Showing posts with label transparency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transparency. Show all posts

17 May 2015

"Dual Justice" Obama Prison Terms 3-1/2 Years "Espionage" For Ex-CIA Officer Attorney Jeffrey Sterling While Ex-CIA "Love Note" Director Petraeus Leaked "Exceptionally Grave" National Security Secrets Walks Out Free Man

     Sunday, 17 May 2015, ALEXANDRIA, VA - The blatant hypocrisy of President Obama in his selective prosecution of those who dare "leak" to the press what apparently does not suit Mr. Obama's political nor "legacy" agenda played itself out once more as expected this past week as anticipated in earlier posts here in the sentencing of former CIA officer attorney Jeffrey A. Sterling who "stiffly" consoled his grief-stricken sobbing wife after Federal Judge Leonie Brinkem (doubtless pursuant to marching orders spoken or unspoken) meted out a three-and-one-half year prison sentence to Mr. Sterling that he now will serve at a federal penitentiary in Missouri while the Court at the same time consoled him that "[y]ou have a lot of talent -- and an ability to live a law-abiding life" (which presumably once out of prison can be spent working at a car wash unless Mr. Sterling is appointed to the federal judiciary or elected to political office).
     Mr. Sterling last January was convicted of "espionage" allegedly for providing New York Times reporter James A. Risen with "confidential information" that Mr. Risen used in his book "State of War" which at the time according to Obama stooge then-Attorney General Eric Holder allegedly "put people's lives at risk" and "endangered" national security by disclosing information about yet one more failed CIA plot in this instance attempting to dupe Iranian nuclear engineers by using an apparent CIA "asset" playing the role of a phony "turned" Russian scientist who would provide the Iranians with fake plans to construct non-functional components disrupting alleged Iranian nuclear weapons development. (Not yet made into a major motion picture.)
     No evidence is known by the Ninth Amendment (whose reporter got lost in Old Town) to have been introduced at Mr. Sterling's trial which confirmed that anyone allegedly put "at risk" actually had been harmed in any way nor that the failure of the CIA's plot to disrupt any Iranian nuclear weapons development had anything to do with Mr. Sterling's "leaks" to the New York Times. Mr. Risen also had been harassed with threats of federal prosecution himself although the federal government disabused itself of that notion and the threat was dropped as Mr. Risen made it clear that he would spend as long as necessary in no doubt well-publicized (at the least by his employer) imprisonment for "contempt of court" for refusing to reveal his source(s).
     In any case the federal government thoughtfully continued Mr. Sterling's sentencing to this past week given the inconvenient fact that it happened originally to fall on the exact same date as and therefore so as to serve even further to highlight and give even more the blatant "appearance" of impropriety as if that were possible that the Obama administration faced with the grossly obvious disparity of the incidentally African-American Mr. Sterling's "expected" stiff sentencing with that of Caucasian former CIA "Love Note" Director former Four Star General David A. Petraeus who originally was to be handed a mutually agreed-upon sentence on the same day as Mr. Sterling under which for Mr. Petraeus' "exceptionally grave national security" disclosures (as previously described by then-Attorney General Eric Holder's D.O.J.) including providing not only an oral (as it were) overview of notebooks of his personal notations taken during National Security Council meetings which he attended but further physically (as it were) providing them to his biographer cum lover Patricia Broadwell which notebooks the F.B.I. after Mr. Petraeus lied to them at a later point in a search of his house also found along with other critical national security information unsecured in Mr. Petraeus' home study unlocked desk drawer under which Mr. Petraeus would walk out free under a plea agreement of two years "probation" and a $40,000 fine.
     Federal Magistrate Judge David Keesler who presided over Mr. Petraeus' hearing as previously reported here felt the agreed "sentence" could not even pass the "credibility" much less "laugh" test and therefore obligingly raised to $100,000 the fine most likely so as to make some weak effort to protect and not expose the whole sham prosecution of Mr. Petraeus as a total fiasco no doubt raising even further loud objections of other attorneys for defendants such as Mr. Sterling and others prosecuted by Mr. Obama for "leaks" to the press most notably the as yet to be "brought before justice" Mr. Edward J. Snowden (his attorney already screaming "dual system of justice") with Snowden increasingly seen throughout the world as a "hero" unlike his former putative boss Obama.
     Clearly there are wrongful uncertain and uneven risks under the Obama administration faced by those former or present government officials and others who serve the vital role of providing legitimate information to the press and People which as Mr. Obama knows being a constitutional scholar is essential to the preservation of the People's liberties and protections from State abuse as made abundantly apparent by the fact that freedom of the press is one of the core rights included in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the Bill of Rights.
     President Obama now far has outdone all his predecessors in office who prosecuted a combined total of three persons for "leaks" to the press with Mr. Obama himself alone now having overseen the prosecution of at least eight persons for "leaks" to the press including to some of the most essential "newspapers of record" in the United States as well as Mr. Obama overseeing or allowing as well an apparent witch-hunt for Edward J. Snowden who as it turns out as of this time rightly has revealed illegal secret U.S. government mass surveillance and metadata storage practices of momentous scope in the unprecedented enormous illegal invasion of Americans' privacy and other rights now determined to have been continuing by a secretly invasive government without any bona fide legal basis for nearly fifteen years.
     Mr. Obama in his election efforts and purportedly in his time in office has cast himself as a virtual champion of White House "transparency" on a scale never before enjoyed by the American people which Mr. Obama presumably expects and hopes to largely define the overall contours of his presidency. Unfortunately events and reports of events concerning what Mr. Obama and his White House know and what they disclose to the People appear rapidly to be becoming more and more divergent. At this rate Mr. Obama may well be remembered for his "transparency" but not necessarily at all in the way he would wish because the "transparency" of a false transparency would seem to be the worst transparency of all.
     Readers interested in more information on the above can go to the link below as well as recent posts here in the Ninth Amendment providing more background and source material links on the above.

http://www.bbc.com/news/32456102

Copyright 2015 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved

20 January 2015

Sixth STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS By 44th President Of The United States Barack Obama Tonight At 9 P.M. EST Live On National Television As Obama Encourages All To Watch "Enhanced Version" With President Taking Questions After The Address And Tomorrow Details At www.whitehouse.gov

       Tuesday, 20 January 2015, WASHINGTON, D.C. - 44th President Of The United States Barack Obama (POTUS) tonight at 9 p.m. delivers his 6th State Of The Union (SATU) Address live before Congress and the American people via national television and in a special recommended  "enhanced version" followed by questions from Americans accessible through www.whitehouse.gov. The Obama White House which claims a commitment to being the most "transparent" Administration and White House in history at the www.whitehouse.gov web address accessible by all links provided on this page has broken with tradition and shared in advance many of the topics to be covered this evening by the President with daily casual talks by the President to viewers of the White House website as well as written page content from senior White House officials and videos showing the President's speeches and visits with Americans around the country. The President also daily reads ten of the public's thousands of letters, emails and social media messages to him and responds to them by video on the website.
       President Obama up to the delivery of his State of the Union Address again at 9 p.m. tonight seeks to know via direct contact from the Nation via their visits to the site what issues all Americans are most concerned about hearing addressed from a current list of topics among those of the most interest to those who do respond. The White House website provides many ways to contact the White House from social media addresses on all top social media as well as phone numbers to the White House switchboard and the physical address for the White House along with directions for those who wish to write or send something (and directions what not to send) to the White House, the President and/or First Lady Michelle Obama.
       The issues identified by the President to date include and many have videos of the President speaking about his support for net neutrality, the opportunity for communities including cities, towns, and rural areas to achieve and have equal affordable access to broadband speeds which in a few communities already have reached world class gigabit speeds, making community colleges free throughout the country, the 240,000 private sector jobs created in December 2014 alone, "charting a new course to Cuba", immigration issues, how well the Affordable Care Act is working signing up record numbers of Americans for affordable health insurance with premiums contrary the the expectations of some mostly going down and/or staying the same for the past 2-4 years after going up at staggering rates for many years earlier, as well as other topics identified at the website and mentioned in news items there or by the President.
      The enhanced version of the POTUS (as he is known in some social media) of the SATU (likewise) will continue after the larger public address before Congress and the Nation in which the President will meet with the three creators of YouTube and answer questions from the public. This will also continue through the following day on Wednesday, 21 January 2014 during which the President will field more questions and members of the his Administration from a wide variety of areas will deliver updates as visitors can continue to contact the White House via social media and emails. The Ninth Amendment sincerely hopes that the President will field some questions on tough issues other than those mentioned above and many more core areas identified on the website for which the White House is now taking input on the public's interest.
       The www.whitehouse.gov website provides a complete point of contact for the public to the White House on a daily (and archived) basis from which interested readers may also request daily emails featuring casual talks to site viewers by President Obama as well as the President's and Vice-President's schedule for the day, photo for the day, blogs by senior staff members, links to different videos of the President in a large variety of appearances giving speeches around the country, speaking with Americans and so on.
       President Obama's stated reason for breaking with all tradition in disclosing and discussing in advance so many of the topics that he will be addressing in his State of the Union address is that in addition to the stated claim of more "transparency" in the Obama White House than any administration preceding it that the President feels pressed for time and energized to get as much done as possible in his two remaining years in office after having to spend so long cleaning up the wreckage of an American economy which he inherited in a deep economic recession which was the worst in American history since the Great Depression but now under the Obama Administration has become remarkably robust for greatly extended periods on nearly all fronts notably a two-thirds drop in the national deficit including soaring stock market prices, record employment rates and and plummeting gasoline prices for consumers who have seen just in the past year well over a dollar a gallon to a national average of a mere $2.00 a gallon the lowest price in six years.
       The President says that he welcomes work with the Republican controlled Congress but if it does not want to do its job and merely focus on diversionary non-issues and giveaways to the ultra-rich then the President is eager to accomplish all he can in any case on his own with his executive authority of his and all the Nation's citizens' many honest priorities for the American people and the true future of this Country to secure and firmly establish its continuing world leadership role throughout the 21st Century and beyond. The Ninth Amendment remains most interested to see what issues the President truly is intending to and does in fact tackle. One more time then the best way to fully "experience" the President's "enhanced" State of the Union Address according to POTUS is via www.whitehouse.gov.


12 August 2014

Defiant U-T Regent Wallace Hall Censured Strongly 6-1 By Texas Bi-Partisan Legislative Committee As Texas Idiot Governor Perry "Henchman" Slammed For Incompetence, Abuse Of Office And Misconduct With Hall Final Impeachment Determination Pending Travis Country District Attorney Criminal Investigations Completion

       Tuesday, 12 August 2014, AUSTIN, TEXAS - A defiant U-T Regent Wallace Hall appointed as another stooge of Idiot Governor Rick "Payback" Perry to relentlessly misuse his Regent position to improperly harass U-T Austin flagship school President Bill Powers into resignation and facing a Texas House Committee 6-1 recent vote for his impeachment after a year of criminal investigation by legislative and law enforcement authorities failed yesterday to appear for his own impeachment hearing before the Texas House Select Committee For Transparency In State Agency Operations. The Committee in spite of Wallace Hall's failure to appear for his own impeachment hearing voted overwhelmingly 6-1 to censure Regent Wallace Hall therefore for the moment giving Hall what the Committee noted was a most severe punishment short of impeachment.
       The Committee noted that a vote on Wallace Hall's impeachment still faces his prospect of impeachment on a later day but decided it was best to first allow the Travis County District Attorney to finish its criminal investigation of Wallace Hall which presumably encompasses Texas Idiot Governor Rick "Payback" Perry who as reported earlier has already retained independent private criminal counsel for himself relating presumably to this and related matters including pending Grand Jury Proceedings.
       Wallace Hall whose abuse of office, incompetency and misconduct now have been officially determined and censured is expected to be perhaps just one of many appointees and cronies of Texas Idiot Governor Rick "Payback" Perry who may be looking at further legislative and law enforcement actions not excluding the Governor himself as his stranglehold on state power disappears after successive terms as Governor up to this final term in which Perry has been in a position improperly to appoint and reward all cronies and those who would aid him in the obstruction of justice in matters throughout the State of Texas.
       Should Wallace Hall be impeached following the completion of Travis County District Attorney criminal investigations Hall would hold the ignominious position of being the first public official ever appointed by any Governor of Texas to be impeached since the State's founding.

Copyright 2014 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved

23 July 2014

Perry "Enforcer" U-T Regent Wallace Hall Clings To Job As Panel Drafting Articles Of Impeachment Per Earlier Overwhelming 7-1 Vote To Impeach Perry Appointee Wallace Hall Delayed By U-T Officials Attacking Panel's Authority And Forcing "Resignation Ultimatum" On Popular U-T Austin President Bill Powers

       Wednesday, 23 July 2014, AUSTIN, TX - With attention of many focused elsewhere last week UT officials grabbed the perceived strategic opportunity to try and turn the tables by delaying and distracting attention on several fronts from the already long-approved drafting of articles of impeachment against presently serving Perry U-T Regent appointee Wallace Hall. These obvious subterfuges apparently spearheaded by three top U-T system officials reportedly not surprisingly soon descended into "clashes" with antagonized oversight committee lawmakers as the U-T officials in addition to widely publicized earlier acts in direct defiance of committee requests continued at the hearing repeatedly to attack the lawmakers with seemingly specious allegations of overreaching and outright misstatements reflecting a misunderstanding of the nature of the legal relationship between the Texas legislature on whose behalf the committee served and the U-T system Regents supposedly serving at someone's pleasure other than their own or the Governor's office.
       In any case the distractions of attacks against lawmakers and other apparent time-wasting heated interchanges did succeed in further delaying the actual purpose of the hearing of moving forward with reaching conclusion on the specifics of drafting the previously overwhelmingly approved articles of impeachment of Wallace Hall in order to go forward with removing him from his position on the Board of Regents in the absence of his willingness to resign that position.
       For the good of the UT system overall and the withdrawal from the spotlight of bad publicity particularly exacerbated by scrutiny of tensions with its flagship UT-Austin campus and President Bill Powers it has been reported that Mr. Wallace's colleague(s) have suggested that he resign his U-T Regent position from which he so far steadfastly has declined to resign (at least to those who so far have approached him) despite widespread allegations by Power supporters and other critics that Hall's actions have been manifestly inappropriate for a U-T Regent who one might expect to promote rather than detract from the public perception of their university (the role of Regent being one however which Hall previously has described in defending his alleged actions as apparently requiring active investigations into U-T matters in what he perceives to be the absence of others available in the U-T system more appropriately tasked with such "investigative"-type activities).
       Regent Hall's activities to date publicly have been alleged to encompass a spectrum of improprieties including but not limited to those which have focused unwelcome and unproductive attention on the U-T system's apparent differences with what is after all its flagship university at Austin and what have been described as actions by Mr. Hall which are subject to investigation by the Travis County District Attorney's office including but not limited to "the release of confidential student information, bullying of campus officials and submitting onerous records requests" as described in the San Antonio New-Express all with the ultimate purpose of doing the bidding on his appointment as a U-T Regent of Texas Idiot Governor Rick "Payback" Perry of getting rid of Bill Powers for reasons which we to date have not been able to confirm.
       It would appear that the events leading up to the past week have in fact succeeded in accomplishing the objective of ridding UT-Austin of its popular President Bill Powers. At last week's hearing the UT officials reportedly aggressively attacked lawmakers by among other things distorting the reason for the lawmakers' seemingly reasonable request that officials refrain from making any "substantial personnel decision" because it would be inappropriate to do so pending resolution of current contentious issues.
        These have included those which had been surrounding Bill Powers tenure and Wallace Hall's actions in relation thereto as well as questions regarding the conduct of Hall in what he apparently has understood to be his "official" capacity. His conduct to date in what he claims to understand to be his appropriate role as regent has resulted in the overwhelming vote in the Texas legislature for his impeachment as well as an increasingly long period without consequence to date given which there have been calls that Hall meanwhile be subjected to some other form of censure or reprimand also pending any criminal investigation's outcome by the Travis County District Attorney. In any case the next Texas Legislature's committee meeting on its overwhelming approval of the drafting of Wallace Hall's articles of impeachment apparently has been set for 11 August 2014.
       Doubtless the greatest and perhaps best obscured irony by this not uncharacteristic Texas GOP state government fiasco is that in attacking the Texas House Select Committee in Transparency in State Agency Operations ("HSCTSAO" for those fond of acronyms but not having yet achieved the somewhat more refined elegance of Federal acronyms) is the actual outcome when one shovels away the filth that has been flung back and forth which they otherwise might "step in" but failing that has become so apparent one wonders whether they should laugh or cry. As Regents' Chairman Paul Foster lambasted the legislators for their "overreaching" in encroaching on the Regents territory he even went so far as to chastise the the legislative committee for attempting to do something so "offensive".  Apparently on that basis alone it therefore merited no more discussion or answering of questions before the panel by the regents because as it turned out they not only ignored the legislators, they outright defied them and took it upon themselves in the midst of all the controversy and pending investigations to simply do their own analysis reaching the compelling (not to mention convenient) legal conclusion that "[i]t's our view that the Legislature has no authority at all to direct us on personnel matters".
       Powerful stuff. This of course leaves open the question until their next scheduled opportunity to lambast the legislature if that personnel matter authority resides with everyone's favorite Governor who appointed them, with the regents (even when impeached), not to mention raises other fascinating questions such as whether they can employ children and women to work fifteen hours a day for ten cents an hour redeemable only at the Regent's "company store". Given all this drama it almost came as an afterthought that not as of last week there had been no "articles of impeachment" drafted pursuant to the "overwhelming vote" of the legislature as to Mr. Wallace. He once had been widely seen as "playing dirty" but now at least for the time being is a free man with a job which seems to include a lot of investigative work.
      And lo and behold UT-Austin President Bill Powers in fact now has decided of his own free will to make Governor Perry and henchman Wallace Hall's dream come true as it was announced that Powers had decided to resign effective 15 June 2015.  Powers apparently had been told to resign by UT System Chancellor Francisco Ciggaroa "or face a possible firing by the board of regents at its next meeting". Cigarroa nevertheless apparently adamantly denied that he had given Powers an "ultimatum". As for the great umbrage shown by top U-T system regents at the Texas legislature's attempts to interfere with its personnel decisions, Regents' Chairman Foster apparently did feel compelled despite all the strong words thrown at the legislators, including claims of overreaching and their causing "offense" purporting to direct the regents on "personnel matters" which directions were therefore ignored and the opposite actions taken, that it was only accurate that Mr. Foster did grant the panel that "only the legislature can forcibly remove a regent".
       In perhaps some final counterpoint of sanity as if to balance out all else that was said and went before, Representative Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, did note that Powers resignation was "a travesty" . He further criticized the UT system's only known initiative other than ridding itself of President Bill Powers of its flagship UT-Austin campus, which was the regents pending investigation into admission practices to root out every outside influence over admissions which Larson simply described as "impossible and costly".

Copyright 2014 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved