Wisconsin Newspaper That Fought McCarthism Ignores Democratic Party - Corporate Media Smears Against Pres Candidate Tulsi Gabbard

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is a candidate for the
presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.
Gabbard is pictured above in 2008, training at Fort Hood
for her second combat deployment in Iraq. Gabbard took
lessons of war to heart, becoming along with Sen. Bernie
sanders the leading peace candidate for the presidency.
Reads Rep. Gabbard's candidate website:
The first day Tulsi arrived at her camp in Iraq, she
saw a large sign at one of the gates that read,
"Is today the day?" It was a blunt reminder that today
may be the day that any  of the soldiers would be called to
make the ultimate sacrifice for their country. It caused her
to reflect on her own life and the reality that each of us could
die at any moment.

While serving in a base in the Sunni Triangle at the height of
the war, Tulsi had the heart-wrenching daily responsibility
of going through the list of every injury and casualty in the
entire theatre of operations, looking to see if any soldiers in her
unit were on the list, so she could ensure they received the
care they needed and their families were notified.

She was hit with the enduring pain and hardship of her
brothers and sisters in uniform, and  the stress and pressure
on their families. She wondered if those who voted to send
soldiersto Iraq really understood why they were there
—if lawmakers and the President reflected daily on each
death, each injury,and the immeasurably high cost of
war.

Having experienced first-hand the true cost of war, she
made a personal vow to find a way to ensure that our
country doesn’t continue repeating the mistakes of the
past, sending our troops into war without a clear
mission, strategy, or purpose.

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — "It's been a while since Wisconsin sent Joe McCarthy to the U.S. Senate where he became our 20th century embarrassment," writes The Capital Times editor, Dave Zweifel, in a November column. "We're still living down McCarthy's disregard for Americans' constitutional rights and his witch hunt [.]"

Zweifel takes Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) to task for the senator's attacks against enemies of Pres Donald Trump among the executive branch:

"Before Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman even appeared before the Intelligence Committee's public meetings last week, Johnson disparaged the Iraq War hero and security council specialist and questioned his credibility.
'A significant number of bureaucrats and staff members within the executive branch have never accepted President Trump as legitimate and resent his unorthodox style and his intrusion onto their 'turf,' Johnson declared in a letter to committee members. ... "

"Not a scintilla of proof. Just innuendo the way Joe McCarthy mastered it."

Thing is, Ron Johnson is right and his fact statement (right or wrong) is not innuendo. Few non-political national security and foreign policy staff in the executive branch appear to be political fans of the lunatic in the White House, a fact acknowledged by those who rightfully challenge Trump's many counter-punches against such opponents.

Consider as well that McCarthy's smears against so-called Reds are hardly the same as noting anti-Trump sentiment, the existence of which is surly to the credit of those holding to these viewpoints, though our senator does not believe so, (Timpf, The New Republic). See also the new book, A Warning, by Anonymous.

But Zweifel's use of McCarthyism is preposterous when considered under the light of the McCarthyite work of the political party for which The Capital Times fronts — the Democratic Party.

Johnson's stated opinion regarding anti-Trump bias in the executive branch is invisible next to the sustained bombardment of presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D) by the Democratic Party establishment and its major media allies, MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The Capital Times like every other Democratic Party organ is silent on the real perpetrators of neo-McCarthism today.

Consider Rep. Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a military combat Army veteran, is a fierce opponent of war and American empire, positions that have provoked defamation and character assassination on a level that Ron Johnson could not approach in 1,000 lifetimes.

Writes James Carden in The Nation:

The war of words between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and current 2020 presidential aspirant Tulsi Gabbard has been, in some respects, clarifying. Clinton’s insinuation that Russia is 'grooming' the Hawaiian Democrat for a third-party run in order to influence the outcome of next year’s election, instead of provoking a 'have you no shame' response from the establishment media, was gleefully repeated by such establishment fixtures as the journalist Jonathan Alter and the scholar Norman Ornstein. In other words, McCarthyism has gone mainstream. ...

Left-leaning outlets and think tanks like MSNBC (Hardball host Chris Matthews has decreed that loyal 'Americans don’t go to Russia'), The Daily Beast, New York magazine, Think Progress, the Center for American Progress, and The New Republic have all recklessly accused scholars, journalists, and activists with whom they disagree of being Kremlin 'toadies' and 'useful idiots' — this last, of course, having been a common trope marched out by the John Birch right during the Cold War, and even in the years following.

So, where are the Dave Zwiefels and other Democratic Party allies? They are either silent or complicit.

For a critical piece of reporting on the topic, see the interview with Glenn Greenwald on Rising, The Hill.tv with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti. [For more continuing coverage of the topic, see also the Jimmy Dore Show, Secular Talk with Kyle Kulinski, and the Rational National with David Doel.]:

Said Saagar Enjeti in the interview with Greenwald: "Glenn, one of the things that really struck me yesterday [Nov 19 hearing before the House Intelligence Committee] was that there was actually a particular question from the Democratic [Party] counsel in which they asked Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, they said: 'Were you aware that the president was departing from official U.S. policy?'"

"It struck me very much that the national security state was the one that was setting official U.S. policy and the duly elected president was departing from that?"

Replied Greenwald in part:

That's been one of the primary themes of the Trump presidency. This idea that's what's most dangerous about Trump is that he believes in a whole set of foriegn policy beliefs that he actually campaigned on and that therefore were ratified by the American people, that are dangerous because the CIA, and the Pentagon and the bipartisan military and think-tank class in Washington doesn't accept.

What I find actually dangerous, independent of those debates, is the idea that it's not the elected president, but the whatever you want to call them — Dwight Eisenhower called them the 'military-industrial complex,' people have called them the 'national security blob,' the 'permanent power faction' in Washington — the idea that they and not our elected officials determine foreign policy.

Obviously, there's this narrow question in impeachment about whether Trump did typical Trumpian things in kind-of linking the investigation of the Bidens to military aid, but the much broader and more important theme is anger over Trump for his foreign policy views about Russia and Ukraine. ...

That's the real issue driving the impeachment hearings, and this much narrower issue is just a pretext.

The idea that Sen Johnson, Greenwald, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti share is skepticism that a  permanent-power faction in D.C. should determine foriegn policy, national security and empire. Departure from the permanent-power faction's policy is exemplified by Rep. Gabbard and to a lesser extent in practice — Trump.

Tulsi Gabbard, along with Bernie Sanders, is the preeminent peace candidate. For their stands on war and peace, Gabbard and Sanders are near-constanly derided as doing 'Russia's work.'

That's McCartyite and this deserves challenge from those claiming fighting McCarthism as political heritage.

Support Fox News Washington Correspondent, James Rosen and Stephen Jin-Woo Kim

Is prior restraint from the Obama administration just around
the corner, are intimidation and persecution enough?

Zealous, careerist-minded US DoJ attorneys and the mindless continuation of the worst aspects of the War on Terror may bring down the legacy of another president, just as surely as the Vietnam War brought down Johnson and Nixon

The Washington Post has the sad story that the Fourth Amendment and First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press are imperiled in the United States, specifically in the case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, the U.S. DoJ, and the work of journalist, James Rosen.

The Kim/Rosen revelations follow the AP and seizure of phone records story.

From Mr. Kim's legal defense website, reads the statement from counsel, Abbe D. Lowell:

On August 27, 2010 the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney’s office charged Stephen Kim with illegally disclosing national defense information (classified information) to someone [Fox's James Rosen] in the media. The government has not alleged that Stephen gave away any document, that he was paid to do anything, that he stole the information, or that he acted in secret. It does not allege that Stephen was a spy or that he acted to assist an enemy of the United States. And, it does not allege that Stephen engaged in a pattern of misconduct. Rather, the case against Stephen Kim seems to be based on a prosecutor’s theory that Stephen talked to someone in the media about a topic of current events and – in that one and only conversation – disclosed classified information. It is a 'leak' case. Along with many who have commented, we think an unfounded one.

Notes Ann E. Marimow in The Post:

The case also raises new concerns among critics of government secrecy about the possible stifling effect of these investigations on a critical element of press freedom: the exchange of information between reporters and their sources.

No one believes the Tea Party much cares about or understands constitutional rights. That's unfortunate.

Because what is happening under President Obama and Eric Holder's DoJ shows the depths to which the United States has fallen, now using the Espionage Act as its crusading, anti-terror tool in the administration's rapacious project against government leakers.

This is a scandal: Obama's war on whistleblowers.

Ask Bradley Manning. Or, as Eli Lake correctly characterizes this: "Obama's war on jounrnalism."

Writes Glenn Greewald in The Guardian:

But what makes this revelation particularly disturbing is that the DOJ, in order to get this search warrant, insisted that not only Kim, but also Rosen - the journalist - committed serious crimes. The DOJ specifically argued that by encouraging his source to disclose classified information - something investigative journalists do every day - Rosen himself broke the law. Describing an affidavit from FBI agent Reginald Reyes filed by the DOJ, the Post reports [emphasis added]:

"Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, 'at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator'. That fact distinguishes his case from the probe of the AP, in which the news organization is not the likely target. Using italics for emphasis, Reyes explained how Rosen allegedly used a 'covert communications plan' and quoted from an e-mail exchange between Rosen and Kim that seems to describe a secret system for passing along information. . . . However, it remains an open question whether it's ever illegal, given the First Amendment's protection of press freedom, for a reporter to solicit information. No reporter, including Rosen, has been prosecuted for doing so."

Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ - that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for "soliciting" the disclosure of classified information - is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself. These latest revelations show that this is not just a theory but one put into practice, as the Obama DOJ submitted court documents accusing a journalist of committing crimes by doing this.

Reuters: Execution by Secret White House Committee

Anwar al-Awlaki, the White House and President Barack Obama.
 - Image: Muhammad ud-Deen/iStockphoto: P_Wei/AP -

Would you trust a country and political culture that imprisons the largest proportion of its citizens, will not renounce torture, and aids and abets the terror state of Israel to make a prudent, secret call on political assassinations of American citizens? Democratic Party Loyalists say: Trust us.

The Obama administration's refusal to hold the Bush-Cheney regime accountable for myriad crimes looks less like a political calculation and more like a policy agreement, to state what should be obvious now with this latest revelation.

By Glenn Greenwald

Here is what the Democratic President has created and implemented, and what many party loyalists explicitly endorse (when there’s a Democrat in the White House) — from Reuters:

American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions . . . . There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council . . . . Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate. . . . The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process. . . .

Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, was asked by reporters about the killing. The process involves “going through the National Security Council, then it eventually goes to the president” . . . .Other officials said the role of the president in the process was murkier than what Ruppersberger described. They said targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC “principals,” meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval . . . But one official said Obama would be notified of the principals’ decision. If he objected, the decision would be nullified, the official said.

So a panel operating out of the White House — that meets in total secrecy, with no known law or rules governing what it can do or how it operates — is empowered to place American citizens on a list to be killed by the CIA, which (by some process nobody knows) eventually makes its way to the President, who is the final Decider. It is difficult to describe the level of warped authoritarianism necessary to cause someone to lend their support to a twisted Star Chamber like that; I genuinely wonder whether the Good Democrats doing so actually first convince themselves that if this were the Bush White House’s hit list, or if it becomes Rick Perry’s, they would be supportive just the same. Seriously: if you’re willing to endorse having White House functionaries meet in secret — with no known guidelines, no oversight, no transparency — and compile lists of American citizens to be killed by the CIA without due process, what aren’t you willing to support?

Of all the things I’ve seen over the past several years, easily one of the most repellent has been the number of people — especially journalists — who are running around definitively asserting that Awlaki had an “operational role” in Terrorist plots and had “taken up arms” against the U.S. even though they have no idea whether that’s actually true (Politico‘s Roger Simon: “U.S. citizen living overseas and plotting the death of American citizens from, let’s say, Yemen, you can say hello to our little friends, the 100-lb. Hellfires”; Josh Marshall: Awlaki was “a key leader of an international terrorist group, organizing and inspiring terrorist attacks within the US” ). Just consider how even the anonymous government officials who spoke to Reuters in order to defend the Awlaki killing characterize the “evidence” they have to support that claim:

The Obama administration has not made public an accounting of the classified evidence that Awlaki was operationally involved in planning terrorist attacks.

But officials acknowledged that some of the intelligence purporting to show Awlaki’s hands-on role in plotting attacks was patchy.

For instance, one plot in which authorities have said Awlaki was involved Nigerian-born Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day 2009 with a bomb hidden in his underpants.

There is no doubt Abdulmutallab was an admirer or follower of Awlaki, since he admitted that to U.S. investigators. . . . But at the time the White House was considering putting Awlaki on the U.S. target list, intelligence connecting Awlaki specifically to Abdulmutallab and his alleged bomb plot was partial. Officials said at the time the United States had voice intercepts involving a phone known to have been used by Awlaki and someone who they believed, but were not positive, was Abdulmutallab.

Someone spoke to someone on “a phone known to have been used by Awlaki”: maybe it was Abdulmutallab, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was Awlaki, maybe it wasn’t. Who knows? Who cares? Some officials “believed” it may have involved those two, so it’s time to kill Awlaki. Remember, Good Democrats hate the death penalty because they think it’s so terribly barbaric to execute people whose guilt is in doubt (even if, unlike Awlaki, they’ve enjoyed an indictment and full jury trial, lawyers, the right to examine evidence and to confront witnesses, multiple appeals, and habeas petitions). There’s also this:

Awlaki was also implicated in a case in which a British Airways employee was imprisoned for plotting to blow up a U.S.-bound plane. E-mails retrieved by authorities from the employee’s computer showed what an investigator described as ” operational contact” between Britain and Yemen.

Authorities believe the contacts were mainly between the U.K.-based suspect and his brother. But there was a strong suspicion Awlaki was at the brother’s side when the messages were dispatched.

There was a “strong suspicion” — not that Awlaki participated in this email plotting, but that he was “at the side” of someone who did. Who needs “beyond a reasonable doubt’? That is so pre-9/11. ”A strong suspicion” that he may have been next to someone plotting an attack: that’s the McCarthyite standard Democratic Party loyalists are holding up to justify the due-process-free execution of their fellow citizen by a secret, lawless White House “panel.”

What’s crucial to keep in mind is that nobody can see this “evidence” which these anonymous government officials are claiming exists. It’s in their exclusive possession. As a result, they’re able to characterize it however they want, to present it in the best possible light to support their pro-assassination position, and to prevent any detection of its flaws. As any lawyer will tell you, anyone can make a case for anything when they’re in exclusive possession of all the relevant evidence and are the only side from whom one is hearing; all evidence becomes less compelling when it’s subjected to adversarial scrutiny. Yet even given all those highly favorable pro-government conditions here, it’s obvious — even these officials admit — that the evidence is “partial,” “patchy,” based on “suspicions” rather than knowledge.

But no matter. Officials in the Obama White House and then the President decreed in secret that Awlaki should die. So the U.S. Government killed him. Republicans who always cheer acts of violence against Muslims are joined by Democrats who reflexively cheer what this Democratic President does, and now this death panel for U.S. citizens — operating with no known rules, transparency, or oversight — is entrenched as bipartisan consensus and a permanent fixture of American political life. I’m sure this will never be abused: unrestrained power exercised in secret has a very noble history in the U.S. (Reuters says that the only American they could confirm on the hit list is Awlaki, though Dana Priest reported last year that either three or four Americans were on a hit list).

Anyway, look over there: wasn’t it outrageous how George Bush imprisoned people without any due process and tried to seize unrestrained power, and isn’t it horrifying what a barbaric death cult Republicans are for favoring executions even when there’s doubt about guilt? Even for those deeply cynical about American political culture: wouldn’t you have thought a few years ago that having the President create a White House panel to place Americans on a CIA hit list — in secret, without a shred of due process — would be a bridge too far?

UPDATE: I don’t think it’s dispositive of the question here — because the U.S. Government isn’t permitted to murder fugitives who aren’t violently resisting apprehension and, in any event, Awlaki was never a fugitive since he was never indicted by the U.S. for anything — but Robert Farley persuasively highlights the baselessness of the excuse that Awlaki could not have been apprehended (and he also documents how dubious, uncertain and filled with doubt is the case against Awlaki generally).