Dem Sens. Rip Obama's Hindrance of Investigation of Torture

Udall, Rockefeller (US Senate Historical Office)

Last week, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the executive summary of its investigation of the Detention and Interrogation Program of the Central Intelligence Agency.  In statements made later from the floor of the Senate, two Democrats on the said committee -- Mark Udall, who is the senior senator from Colorado, and John "Jay" Rockefeller IV, who is the senior senator from West Virginia -- spoke of President Obama's interference with their work on this matter and of his refusal to appropriately respond to many facts about it.  The following are excerpts from the speech by Udall, many of which were apparently not online in writing as delivered and that I therefore transcribed.  Boldface is added.
_

The process of compiling, drafting, redacting and now releasing this report has been much harder than it needed to be...  By releasing the Intelligence Committee's landmark report, we reaffirm that we are a nation that does not hide from its past but learns from it, and that an honest examination of our shortcomings is not a sign of weakness but the strength of our great republic.  From the heavily redacted version... delivered to the committee by the CIA in August, we made significant progress in clearing away the thick, obfuscating fog these redactions represented...  [O]ur committee chipped away at over 400 areas of disagreement with the administration on redactions down to just a few...  [T]he redaction process itself was filled with unwarranted and completely unnecessary obstacles...

Congressional oversight is... especially important to those parts of the government that operate in secret, as the Church Committee discovered decades ago.  The challenges the Church Committee... discovered are still with us today: how to ensure secret government actions are conducted within the confines of the law...

In light of the president's... executive order disavowing torture, his... acknowledgement "we tortured some folks," and Asst. Secy. of State [Tomasz] Malinowski's statement... to the UN Committee against Torture that "we hope to lead by example" in correcting our mistakes, one would think this administration is leading the efforts to right the wrongs of the past and ensure the American people learn the truth about the CIA's torture program.  Not so.

The late Sen. Frank
Church, D-ID (US Senate
Historical Office)

In fact, it has been nearly a six-year struggle [with] a Democratic administration, no less, to get this study out...  I worried this administration would succeed in keeping this study entirely under wraps.  So, while the study clearly shows the CIA's detention and interrogation program itself was deeply flawed, the deeper, more endemic problem lies in a CIA, assisted by a White House, that continues to try to cover up the truth.  It's this deeper problem that illustrates the challenge we face today: reforming an agency that refuses to even acknowledge what it has done...

Those who criticize the committee's study for [supposedly] overly focusing on the past should understand its findings directly relate to how the CIA operates today...  We know about the nearly 1,000 documents the CIA electronically removed from the committee's dedicated database on two occasions in 2010, which the CIA claimed its personnel did at the direction of the White House...

From the beginning of his term as CIA director, John Brennan was openly hostile toward and dismissive of the committee's oversight and its efforts to review the detention and interrogation program.  During his confirmation hearing, I obtained a promise from John Brennan he would meet with committee staff on the study once confirmed.  After his confirmation, he changed his mind.

In December 2012, when the classified study was approved in a bipartisan vote, the committee asked the White House to coordinate any executive branch comments prior to declassification.  The White House provided no comment.  Instead, the CIA responded for the executive branch... on June 27, 2013.  The CIA's formal response to this study under Director Brennan clings to false narratives about the CIA's effectiveness when it comes to the CIA's detention and interrogation program.  It includes many factual inaccuracies, defends the use of torture, and attacks the committee's oversight and findings...  I believe its flippant and dismissive tone represents the CIA's approach to oversight and the White House's willingness to let the CIA do whatever it likes...

In March 2009, then-CIA director Leon Panetta announced the formation of a director's review group to look at the agency's detention and interrogation program...  The director's review group looked at the same CIA documents that were being provided to our committee and they produced a series of documents that became the Panetta Review...  [T]he Panetta Review corroborates many of the significant findings of the committee's study.  Moreover, the Panetta Review frankly acknowledges significant problems and errors made in the CIA's detention and interrogation program.  Many of these same errors are denied or minimized in the Brennan Response...

Brennan (CIA)

[D]rafts of the Panetta Review had been provided by the CIA unknowingly to our committee's staff years before...  So, when the committee received the Brennan Response, I expected a recognition of errors and a clear plan to ensure the mistakes identified would not be repeated...  Instead, the CIA continued not only to defend the program and deny any wrongdoing but also to deny its own conclusions to the contrary found in the Panetta Review.  In light of those clear factual disparities..., committee staff grew concerned the CIA was knowingly providing inaccurate information to the committee in the present day, which is a serious offense...  I've requested the full document, a request that has been denied by Dir. Brennan...  Dir. Brennan and the CIA today are continuing to willfully provide inaccurate information and misrepresent the efficacy of torture.  In other words, the CIA is lying...

Let me turn to the search of the Intelligence Committee's... dedicated computers in January.  The CIA's illegal search was conducted out of concern the committee staff was provided with the Panetta Review...  Instead of just asking the committee if it had access to the Panetta Review, the CIA searched, without authorization or notification, the committee computers the agency had agreed were off limits, and in so doing, the agency may have violated... the Constitution as well as federal criminal statues and Executive Order 12333...  [D]espite admitting behind closed doors to the committee the CIA conducted the search, Dir. Brennan publicly... said such allegations of computer hacking were beyond "the scope of reason."

The CIA then made a criminal referral to the Dept. of Justice against the committee staff... working on the study.  Chairman [Dianne] Feinstein believed these actions were an effort to intimidate the committee staff -- the very staff charged with CIA oversight -- and I strongly agree with her...

The CIA's inspector general subsequently opened an investigation into the CIA's unauthorized search and found... CIA employees did, in fact, improperly access the committee's dedicated computers.  The investigation found no basis for the criminal referral on the committee staff.  The IG also found the CIA personnel involved demonstrated a "lack of candor about their activities" to the inspector general...  [T]he full report should be declassified and publicly released, in part because Dir. Brennan still refuses to answer the committee's questions about the search...

Panetta (Glenn Fawcett/
Dept. of Defense)

To date, there has been no accountability for the CIA's actions or for Dir. Brennan's failure of leadership.  Despite the facts presented, the president has expressed full confidence in Dir. Brennan and demonstrated that trust by making no effort at all to reign him in.  The president stated [it would not be] appropriate for him to wade into these issues that exist between the committee and the CIA...  [T]he committee should be able to do its oversight work consistent with our constitutional principle of the separation of powers without the CIA posing impediments or obstacles as it has and as it continues to do today.  For the White House to not recognize this principle and the gravity of the CIA's actions deeply troubles me...  Far from being a disinterested observer in the committee/CIA battles, the White House has played a central role from the start.  If... Panetta's memoir is to be believed, the president was unhappy about Dir. Panetta's initial agreement with the committee in 2009 to allow staff access to operational cables and other sensitive documents about the torture program...

There are more questions that need answers about the role of the White House in the committee's study.  For example, there are the 9,400 documents... withheld from the committee by the White House...  The White House has never made a formal claim of executive privilege over the documents, yet it has failed to respond to the chairman's request for the documents or to compromise-proposals she has offered to review a summary listing of them.  When I asked CIA general counsel Stephen Preston about the documents, he noted "the agency has deferred to the White House and has not been substantially involved in subsequent discussions about the disposition of these documents."  ...White House officials need to explain why they pulled back documents the CIA believed were relevant to the committee's investigation and responsive to our direct request.

The White House has not led on this issue in the manner we expected when we heard the president's campaign speeches in 2008 and read the executive order he issued...  [A]fter so much has come to light about the CIA's barbaric program... Pres. Obama's response was that we "crossed a line" as a nation and that "hopefully, we don't do it again..."  That's not good enough.  We need to be better than that.  There can be no cover-up.  There can be no excuses.  If there's no more leadership from the White House helping the public understand the CIA's torture program wasn't necessary..., what's to stop the next White House and CIA director from supporting torture?

Feinstein, D-CA (US
Senate Historical Office)

Finally, the White House has not led on transparency as then-Senator Obama promised...  [C]onsistent with his promise, Pres. Obama issued Executive Order 13526, which clarified information should be classified to protect sources and methods but not to obscure key facts or cover up embarrassing or illegal acts.  But actions speak louder than words.  This administration... has released information only when forced to by a leak or by a court order or by an oversight committee.  The redactions to the committee's executive summary... have been a case study in this refusal to be open.  Despite requests both the chairman and I made for the White House alone to lead the declassification process, it was given by the White House to the CIA -- the same agency that is the focus of this report -- and predictably, the redacted version that came back to the committee... obscured key facts and undermined key findings and conclusions of the study.  The CIA... included unnecessary redactions [of]... unclassified information..., presumably to make it more difficult for the public to understand the study's findings...

[T]he White House and the CIA would not agree to include any pseudonyms in the study to disguise the names of CIA officers...  [I]t's unprecedented for the CIA to demand and the White House agree every CIA officer's pseudonym in a study be blacked out...  We asked the CIA to identify any instances in the summary wherein a... pseudonym would result in the outing of any undercover officer, and they could not...  The CIA's insistence on blacking out even the fake names of its officers is problematic because the study is less readable and has lost some of its narrative thread...

[P]eople engaged in torture.  Some of these people are still employed by the CIA...  It's bad enough not to prosecute these officials, but to reward or promote them and risk the integrity of the US government to protect them is incomprehensible.  The president needs to purge his administration of high-level officials who were instrumental to... this program.  He needs to force a cultural change at the CIA.  The president also should support legislation limiting interrogation to non-coercive techniques to ensure his own executive order is codified and to prevent a future administration from developing its own torture program.  The president must ensure the Panetta Review is declassified and publicly released.  The full 6,800-page study on the CIA's detention and interrogation program should be declassified and released...

It is always easier to accept what we are told at face value than it is to ask tough questions.  [But i]f we rely on others to tell us what's behind their own curtain instead of taking a look for ourselves, we can't know for certain what's there...  [I]t's incumbent on government leaders... to live up to the dedication of [government] employees and to make them proud of the institutions they work for...  [F]or Dir. Brennan, that means resigning.  For the next CIA director, that means immediately correcting the false record and instituting the necessary reforms to restore the CIA's reputation for integrity and analytical rigor.  The CIA cannot be its best until it faces the serious and grievous mistakes of the detention and interrogation program.  And for Pres. Obama, that means taking real action to live up to the pledges he made early in his presidency. 
_

The additional information Rockefeller's remarks provided about Obama's efforts to frustrate the committee's performance was, "In some instances, the White House asked not only that information be redacted but that the redaction itself be removed so it would be impossible for the reader to tell something was hidden.  Strange."

On Local Level, Greens Score Victories and Strong Showings

To follow up on the entry from November 7, here is an incomplete list of contenders of the Green Party who garnered 5% of the vote or more in races that ended on Nov. 4 for county, city and town offices.  (Because many counts have not concluded, some of these percentages might not be final.)

Green candidates in nonpartisan elections
Dan Hamburg re-elected to Board of Supervisors of Mendocino County, CA*

Bruce Delgado re-elected mayor of Marina, CA

The sunflower is a symbol
of the Green Party.
(Jim Pisarowicz / NPS)

Gayle McLaughlin re-elected to Council of Richmond, CA
Michael Beilstein re-elected to Council of Corvallis, OR
John Keener re-elected to Council of Pacifica, CA 

Paul Pitino elected to Council of Arcata, CA
Jonathan Ault elected to Council of Gardiner, ME
Deborah Heatherstone elected to Council of Point Arena, CA

John Eder elected to Bd. of Education of Portland, ME
Eric Petersen: 35% for Council of Salinas, CA
Mark Iacuaniello: 18% for Council of Fort Bragg, CA ‡
Chrystal Coleman: 17% for Council of Vista, CA †
Jane Rands: 13% for Council of Fullerton, CA §
Juan Fernandez: 13% for Council of Arcata †

James Brown: 12% for Bd. of Supvrs. of Lake County, CA*

John Johns: 8% for Council of Ukiah, CA #

Jack Wagner: 7% for Council of Sonoma, CA #

Michael Feinstein: 6% for Council of Santa Monica, CA~

Eddie Pfau: 5% for Court of Common Pleas of Franklin County, OH

Green nominees
Thomas Mair: 44% for Bd. of Commissioners of Grand Traverse County, MI
Erika Martinez: 43% for commissioner of Webb County, TX
Wayne Vermilya: 42% for Bd. of Comrs. of Presque Isle County, MI
Sarah Molenaar: 21% for Bd. of Comrs. of Kalamazoo County, MI
Douglas Lary^: 18% for registrar of voters of Windham, CT
David Collins: 17% for Court of Harris County, TX
Schyler Butler: 17% for clerk of Denton County, TX
Luis Decker: 15% for commissioner of Webb County
Jesus Quiroz: 15% for treasurer of Webb County
Frank Cortez: 13% for Court of Webb County
Thaddeus Hanser: 12% for Probate Court of Stamford, CT
Matthew Hanson: 10% for clerk of Comal County, TX
Dianna Strickland: 8% for Commission of Kanawha County, WV

*In primary held June 3
^Ran also on the Bottom Line slate
†Five-way race for two seats
‡Five-way, three seats
§Seven-way, two seats
#Eight-way, three seats
~Fourteen-way, three seats

Dems Stay So Conservative, or Become Moreso, at Their Peril

As President Obama has headed the Democratic Party for over six years, some of his defenders have helped to shore up his support among liberals by falsely arguing this nation would not tolerate an agenda that is any further to the left than his.  That argument is easily disproved by polling, yet now bolsters the notion that the party should react to their failure in this month's midterm elections by moving even closer toward the Republicans' conservative policies instead of, for the first time in several cycles, offering a clear alternative to them.

Although Obama, since 2012, has caught up with the public on marriage equality, on certain proposed regulations of guns, and on George W. Bush's tax cuts for households that have an income of over $450,000 per year, the current chief executive remains to the right of most of the people of the US on numerous critical issues, as the following graphic shows.  Democrats should consider this before continuing to follow his lead as their party decides how to move onward.

Why the Discrepancy?

The re-election of Rep. Scott DesJarlais MD (R-TN) -- who is anti-choice -- after he was fined for (extramarital) sexual relationships with his patients, one of whom he encouraged to have an abortion, demonstrates continuation of the...

Photo Credits - Condit, Vitter, Weiner, Sanford: Congressional Pictorial Directory; Massa, Wu:
Collection of the US House of Representatives; Schwarzenegger, Spitzer: Dept. of State;
Craig, Edwards: US Senate Historical Office; Gingrich: Dept. of Education

On Election Day, Greens Continued to Prove Viable

In the general election cycle of 2014, the candidacy I watched most closely was of Howie Hawkins for governor of New York.  He drew nearly quadruple the percentage he did when he sought said office in 2010.  In both contests, he ran on the slate of the Green Party and finished third among the gubernatorial nominees.  This time, eight lines on the ballot had a ticket for governor and lieutenant governor that received enough votes to secure, for its line, a row on the ballot for every partisan election in NY over the next four years.  Because the Green ticket placed fourth, its line rose from Row F to Row D.  (The Conservative Party cross-nominated the Republican ticket and placed third.)

Numerous Greens did well in and, in some cases, won local elections this year.  But for now, I pieced together this possibly incomplete list of Green nominees for federal and state office who garnered 5% of the vote or more in races that ended on Tuesday.  Some percentages may not be final, as counts often take weeks or months to complete.

Hawkins (gp.org)

For Congress
Paul Blair: 18% in TX3
Antonio Diaz: 15% in TX21

Daniel Vila Rivera: 13% in NY13 
Matthew Funiciello: 11% in NY21 
Robert Smith: 7% in TN1 
Nancy Wade: 6% in IL5 
Paula Bradshaw: 6% in IL12
Barry Hermanson: 6% in CA12* 
Michael Cary: 5% in TX28

For State Judicial or State Executive Office

Matthew Donohue elected to Circuit Court for Dist. 21 of OR
Judith Sanders-Castro: 10% for Criminal Appeals Court of TX

George Altgelt: 9% for Criminal Appeals Court of TX

Jim Chisolm: 9% for Supreme Court of TX

Ellen Brown*: 7% for treasurer of CA

Laura Wells*: 6% for controller of CA

Howie Hawkins: 5% for governor of NY 
Catherine Damavandi: 5% for attorney general of DE

For State Legislature - SD: Senate District, HD: House (of Reps./Dels.) Dist., AD: Assembly Dist.

Lauren Besanko: 28% for HD39 in ME

Owen Hill: 27% for SD28 in ME

Martin Wirth: 25% for SD2 in CO

Paige Brown: 24% for HD97 in ME

Keiko Bonk: 23% for HD20 in HI

Daniel Lutz: 22% for HD66 in WV

Cedric Gates: 22% for HD44 in HI

Mark Myers: 19% for HD11 in WV

Bonnie Troy: 19% for HD135 in CT

David McCorquodale: 19% for HD21 in DE

Frederick Horch: 18% for SD24 in ME

Asher Platts: 18% for SD27 in ME

Amy Balderrama: 17% for SD23 in TN

David Courard-Hauri: 17% for HD41 in IA

Samuel Chandler: 17% for HD36 in ME

Wells
("Democracy Now!")

Sue Edward: 15% for HD114 in SC

Lisa Willey: 15% for HD66 in ME

Paul Ingmundson: 14% for HD123 in TX

Lena Buggs: 14% for HD65A in MN

Matthew Went: 14% for HD84 in CT

Edward Heflin: 13% for SD36 in CT

Nicolas Serna III: 12% for HD42 in TX

David Bedell: 12% for HD125 in CT

Alice Knapp: 12% for SD23 in ME

Mark Diehl: 11% for SD29 in ME

Daniel Stromgren: 11% for HD54 in ME

Marco Buentello: 10% for HD80 in TX

Kelly Hanna: 10% for HD122 in CT

Andrew Reddy: 10% for HD33 in ME

Arthur Browning: 9% for HD130 in TX

Mark Holsinger: 9% for HD54 in TN

Daniel Robinson: 9% for HD20 in MD
Pamela Elizondo*: 9% for AD2 in CA

John Lindblad*: 8% for SD18 in CA
Paul Gilman: 8% for SD11 in NY 

Morgan Bradford: 8% for HD146 in TX

Michael Wakefield: 8% for HD23 in ME
Elaine Mastromatteo: 6% for HD64 in OH

Randall Parr: 6% for HD95 in ME
Alexander Polikoff: 5% for HD23 in OR

*Green candidate in nonpartisan primary held June 3

Review of the Gubernatorial Debate in New York

Election Day is this Tuesday.  In the race for governor of the Empire State, Republican Democratic nominee Status-Quomo -- I mean Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Robert Astorino jointly agreed to only one debate.  Included were Green nominee Howie Hawkins and Libertarian nominee Michael McDermott.  Because Cuomo is the incumbent and I back Hawkins, this recap of the event focuses on those two contenders.

Cuomo proclaimed in his opening statement, "[W]e have Democrats and Republicans working together again."  However, his conspiracy has helped give to the Democrats in the state legislature no choice but to compromise with their Republican colleagues in order to pass legislation.

The flag of NY in front of the State Capitol.
(nysenate.gov)

Hawkins remarked in his opening statement, "I call for a Green New Deal for New York...  Real solutions cannot wait.  The time for real change has come."

Cuomo soon touted some of his right-wing credentials, bragging that he has brought about the lowest corporate tax rate since 1968 and that, "We just won an award because, from a business point of view, NY went from #25 to #4 according to a conservative organization that studies taxes."  In an embrace of long-discredited propaganda of Reaganomics, he added, "So we've brought down taxes and that has brought up jobs -- 511,000 new jobs.  This state has more jobs than it has ever had."

Given the growth in population, growth in the mere number of jobs is unimpressive when one considers that the state's unemployment rate exceeds the national average.

Hawkins responded, "Trickle-down corporate welfare does not trickle down to workers and small businesses.  What we need is a bottom-up, full-employment, wage-led economic development policy that raises demand, [which] gives real incentive to business to invest and hire."  The Marine Corps veteran continued, "[T]he best way we can do that is to commit to 100% clean energy over the next 15 years...  [A] peer-reviewed study from researchers at Cornell and Stanford says if we were to do that, we would create 4.5 million... middle-income jobs in construction and manufacturing and would cut electric rates in half."

The Teamster further added, "Take healthcare off the business budget via a single-payer system for the state.  And... restor[e] the progressive taxes we had in the 1970s and the revenue sharing we had then.  Local governments would receive eight times as much [state aid] as they do now.  They could lower their property taxes and still pay for their schools and services."

Cuomo, although he accused Astorino of hypocrisy on hydrofracking, again refused to take a position on it until after the election.  Cuomo insulted our intelligence when he said, "Academic studies come out all different ways.  Let the experts decide."

Hawkins
("Democracy Now!")

His feigned ignorance was rebutted in Hawkins's next statement: "[W]e should ban fracking because it endangers the climate.  Burned gas heats up the planet because of the release of carbon and of methane, and pollutes water and land.  We already know that...  Five percent of fracking wells fail as soon as they're drilled, 50% within 15 years, according to a study of 41,000 wells drilled in southwest Pennsylvania recently.  Mr. Cuomo says he is waiting for the science.  But when some science came back from the US Geological Survey, his administration wanted to change the results."

McDermott espoused the idea of legalization of industrial hemp.  He explained that it "can't be smoked but can create jobs.  It has four crops a year, ...[and] needs no pesticides.  The cotton industry dislikes industrial hemp because it can be made into cheaper and better clothes."  (Hawkins's platform includes the same measure.)

Despite a request by Astorino, Cuomo did not disclose whether he has been subpoenaed as part of the federal investigation into his conduct with regard to the anti-corruption Moreland Commission.

Hawkins pledged to re-impanel it and to push for a system of clean financing of election campaigns, and argued that in order to reduce conflicts of interest, state "legislators should be banned from outside income.  They should work full-time for us."  He later stated, "Mr. Cuomo has sometimes said the Moreland panel was independent.  At other times, he said because he created it, he had the right to shut it down...  You have to wonder why he did..."

With the endorsement of the Buffalo Teachers Federation, the Plainview - Old Bethpage Congress of Teachers, the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Assoc., the Valley Central Teachers Assoc., the Lakeland Federation of Teachers, the East Williston Teachers Assoc. and fmr. US asst. secy. of Education Diane Ravitch PhD, Hawkins told us he, unlike Cuomo, opposes Common Core.  Hawkins explained, "I hear from a lot of teachers, students and parents that... this whole package is a regime of tests and punishment, not of support and improvement, narrows the curriculum, dumbs down to filling in bubbles, and ignores a lot of other things about education: ...questioning, collaboration, cooperative projects.  I want for local parents, teachers and school boards to make the decisions about curriculum."

Hawkins's running mate
is educator Brian Jones.
("Democracy Now!")

Astorino pointed out that Cuomo "tried to swipe $5[11]M from a... clean-water fund" in order to finance construction on the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Hawkins noted, "Rather than go to Wall St. and pay huge finance charges, a way to more economically finance infrastructure would be to have a state bank like North Dakota does.  The interest and principal would go back into the public treasury."

Astorino reminded us that Cuomo, although he claims to be a champion of women's rights, "disrespects women by supporting [Speaker] Shelly Silver, who used $500,000 in state money as a hush-money coverup for sexual assaults in the Assembly."  The county executive of Westchester added that "as attorney general, Cuomo signed off [on] and defended Silver's right to do that."

Hawkins articulated his stance against expansion of charter schools, elaborating, "Public schools fail because we're the most segregated state in the US, ...we have concentrated poverty, ...those problems come into the schools, ...they don't get the resources they need, ...then they're defined as failed by this high-stakes testing, ...then they're turned over to charters, where... there are a bunch of hedge-fund investors who take advantage of federal tax credits and make money even though those charters are nominally nonprofit.  This is a cannibalization of our public school system.  I'm for full and equitable funds for public schools."

McDermott observed, "Charter schools," which are supported by Cuomo, "are publicly-funded schools that have no local control."

Cuomo gave a non-answer to the question about this issue, then maintained his opposition to legalization of recreational marijuana, but Hawkins made the case "for the legalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana like Washington State and Colorado now have," explaining, "We have an enormous problem of tens of thousands of people imprisoned irrationally for nonviolent possession of and use of marijuana.  That imprisonment has destroyed communities, families, and individuals' opportunities in life, and is targeted at black and Latino communities so that -- while blacks, whites and Latinos use drugs at the same levels -- 94% of prisoners in the state penitentiaries who are there because of drug offenses are black or Latino.  For nonviolent drug offenders... and those who have gone through the system, I would provide clemency so they would not be branded when they go for housing, jobs and education.  I also call for a truth, justice and reconciliation commission to examine the damages and then make recommendations for how we can put these communities and families back together."

Hawkins, in his closing statement, pitched a living minimum wage of $15 per hour and a tax plan that would mean relief for 95% of the state's taxpayers but a 20% increase in revenue.  "I'm polling at 9%.  That's a record for a... progressive third-party candidate in NY history in a statewide election.  But we can go much higher," he said.  "If we get out the vote, and vote for what we want, we can win this election.  Vote Green."

Adams Was Born on This Date in 1735

Believing this quotation warrants an Internet meme, I set it over one of Gilbert Stuart's portraits of this nation's second president, who penned the words in a letter to his wife Abigail on April 26, 1777.  They are especially appropriate to consider at this time of year, as we are close to Election Day.

Tributes to Bradlee Remind Us What Real Journalism Is

Bradlee (White House)

Benjamin Bradlee died Tuesday.  He was editor of The Washington Post when its coverage of the Pentagon Papers survived a legal challenge by the administration of President Richard Nixon.  Those documents had been leaked by Daniel Ellsberg PhD and exposed dishonesty by the government of this country about its war in Vietnam.  Bradlee's tenure continued as said newspaper broke the Watergate scandal, which resulted in the resignation of the aforementioned president.

The choice by Pres. Obama to award the Medal of Freedom -- the highest civilian honor in the land -- to Bradlee last year was ironic given that this administration is more hostile to the media than any other administration of the US was since that of Nixon.  Despite such hostility, the media should learn from the example Bradlee set when he demonstrated he understood that the responsibilities of journalism include to critically question and aggressively investigate, not to blindly accept as fact the word of officials in government.

In order for freedom of the press to have meaning, reporters must prioritize the public interest over their desire for access to -- and over their instinct to cave to intimidation tactics by -- officials who are supposed to serve the people; and the voters must elect candidates who oppose such tactics, which include surveillance of journalists and which include (threats of) punishment for leaks of information that need not be secret.

This Wednesday, Governor 1% Will Finally Face the Music

The only debate in which Governor Andrew Cuomo (Republican -- Oops, I mean Democrat) will participate as he seeks re-election will be aired live on October 22.

Cuomo, being the most corrupt chief executive of New York in history, rarely makes himself publicly available for adversarial questions.

The event will include Green nominee Howie Hawkins, who is on track to break the record for percentage drawn by a candidate of any left-wing third party in a general gubernatorial election in the Empire State.  I dedicated the pictured pumpkin to the contender in that race who has my support.

Who's Ready?

Reportedly, former secretary of State Hillary Clinton might begin another candidacy for president sooner than expected were her party to hit a new level of lameness by losing the Senate to the Republicans next month.  To help clarify who is likely among those eager for the former first lady to again seek the highest office in this land, I enhanced an image from the "Ready for Hillary" super-PAC.

Prepared for Jill

The super-PAC known as "Ready for Hillary" tries to own the idea of support for a female candidate for this nation's highest office.  But the two latest presidential (and vice presidential) nominees of the Green Party are women, most recently Jill Stein MD, who drew a higher percentage of the popular vote than any other woman had in a general election for president of the United States.

With hope for her to again run for the White House, I revised an offending ad by said committee, which learned the hard way it is in no position to sue over this.