The non-debate regarding Susan Rice

Glenn Greenwald reports on the lack of meaningful debate regarding Susan Rice:

Virtually all of this debate has concerned Rice's statements on a series of Sunday news shows in September, during which she claimed that the Benghazi attack was primarily motivated by spontaneous anger over an anti-Islam film rather than an coordinated attack by a terrorist group. Everyone now acknowledges that (consistent with the standard pattern of this administration's behavior) Rice's statements were inaccurate, but in a majestic display of intellectual dexterity, progressive pundits claim with a straight face that public officials should be excused when they make false statements based on what the CIA tells them to say, while conservatives claim with a straight face that relying on flawed and manipulated intelligence reports is no excuse. All of that is standard, principle-free partisan jockeying. It goes without saying that if this were Condoleezza rather than Susan Rice, the two sides would have exactly opposite positions on whether these inaccurate statements should be held against her. None of that is worth examining. But what is remarkable is how so many Democrats are devoting so much energy to defending a possible Susan Rice nomination as Secretary of State without even pretending to care about her record and her beliefs. It's not even part of the discussion.

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Bradley Manning in a sentence

Found this cartoon on Facebook, but cannot determine how to link directly to it, even at the site mentioned in the cartoon. I'm reprinting it because it is one of the best statements I've seen regarding of America's massive denial regarding the significance of the actions of Bradley Manning: Glenn Greenwald , Greg Mitchell, Truthdig.com and Amy Goodman have been among the relatively few media sources giving serious coverage to Bradley Manning (and to Wikileaks). What kinds of scandals has Bradley Manning revealed? Here are more than a few.

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The revolving door and Obamacare

Glenn Greenwald notes another "revolving door" betrayal of the American Public:

Whatever one's views on Obamacare were and are: the bill's mandate that everyone purchase the products of the private health insurance industry, unaccompanied by any public alternative, was a huge gift to that industry; as Wheeler wrote at the time: "to the extent that Liz Fowler is the author of this document, we might as well consider WellPoint its author as well." Watch the five-minute Bill Moyers report from 2009, embedded below, on the key role played in all of this by Liz Fowler and the "revolving door" between the health insurance/lobbying industry and government officials at the time this bill was written and passed . . . Now, as Politico's "Influence" column briefly noted on Tuesday, Fowler is once again passing through the deeply corrupting revolving door as she leaves the Obama administration to return to the loving and lucrative arms of the private health care industry.

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What Bradley Manning did.

Jeffrey Tucker sizes up Bradley Manning:

He didn’t cheat. He didn’t make anything up. He didn’t even hurt anyone. All he did was reveal what is true. (The best background on the case comes from Wikipedia.) The result was explosive in showing the world what goes on behind the scenes in the wars for democracy. He showed innocents being slaughtered, people taking pleasure in bombings and killings, a gigantic catalog of deceptions and tricky, and much more. It wasn’t hard to find this material. He only had to download it and upload it. Any true American would have done the same — or should have. It takes guts to stand up for what is right. He has languished in prison for two and a half years, for the Orwellian crime of revealing the truth. Julian Assange is exactly right that he is a hero.

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