Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 179

A perfect logo

The ACLU has long had as its motto for its National Security Project:  "Keep America Safe and Free."  Here is their new logo:

Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol just created a new organization to advocate for neocon and Cheneyite policies and to depict Barack Obama as a surrender-happy Terrorist-lover.  Its name is Keep America Safe and this is its logo: 

It's as though they took the ACLU's logo and wrote the "Free" out of it, depicting America as nothing more than a...

How to avoid the GOP's mistakes during the Bush years?

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder makes the following observation:

From day one of his administration, the left has held Barack Obama's feet to the fire way more than the right ever did to George W. Bush -- at least until Bush's nomination of Harriet Meirs to the Supreme Court. Put another way: the diversity of opinion about Obama and his presidency among activist Dems far exceeds early Bush-era diversity of opinion among activist GOPers.

Is there any doubt that this is accurate?  I...

Democrats and Afghanistan: what's at stake

Dianne Feinstein is a fairly typical Democratic Senator from a solidly blue state.  In 2002, she voted to authorize the attack on Iraq.  Throughout the Bush years, she repeatedly stood with the GOP to fund the war without the conditions and timetables sought by some of her fellow Democrats.  Using her position on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, she was the key Democrat who twice voted to legalize Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program -- first with the Protect America Act

Gay issues, the "fringe left" and the liberal veal pen

(Updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV)

Thousands of Americans marched in Washington yesterday to demand a fulfillment of Obama's long-stated and oft-repeated commitments on issues of gay equality, in what the NYT calls "the largest demonstration for gay rights here in nearly a decade."  That protest was preceded the day before by a virtual consensus 0f gay rights activists expressing extreme disappointment and frustration with Obama's speech to the Human Rights...

Gay issues, the "Fringe Left" and the liberal veal pen

(updated below)

Thousands of Americans marched in Washington yesterday to demand a fulfillment of Obama's long-stated and oft-repeated commitments on issues of gay equality, in what the NYT calls "the largest demonstration for gay rights here in nearly a decade."  That protest was preceded the day before by a virtual consensus 0f gay rights activists expressing extreme disappointment and frustration with Obama's speech to the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday night, where he merely...

Salon Radio: Jonathan Weiler on authoritarianism in American politics

Political scientists Jonathan Weiler and Marc Hetherington have an important new book examining the role of the authoritarian mentality in American politics.  Weiler, a Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, is my guest on Salon Radio today to discuss the arguments they make.

The book -- Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics -- examines newly available empirical evidence to contend that America's...

Accusing Obama critics of "standing with the terrorists"

Yesterday, I noted that the DNC accused the GOP of having "thrown in its lot with the terrorists" and putting "politics above patriotism" because -- just like the Taliban and Hamas -- some Republicans objected to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama.  Salon's Alex Koppleman described how some progressive groups, including Media Matters and some blogs, embraced the same theme, even producing videos "suggesting that the right has aligned itself with terrorists."  Media...

On the government's owners

The most revealing political quote of the last year came, in my view, from the second-highest ranking Democratic Senator, Dick Durbin, who told a local radio station in April:  "And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."  The best Congressional floor speech of the last year on the financial crisis was this extraordinarily revealing...

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

When I saw this morning's top New York Times headline -- "Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize" -- I had the same immediate reaction which I'm certain many others had:  this was some kind of bizarre Onion gag that got accidentally transposed onto the wrong website, that it was just some sort of strange joke someone was playing.  Upon further reflection, that isn't all that far from the reaction I still have.  And I say that despite my belief that -- as critical as I've been of the Obama...

A historian's account of Democrats and Bush-era war crimes

, yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman successfully inserted into the Homeland Security appropriations bill an amendment -- supported by the Obama White House -- to provide an exemption from the Freedom of Information Act's mandates by authorizing the Defense Secretary to suppress long-concealed photographs of detainee abuse.  Two courts had ruled -- unanimously -- that the American people have the right to see these photographs under FOIA, a...