing, but it seems like the evidence here is pretty thin, indeed.
This is where you and I diverge. I assume that everything at BB is something like an opinion piece or something like an editorial, and generally news-ish. Those terms donāt apply with any precision to a blog that started as a 'zine which promoted a very conscious subversion of the traditions that you seem bothered are not being upheld here. Just my POV, thanks for sharing yours.
From Sen. Udallās letter:
As you are aware, the CIA has recently taken unprecedented action against the Committee in relation to the internal CIA review, and I find these actions to be incredibly troubling for the Committeeās oversight responsibilities and for our democracy.
So far, Iām with you, as the text of Udallās letter is vague about exactly what POTUS knows or when he knew it. It could be that Obama knew of the alleged spying because the Director of the CIA told him personally, or because he was made aware that the CIA IG opened an investigation (which I would suspect would make it into Obamaās morning brief):
McClatchy reported that the CIA inspector general has made a criminal referral to the Justice Department, a threshold procedure for opening a criminal investigation.In fact, Udall's wording almost seems to be much ado about nothing, specifically because such an investigation, immediately at its outset, would and should be something POTUS is informed about. From the McClatchy story:
White House officials have closely tracked the bitter struggle, a McClatchy investigation has found.In any case, it absolutely is disturbing that spying on an oversight committee would occur like this.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
