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After their glorious post-Orwell speech editorial, does the NYT realize they've been snookered?
The ‘Signature Strikes’ Program
When I asked for more clarification, a senior administration official emphasized that the president wants to see the number of strikes reduced even before the withdrawal.
But I guess Glenn Greenwald was right. The president’s speech did not signal a specific, immediate change in the administration’s policy on signature strikes — just a promise that they will decline over time. That’s a shame.
During the Orwell speech the president said the Attorney General would make nice with the media, and a meeting was arranged. The problem is, Holder insists that this freedom of the press meeting be off the record! NYT and AP say no. Politico, of course, has no such scruples or sense of solidarity with their fellow media outlets that could be used to effect any kind of change or at least pressure the DoJ to make it an on the record meeting. Their editor issued a statement about how he often grants off the record conversations and he's going. Update: CNN and HuffPo say we won't go! Will MSNBC boycott the meeting? Hahahahaha! Another update: There are internal battles going on at
FoxNews about whether or not to attend. Update 1pm: Fox will not attend. Good for them. Now I have to go take a shower :)
POLITICO will attend DOJ meeting
In separate statements Wednesday afternoon, both The Times and the AP announce their intention to skip the meeting.
"It isn’t appropriate for us to attend an off the record meeting with the attorney general," Times executive editor Jill Abramson said in her statement.
Said AP spokesperson Erin Madigan, "We believe the meeting should be on the record and we have said that to the Attorney General’s office. If it is on the record, AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll will attend. If it is not on the record, AP will not attend and instead will offer our views on how the regulations should be updated in an open letter."
Update: Michael Calderone at HuffPo is keeping tabs on who is going to the background media party and who is not.
Which Media Outlets Are Attending Or Not Attending Holder Meeting?
Not going: New York Times, AP, Huffington Post, McClatchy, CNN, CBS News, and Fox News.
Going: The Washington Post, Politico, and ABC News.
Undecided: NBC News.
Update -- a Dem party spokesman (communications director) with a Rahm Emanuel or Robert Gibbs kind of attitude, on the media outlets who refuse to attend the off the record freedom of the press meeting with Holder:
I guess that Mr. Woodhouse caught a lot of flak for that last tweet, and so he tries to repair it a bit. And Whoosh! it goes right over his head.
ZOMG, you mean now that the election has been over for six months people are tired of "MSNBC-DNC Live", their ratings are down? After two solid years of reporting minutiae about the last presidential election maybe people don't feel like being immersed in 2016 six months after the last one?
Maybe it's just a slow month for the Left, or maybe there are a lot of people like me who ditched MSNBC altogether after having been a frequent viewer in past years. Maybe others are more like my kids who loathe all network and cable news, who get some of their news from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, some from the grapevine in social media, and some from selective reading on the net and don't turn on a TV much at all.
I can remember back in the early 2000's when we longed for some kind of decent cable news shows and MSNBC became a progressive oasis in some ways and served an audience that was starving for some real issues, truth and not spin, etc. Which makes me wonder why they forgot that there is still an audience starving for real issues, truth and not spin, etc. and not a 24/7 campaign commercial for the D party (which is getting too hard to distinguish from the other wing of the corporate party). People aren't stupid and MSNBC viewers are smarter and more politically astute than the average bear, in addition to being more aware of the issues. The people who got sick and tired of being spun and watching decent news sources like NPR decline sought out real journalism and genuine voices were serious about it. We have proven before that we're willing to sacrifice convenience for substance. Party cheerleading is easy to find. Real journalism is relatively rare but can still be found. We've moved on.
TV Ratings: MSNBC Falls Below HLN in May, Rachel Maddow Hits Lows
Read the complete rankings, May 2013 versus May 2012, via Nielsen:
Total Day
FNC: 1,246,000 total viewers, up 24 percent (236,000 in 25-54, down 5 percent)
CNN: 465,000 total viewers, up 61 percent (161,000 in 25-54, up 92 percent)
MSNBC: 346,000 total viewers, down 10 percent (115,000 in 25-54, down 7 percent)
HLN: 494,000 total viewers, up 111 percent (175,000 in 25-54, up 90 percent)
Primetime
FNC: 1,973,000 total viewers, up 17 percent (308,000 in 25-54, down 6 percent)
CNN: 660,000 total viewers, up 70 percent (225,000 in 25-54, up 97 percent)
MSNBC: 539,000 total viewers, down 20 percent (175,000 in 25-54, down 19 percent)
HLN: 624,000 total viewers, up 91 percent (209,000 in 25-54, up 97 percent)
Digby laments the same thing, forgetting that when you spend more than a year dedicating 80% of your blog (that people used to rely on for trusted and relevant reporting and opinion) to stories about "Mittens" and "Newtie" covering a ridiculous Republican primary and then a 24/7 "Republicans are worse than Dems" theme, while ignoring Rome burning around you, it might take its toll on your credibility. To her credit, she's back to her old self now, but like Maddow, I do think it's obvious that they and a lot of formerly trusted progressive journos who worked hard to get where they are have, to some extent, sacrificed themselves on the altar of Obama. And for the life of me, after some reflection on their work over the past couple of years, and the trajectory of the party, I can't figure out why they are confused about it. Digby tells her readers to watch more TV. I think my time is better invested in a la carte news segments, by people and organizations who never sold out, such as The Real News, DemocracyNow!, and some of the other new non-corporate, independent groups and individuals. A dip in ratings and traffic from peaks during election season is to be expected since some people only tune during those times, but the problem goes a lot deeper than that, IMHO. From what I can see, news orgs. like the Real News are growing.
Liberal retreat
There's a lot of talk about MSNBC ratings being down accompanied by the usual gleeful triumphalism over on the right. I don't pretend to fully understand the reason for this, but I must point out that it's not just MSNBC. The online left has seen a steep decline in traffic since the election as well, which indicates to me that our audience in general is simply not interested in following politics at the moment.
[...]
I don't think that's it. People aren't taking the scandals all that seriously (so far.) And I'm with pareene that if the Republicans really get crazy, the audience will come back. Short of that (or something else catastrophic) my impression is that liberals are either bored or disillusioned right now for any number of reasons, [...] It makes me a little bit more concerned for 2014/2016 than I otherwise would be. [...] Meanwhile, everyone should be sure to watch MSNBC,
Another Republican appointment to a really important (and generally long term) job. One consolation is that yes, he's a Republican and yes he's a former hedge fund guy, but he's Comey, who does seem to have more integrity than most. The NYT makes sure to remind us about the infamous incident with the hospital and Ashcroft, Andy Card and Gonzales. I thought maybe Pat Fitzgerald was waiting in the wings for this job. I don't know what to think. Pat Fitzgerald also took the job hunting down John Kiriakou. He quit after that. It's hard to know who he really is. The FBI seems pretty out of control right now, cooking up terrorist plots, stalking young Muslim men and killing people while they are signing confessions and issuing several different hard to believe stories about it.
Former Bush Official Said to Be Obama Pick to Lead F.B.I.
WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to nominate James B. Comey, a former hedge fund executive who served as a senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, to replace Robert S. Mueller III as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to two people with knowledge of the selection.
ACLU and David House win a case. The govt. says they will destroy the data they took from his devices, but Manning's prosecutors had decided that it wasn't useful to them anyway, and whoever was interested in it has already had the chance to go through it. People who were part of the support network were exposed and who knows what lists they were added to. Will it make it less likely that activists will be detained at airports and have their devices and data stolen from them for political reasons? I guess we'll have to wait and see. It's good that the judge ruled this way. What would be better would be for Congress to realize we have a huge problem and start making some specific laws that protect us, or exercise more oversight. Personally, I'm in favor of more big public hearings, unlike those who write everything off to "scandalmania". More hearings about things like this are needed, IMHO. What would be really good is for some Democrats to step up and do it though.
U.S. Settles Lawsuit With Bradley Manning Supporter Who Had Laptop Seized at Airport
BOSTON – In a settlement reached with human rights activist David House, the government has agreed to destroy all data it obtained from his laptop and other electronics when he entered the U.S. after a vacation, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Massachusetts announced today. House, who was then working with the Bradley Manning Support Network, an organization created to raise funds for the legal defense of the soldier who has admitted to leaking material to WikiLeaks, charged in a lawsuit that the seizure violated his Fourth Amendment rights by subjecting him to unreasonable search and seizure, and violated his First Amendment right to freedom of association.
In November 2010, Department of Homeland Security agents stopped House at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago and questioned him about his political activities and beliefs. They then confiscated his laptop, camera, and USB drive, which contained information identifying members and supporters of the Bradley Manning Support Network. The government copied House’s cell phone at the airport and held his laptop and other devices for 49 days. The data taken from House’s materials was then turned over to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), which concluded that it would not use the information.
I think this is a must read. Actually, I can't emphasize enough how much I think this is a must read. If you want real, this is as real as it gets. Many thanks to Kevin Gosztola for publishing it. Kiriakou answers all letters that are sent to him.
Imprisoned CIA Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou Pens “Letter from Loretto”
Former CIA agent John Kiriakou, who blew the whistle on the US government’s use of torture under the Bush administration, is currently serving a 30 month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Loretto, Pennsylvania. Below is a letter he recently sent us detailing his life in prison.
So I guess we'll hear about all kinds of ways that drones are used for humanitarian or other causes now.
American helps deploy drones to nab rhino poachers in Africa
WASHINGTON — The exact location of the anti-poaching operation is secret, as is the number of rangers who will be on duty. Also confidential: where the drones will fly as they search out poachers intent on slaying rhinos for their horns – one killed every 11 hours in South Africa alone.
But over the next several days, Tom Snitch thinks that his project, at a private game farm adjoining South Africa’s famed Kruger National Park, will prove that unmanned aerial vehicles can end the scourge of rhinoceros poaching.
Demand for rhino horn has boomed in recent years, with criminal syndicates offering as much as $30,000 a pound for the horns. Poachers already have killed 350 rhinos in South Africa this year; last year, 668 endangered rhinos died for their horns. They’re sold in Asia, particularly in Vietnam, where ground-up horns are touted as a cure for hangovers, cancer and other ailments, and where rising incomes have made the horns accessible to more people and their possession a status symbol. Save the Rhino International, a conservation group, won’t talk about the street value of rhino horn, saying that any mention “stimulates poaching.”
House Judiciary investigating whether Attorney General Holder lied under oath
The House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether Attorney General Eric Holder lied under oath during his May 15 testimony on the Justice Department’s (DOJ) surveillance of reporters.
The panel is looking at a statement Holder made during a back-and-forth with Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) about whether the DOJ could prosecute reporters under the Espionage Act of 1917, an aide close to the matter told The Hill.
“In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material — this is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy,” Holder said during the hearing.
Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
Evening Blues
Coroner to British press: Shame on all of you!
Surveillance Court Orders Justice Dept. to Respond to EFF's BRILLIANT Motion for Release of Records
The Iraq War is not over for the Iraqi people
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