On Thursday, a Denver news station interviewed Chris Bartkowicz about his medical-marijuana operation in the basement of his home. Bartkowicz, confident of his compliance with state laws, boasted of its size and profitability.

“I’m definitely living the dream now,” he told 9News.

The following day, the dream was over.

Drug-enforcement agents raided his home, placed him under arrest, and carried off dozens of black bags of marijuana plants and growing lights.

The Obama administration promised in October that the federal government would respect state laws allowing the growing and selling of marijuana for medicinal use, but the Drug Enforcement Agency sent a loud message with the arrest of Bartkowicz.

Read More – Raw Story: Despite Obama admin’s promise, DEA continues raids on medical marijuana growers

(via Disinfo)

Glenn Greenwald on Nudge co-author Cass Sunstein’s creepy propaganda proposal:

Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama’s closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama’s head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for “overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs.” In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and psuedo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites — as well as other activist groups — which advocate views that Sunstein deems “false conspiracy theories” about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens’ faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper’s abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.

Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). This program would target those advocating false “conspiracy theories,” which they define to mean: “an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.”

Glenn Greenwald: The creepy mind-set behind Cass Sunstein’s creepy proposal

See also: Air Force launching blog comment propaganda program

(Photo credit: Circo de Invierno / CC BY 2.0)

While we were all out doing our Christmas shopping, the highest court in the land quietly put the kibosh on a few more of the remaining shards of human liberty.

It happened earlier this week, in a discreet ruling that attracted almost no notice and took little time. In fact, our most august defenders of the Constitution did not have to exert themselves in the slightest to eviscerate not merely 220 years of Constitutional jurisprudence but also centuries of agonizing effort to lift civilization a few inches out of the blood-soaked mire that is our common human legacy. They just had to write a single sentence.

Here’s how the bad deal went down. After hearing passionate arguments from the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court acquiesced to the president’s fervent request and, in a one-line ruling, let stand a lower court decision that declared torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention, while introducing a shocking new precedent for all future courts to follow: anyone who is arbitrarily declared a “suspected enemy combatant” by the president or his designated minions is no longer a “person.” They will simply cease to exist as a legal entity. They will have no inherent rights, no human rights, no legal standing whatsoever — save whatever modicum of process the government arbitrarily deigns to grant them from time to time, with its ever-shifting tribunals and show trials.

This extraordinary ruling occasioned none of those deep-delving “process stories” that glut the pages of the New York Times, where the minutiae of policy-making or political gaming is examined in highly-spun, microscopic detail doled out by self-interested insiders. Obviously, giving government the power to render whole classes of people “unpersons” was not an interesting subject for our media arbiters. It was news that wasn’t fit to print. Likewise, the ruling provoked no thundering editorials in the Washington Post, no savvy analysis from the high commentariat — and needless to say, no outrage whatsoever from all our fierce defenders of individual liberty on the Right.

Dred Scot Redux: Dred Scott Redux: Obama and the Supremes Stand Up for Slavery

Reactions to Obama’s Nobel speech yesterday were remarkably consistent across the political spectrum, and there were two points on which virtually everyone seemed to agree: (1) it was the most explicitly pro-war speech ever delivered by anyone while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize; and (2) it was the most comprehensive expression of Obama’s foreign policy principles since he became President. I don’t think he can be blamed for the first fact; when the Nobel Committee chose him despite his waging two wars and escalating one, it essentially forced on him the bizarre circumstance of using his acceptance speech to defend the wars he’s fighting. What else could he do? Ignore it? Repent?

I’m more interested in the fact that the set of principles Obama articulated yesterday was such a clear and comprehensive expression of his foreign policy that it’s now being referred to as the “Obama Doctrine.” About that matter, there are two arguably confounding facts to note: (1) the vast majority of leading conservatives — from Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich to Peggy Noonan, Sarah Palin, various Kagans and other assorted neocons — have heaped enthusiastic praise on what Obama said yesterday, i.e., on the Obama Doctrine; and (2) numerous liberals have done exactly the same. [...]

Much of the liberal praise for Obama’s speech yesterday focused on how eloquent, sophisticated, nuanced, complex, philosophical, contemplative and intellectual it was. And, looked at a certain way, it was all of those things — like so many Obama speeches are. After eight years of enduring a President who spoke in simplistic Manichean imperatives and bullying decrees, many liberals are understandably joyous over having a President who uses their language and the rhetorical approach that resonates with them.

But that’s the real danger. Obama puts a pretty, intellectual, liberal face on some ugly and decidedly illiberal polices. Just as George Bush’s Christian-based moralizing let conservatives feel good about America regardless of what it does, Obama’s complex and elegiac rhetoric lets many liberals do the same. To red state Republicans, war and its accompanying instruments (secrecy, executive power, indefinite detention) felt so good and right when justified by swaggering, unapologetic toughness and divinely-mandated purpose; to blue state Democrats, all of that feels just as good when justified by academic meditations on “just war” doctrine and when accompanied by poetic expressions of sorrow and reluctance. When you combine the two rhetorical approaches, what you get is what you saw yesterday: a bipartisan embrace of the same policies and ideologies among people with supposedly irreconcilable views of the world.

Glenn Greenwald: The strange consensus on Obama’s Nobel address

See also: Matt Taibbi: Obama’s Big Sellout

(via Erowid)

See also: Alex Grey Obama Portrait

Also: Barack Obama ecstasy tablets

The poll asked this question: “Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?” The overall top-line is legitimately won 62%, ACORN stole it 26%.

Among Republicans, however, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% — an outright majority — saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are

TPM: Majority Of Republicans Think Obama Didn’t Actually Win 2008 Election — ACORN Stole It!

I’m curious if anyone has any polls indicating the percentage of Democrats who believe Bush stole one or more elections.

(For the record, I do think both of Bush’s elections were stolen)

(Thanks Bill!)

Jerome Corsi, of Swift Boat infamy, has written a piece connecting Nidal Malik Hasan to Obama on WorldNetDaily (“the leading source of disinformation that the president wasn’t born an American.”)

Corsi points to a Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University paper titled “Thinking Anew – Security Priorities for the Next Administration: Proceedings Report of the HSPI Presidential Transition Task Force” which lists Hasan as “Task Force Event Participant.”

What does that mean? It means Hasan, as Spencer Ackerman writes: “Hasan attended a meeting of a private organization that gave the transition some unsolicited advice.”

Washinton Independent: Birther Site Is Already Lying About Ft. Hood Shooter and Obama

(via Jeremy Scahill)

With hypocrisy that pervasive, who could ever hope to take note of all of it? Still, the complaints from America’s Right — and especially former Bush officials — that the Obama administration is attempting to “control the media,” all because the White House criticizes Fox News, is in a class of hypocrisy all by itself. That those petulant complaints are being amplified by a virtually unanimous press corps — “it’s Nixonian!” is their leading group-think cliché — makes it all the more intolerable.

John Cole itemizes just some of the measures adopted by the Bush White House to manipulate, control, punish and bully the very few media outlets which were ever hostile to it — each of those Bush measures, standing alone, is infinitely more invasive and threatening than the mild and perfectly appropriate criticisms of Fox coming from the Obama White House. Indeed, the Bush White House did exactly the same thing with NBC as the Obama White House is doing with Fox, and virtually all of the media stars who today are so righteously lamenting the “attacks on Fox” said nothing. Worse, the very same Bush official who this week said it was “like what dictators do” for the Obama White House to criticize Fox — Dana Perino — herself stood at the White House podium a mere two years ago and did exactly that to NBC News.

But the Bush administration did far worse to media outlets than merely criticize them. They explicitly threatened to prosecute New York Times journalists — to criminally prosecute them — for reporting on Bush’s illegal spying program aimed at American citizens. They imprisoned numerous foreign journalists covering their various wars. The administration’s obsessive and unprecedented secrecy — Dick Cheney refused to disclose even the most basic information about his whereabouts, his meetings, or even the number of staff members he had — was the ultimate form of media control. And what was the Pentagon’s embedding process other than an attempt to control media coverage and ensure favorable reporting? One will search in vain for much media protests about any of that.

But it was the Bush Pentagon’s “military analyst”/domestic propaganda program that was, far and away, the most egregious case in a long, long time of a White House attempting to control media content and political coverage in the United States. [...]

Whatever else is true, Fox has taken on a political role that is very rare, at least in modern times, for a large American news organization. Its news coverage is not merely biased or opinionated; there’d be nothing unusual about that. Instead, it is a major participant — the leading participant — in organizing, promoting and fueling protests, including street protests, against the government. Fox has undertaken a role typically played by media outlets in, say, Venezuela or various unstable, under-developed countries — sponsoring rather than reporting on protests against the government — and it is difficult to recall any recent example that is similar.

Glenn Greenwald: What “controlling the media” really means

Greenwald has more, plus citations for the claims he makes in the text above.

Launched in March by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.

More specifically, the group’s members, which number in the thousands, pledge to disobey orders they deem unlawful, including directives to disarm the American people and to blockade American cities. By refusing the latter order, the Oath Keepers hope to prevent cities from becoming “giant concentration camps,” a scenario the 44-year-old Rhodes says he can envision happening in the coming years. [...]

It’s the “cross-pollinating” of extremist groups — some racist, some not — that is of concern, Potok said. As evidence that the danger is real, he points to several recent murders committed by men with anti-government or racist views.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reached a similar conclusion in a report earlier this year about the rise of right-wing extremism. The report said the nation’s economic downturn and Obama’s race are “unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment.”

The homeland security report added that “disgruntled military veterans” might be vulnerable to recruitment by right-wing extremist groups.

That warning was enough to make Rhodes feel paranoid.

“They’re accusing anybody who opposes Obama of being a racist or a potential terrorist,” he said. “What they’re saying is, ‘We’re coming after you.’”

Las Vegas Review: Ready To Revolt: Oath Keepers pledges to prevent dictatorship in United States

(via Nick P)

To their credit, the “Oath Keepers” acknowledge the Patriot Act’s erosion of civil liberties as well. But where were they during the 8 years that Bush was president? Obama gets 400% more death threats than Bush but still lets people carry assault rifles around him, and the Oathers think that they’re being persecuted? Bush had people hauled away for wearing the wrong t-shirts.

I have little good to say about Obama, but I can’t say that his administration is less tolerant of dissent than Bush’s.

From the Oather’s Declaration of Orders We Will NOT Obey: “We will NOT obey any order to conduct warrantless searches of the American people, their homes, vehicles, papers, or effects — such as warrantless house-to house searches for weapons or persons.”

I take this to mean they will start refusing to do warrantless searches for drugs? For 28 years the federal government has waged war on its people (a disproportionate number of them black), using militarized civilian law enforcement agents, and it’s only now that a not-right-wing-enough black president has been elected that they are worried?

Now, there have been militia movements before, and they got particularly scary during the Clinton years. But most of those fears were overblown. The Oklahoma City bombing was used to justify the proto-Patriot Act: the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. So it’s worth while to reiterate that this should not be a call for more repressive laws.

These latest developments – Oath Keepers, assault rifles at Obama rallies, violent attacks on pro-health care demonstrators – do seem particularly more frightening than those of the Clinton-era. And those Clinton-era movements did have a real result. Not the assassination of a president, or a legitimate insurrection by right-wing militias. The result was the sharp right-wing turn the country took during and after the Clinton administration.

And that’s what’s scariest now. Even if the current movements don’t end in, say, a Blackwater coup (and the chance that something like that would happen this time around does seem greater), we’re still probably in for darker days.

Update: Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes opines on the drug war and the Bush administration here (via Jesse Walker in the comments):

The Pentagon and its close allies, the defense contractors, turned to the “war on drugs” and “terrorism” as the new cash-crop reason for the bloated Pentagon budget. We even had shrill warnings about the grave dangers of “narco-terrorists” who actually combined those two horrid evils (shudder) and we were told that only the military could stop them! Thus a new mission was born for the U.S. military which has steadily pushed its way into law enforcement, starting out in support roles, just like in Vietnam, but getting closer and closer to in-your-face and hands-on direct action. There has also been a corresponding and complimentary steady militarization of law enforcement such that the two are now hard to tell apart.

Is Rhodes position the official position of the Oath Keepers? As of now (10am PST 10/25/09) there is no official position on the drug war recorded on their site by Google. The question is posed here in the comments and not answered.

Still, I’m impressed with Rhodes’s position and encouraged by the fact that he’s “writing a book on the dangers of applying the laws of war to the American people.” (See Radley Balko’s paper Overkill for more on this subject.)

Holder has formalized the policy previously mentioned of ending federal drug raids against sick people:

The Obama administration delivered new guidance on medical marijuana to federal prosecutors Monday, signaling a broad policy shift that will mean fewer crackdowns against dispensaries and the people who use them.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. instructed government lawyers that in 14 states where medical marijuana use is legal, federal prosecutors should focus only on cases involving higher level drug traffickers or people who use the state laws as a cover story.

“It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana, but we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal,” Holder said. “This balanced policy formalizes a sensible approach that the Department has been following since January: effectively focus our resources on serious drug traffickers while taking into account state and local laws.”

Washington Post: Obama administration issues new policy on medical marijuana

Vidal now believes, as he did originally, Clinton would be the better president. “Hillary knows more about the world and what to do with the generals. History has proven when the girls get involved, they’re good at it. Elizabeth I knew Raleigh would be a good man to give a ship to.”The Republicans will win the next election, Vidal believes; though for him there is little difference between the parties. “Remember the coup d’etat of 2000 when the Supreme Court fixed the selection, not election, of the stupidest man in the country, Mr Bush.”

Vidal originally became pro-Obama because he grew up in “a black city” (meaning Washington), as well as being impressed by Obama’s intelligence. “But he believes the generals. Even Bush knew the way to win a general was to give him another star. Obama believes the Republican Party is a party when in fact it’s a mindset, like Hitler Youth, based on hatred — religious hatred, racial hatred. When you foreigners hear the word ‘conservative’ you think of kindly old men hunting foxes. They’re not, they’re fascists.”

Another notable Obama mis-step has been on healthcare reform. “He f***ed it up. I don’t know how because the country wanted it. We’ll never see it happen.” As for his wider vision: “Maybe he doesn’t have one, not to imply he is a fraud. He loves quoting Lincoln and there’s a great Lincoln quote from a letter he wrote to one of his generals in the South after the Civil War. ‘I am President of the United States. I have full overall power and never forget it, because I will exercise it’. That’s what Obama needs — a bit of Lincoln’s chill.” Has he met Obama? “No,” he says quietly, “I’ve had my time with presidents.” Vidal raises his fingers to signify a gun and mutters: “Bang bang.” He is referring to the possibility of Obama being assassinated. “Just a mysterious lone gunman lurking in the shadows of the capital,” he says in a wry, dreamy way.

Vidal now believes, as he did originally, Clinton would be the better president. “Hillary knows more about the world and what to do with the generals. History has proven when the girls get involved, they’re good at it. Elizabeth I knew Raleigh would be a good man to give a ship to.”The Republicans will win the next election, Vidal believes; though for him there is little difference between the parties. “Remember the coup d’etat of 2000 when the Supreme Court fixed the selection, not election, of the stupidest man in the country, Mr Bush.”

Times Online: Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US’

(via Disinfo)

University of California
Goldman Sachs
Harvard University
Microsoft Corp
Google Inc
Citigroup Inc
JPMorgan Chase & Co
Time Warner
Sidley Austin LLP
Stanford University
National Amusements Inc
UBS AG
Wilmerhale Llp
Skadden, Arps
IBM Corp
Columbia University
Morgan Stanley
General Electric
US Government
Latham & Watkins

Open Secrets: Top Contributors to Barack Obama

(via Black Sun Gazette)

The poll found that only 59% of voters believe that President Obama was born in the United States, with 23% saying he was not, and 18% undecided. Among Republicans only, a 42% Birther plurality say he was not born here, 37% say he was, and 22% are undecided.

As for the left, check out this question: “Do you think President Bush intentionally allowed the 9/11 attacks to take place because he wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East?” The top-line response is 14% yes, 78% no, and 8% undecided. But among Democrats, it’s a somewhat larger Truther contingent, at 25%-63%-12%.

The poll also extends this poll of conservative New Jersey voters on whether they believe Obama is the Antichrist to all voters. The interesting result here is that 25% of Democrats either believe Bush is the Antichrist or are unsure. Crikey.

TPMDC: Poll Begs Question: Is Extremism Mainstream?

(via Jay Rosen)

At least religion is on the decline.

Actually, this is not so shocking:

A new Public Policy Polling survey of New Jersey voters has some shocking results: 21 percent either believe or aren’t sure that President Obama is the Anti-Christ. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans and 35 percent of “conservative” voters also either believe he is or aren’t sure.

Think Progress: Thirty-five percent of New Jersey conservative voters think Obama may be the Anti-Christ.

(via Nick P)

The Obama administration has told Congress it supports renewing three provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire at year’s end, measures making it easier for the government to spy within the United States.

In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said the administration might consider “modifications” to the act in order to protect civil liberties.

“The administration is willing to consider such ideas, provided that they do not undermine the effectiveness of these important authorities,” Ronald Weich, assistant attorney general, wrote to Leahy, (.pdf) whose committee is expected to consider renewing the three expiring Patriot Act provisions next week. The government disclosed the letter Tuesday.

Full Story: Threat Level

This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the right’s usual stances on education:

If there is anybody out there who still doesn’t believe that the conservative media will attack President Obama no matter what he does, consider this: Right-wingers are telling children to skip school as a protest against Obama’s encouragement of students to stay in school. [...]

There’s nothing you can imagine that is too crazy for these people to say. They’ll claim Barack Obama was secretly born in Kenya (his birth announcements in Hawaiian newspapers were just one part of an elaborate, decades-long conspiracy involving Kenyans, the media, Hawaii’s Republican governor, and the Stonecutters). They’ll say he has a diabolical plan to create government “death panels” to kill off the old and the young. They’ll claim he is building a secret private army (consisting of — I swear I am not making this up — AmeriCorps and Peace Corps volunteers) that is “just as strong” as the U.S. military so that he can “seize power” and create a “thugocracy.” [...]

So Glenn Beck and his fellow tinfoil hat-wearers sprang into action. Beck went off on his “indoctrination” rant, warning of secret private armies (no, he isn’t worried about Blackwater — it’s the thought of English majors signing up to help teach people how to read that keeps him up at night).

Media Matters: Conservative media take a strong stand against … learning?!?

(via Atom Jack)

BTW, Glenn Beck was never really on my radar until recently, but his utter madness keeps coming up lately. Was he always this crazy, or did he recently snap or something?

For many of the people at the top of the party, this is merely cynical manipulation. One of Bush’s former advisers, David Kuo, has said the President and Karl Rove would mock evangelicals as “nuts” as soon as they left the Oval Office. But the ordinary Republican base believe this stuff. They are being tricked into opposing their own interests through false fears and invented demons. Last week, one of the Republicans sent to disrupt a healthcare town hall started a fight and was injured – and then complained he had no health insurance. I didn’t laugh; I wanted to weep.

How do they train themselves to be so impervious to reality? It begins, I suspect, with religion. They are taught from a young age that it is good to have “faith” – which is, by definition, a belief without any evidence to back it up. You don’t have “faith” that Australia exists, or that fire burns: you have evidence. You only need “faith” to believe the untrue or unprovable. Indeed, they are taught that faith is the highest aspiration and most noble cause. Is it any surprise this then percolates into their political views? Faith-based thinking spreads and contaminates the rational.

Truthout: Republicans, Religion and the Triumph of Unreason

(via Disinfo)

At an appearance before the Veterans of Foreign Wars yesterday, President Obama defended U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, calling it a “war of necessity.” He claimed that “our new strategy has a clear mission and defined goals — to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies,” and he declared that “If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

This is a significant statement. In effect, the president was acknowledging that the only strategic rationale for an increased commitment in Afghanistan is the fear that if the Taliban isn’t defeated in Afghanistan, they will eventually allow al Qaeda to re-establish itself there, which would then enable it to mount increasingly threatening attacks on the United States.

This is the kind of assertion that often leads foreign policy insiders to nod their heads in agreement, but it shouldn’t be accepted uncritically. Here are a few reasons why the “safe haven” argument ought to be viewed with some skepticism.

Foreign Policy: The “safe haven” myth

(via Jorn Barger)

Just because the crazies are sinking their fangs into Obama lately doesn’t let him off the hook:

According to court papers, on April 7, 2009, Azar and a Lebanese-American colleague, Dinorah Cobos, were seized by “at least eight” heavily armed FBI agents in Kabul, Afghanistan, where they had traveled for a meeting to discuss the status of one of his company’s U.S. government contracts. The trip ended with Azar alighting in manacles from a Gulfstream V executive jet in Manassas, Virginia, where he was formally arrested and charged in a federal antitrust probe.

This rendition involved no black sites and was clearly driven by a desire to get the target quickly before a court. Also unlike renditions of the Bush-era, the target wasn’t even a terror suspect; rather, he was suspected of fraud. But in a troubling intimation of the last administration, accusations of torture hover menacingly over the case. According to papers filed by his lawyers, Azar was threatened, subjected to coercive interrogation techniques and induced to sign a confession. Azar claims he was hooded, stripped naked (while being photographed) and subjected to a “body cavity search.”

Huffington Post: Target Of Obama-Era Rendition Alleges Torture

This is the most depressing part of the town hall mob movement:

Yes, well-heeled interest groups are helping to organize the town hall mobs. [...]

But while the organizers are as crass as they come, I haven’t seen any evidence that the people disrupting those town halls are Florida-style rent-a-mobs. For the most part, the protesters appear to be genuinely angry. The question is, what are they angry about?

There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands. Now, people who don’t know that Medicare is a government program probably aren’t reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing.

New York Times: The Town Hall Mob

(via Sloppy Unruh)

When President Obama – in one of his first official acts – committed his new administration to an “unprecedented” level of transparency, EFF applauded the change in policy. Likewise, when Attorney General Holder, at the President’s direction, issued new guidelines liberalizing agency implementation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), we welcomed it as a “particularly promising development.” But we also noted that it remained to be seen whether reality would match the rhetoric as the new policy was applied, particularly in the context of pending lawsuits – several of which EFF is pursuing – that challenge Bush-era decisions to withhold requested information. [...]

The FBI’s failure to change course in the IDW case is not the only situation in which EFF has found that the administration’s actions are not yet living up to its pro-transparency rhetoric. We have clearly noted our disappointment in finding that the Obama administration has adopted the Bush policy with respect to the state secrets privilege in the context of illegal wiretapping. And the White House has not even bothered to respond to EFF’s formal requests for information concerning the use of cookies (PDF) at whitehouse.gov and the policies governing records created on White House BlackBerries and similar devices (PDF). For an administration that promised on Day One that it was “committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government,” the early track record leaves a great deal to be desired. It’s now time to start delivering on that promise.

EFF: Obama’s Transparency Promise: We’re Still Waiting

(via Disinfo)

Radley Balko on Obama’s drug war policies:

To give credit where it’s due, Attorney General Eric Holder did at least vow to end the DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have legalized the drug for treatment. But the DEA conducted another raid in California a week after that announcement, and it is not yet clear if the Justice Department will continue to pursue existing cases, such as the outrageous prosecution of Charlie Lynch, the owner of a California medical marijuana shop who faces a 40-year sentence on federal drug charges, even though local authorities told him he was in full compliance with state law.

Obama could distinguish himself in Mexico today by taking the thoughtful, nuanced approach to the drug issue he embraced before he started to run for president. Sadly, it is more likely that he’ll endorse the same failed policies of his predecessors, which will mean more violence and carnage for Mexico, with little if any effect on the drug supply in America.

Daily Beast: Obama’s Demented Drug Policy

Sounds like the vow to stop medical marijuana raids is yet another bait and switch, a familiar pattern to observers of the administration already.

is that everything he’s been doing is just for “plausible deniablity.” That he’s playing the game for now and soon he’ll be able to say “Look, I tried escalating the war in Afghanistan, I tried giving limitless amounts of money to corporations, I tried ‘bipartisanship’ – none of these things worked. Now it’s time to try something different.”

That is, I know, a very dim hope. (I think the thing about bipartisanship is the most likely, but even the idea that he’ll stop “reaching across the aisle” knowing he’s going to get bitten seems too optimistic at this point.)

See also:

Obama’s “enemy combatant” policy: following a familiar pattern.

Yeah, WTF? That’s by comics’ version of a grindhouse director, Rob Liefeld. It makes no sense to me either.

Via: Occasional Superheroine