I scare myself when I look in the mirror. Let them kill us, as we have nothing to lose. We died when Obama indefinitely detained us. Respect us or kill us, it’s your choice. The United States must take off its mask and kill us.
Fayiz al-Kandari, Guantanamo Bay prisoner on hunger strike
U.S. moves to crush Guantanamo hunger strikers
(via dancepunksnotdead)
Reblogged from dancepunksnotdead with 212 notes / News Obama Guantanamo Bay
Looking back at his tenure as Washington Post ombudsman, Michael Getler wrote in 2005 that the mainstream media’s performance in 2002 and 2003 likely represented the industry’s worst failing in nearly half a century. “How did a country on the leading edge of the information age get this so wrong and express so little skepticism and challenge?” Getler asked.
Let’s recall some concrete examples of what helped the Bush era press rightfully earn its title of lapdogs so we can understand why today’s conservative claims ring so hollow.
A more pressing problem revealed by the cable leak, and certainly a more long-term problem, is the banality and stupidity of the overwhelming majority of government secrets. The edifice of the American deep state is crumbling, and this is in large part because of a rampant, unchecked, and sometimes nefarious habit of over-classification.
He’s what would have been called several decades ago a moderate Republican, kind of a mainstream centrist with some concerns for liberal ideals and conceptions, but not much in the way of principle or commitment… Moderate Republicans have more or less disappeared. The Republican Party is quite overwhelmingly extreme that it’s hardly a traditional political party anymore. And the mainstream Democrats have become pretty much what used to be called moderate Republicans.
Noam Chomsky speaking to TYT’s Cenk Uygur on whether President Obama is a progressive. (via kileyrae)
When he enters a federal prison on Friday, John Kiriakou will hold the distinction of being the only former CIA agent to be prosecuted in relation to the Bush White House’s torture program, not for committing torture but for helping to blow the whistle on it.
John Kiriakou Will Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Transparency Under Obama
Senior White House and Justice Department officials are considering plans for legal action against Colorado and Washington that could undermine voter-approved initiatives to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in those states, according to several people familiar with the deliberations.
Even as marijuana legalization supporters are celebrating their victories in the two states, the Obama administration has been holding high-level meetings since the election to debate the response of federal law enforcement agencies to the decriminalization efforts.
Administration Weighs Legal Action Against States That Legalized Marijuana Use
Last Tuesday, the President of the United States signed into law the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. As President Obama was signing this bill into law, Bradley [Manning] and I were in the courtroom for [his trial]…How can you reconcile that? I don’t know the answer to that question.
David Coombs, lawyer for Bradley Manning, the jailed soldier accused by the government of leaking national security information to WikiLeaks. (via motherjones)
Reblogged from motherjones with 212 notes / Bradley Manning Obama Politics USA Wikileaks
(Source: cartoonpolitics)
Reblogged from reagan-was-a-horrible-president with 230 notes / Business Amusing Comics Corporations USA Politics Obama
Meet the Mind Behind Barack Obama’s Online Persona
You’ve most definitely seen it by now. Michelle Obama, wearing a red-and-white checkered dress, stands with her back to the camera. Her arms are wrapped around her husband, the hints of a smile lingering on the edges of his lips. “Four more years,” reads the text, which was posted on the Obama campaign’s social media accounts around 11:15pm on election night‚ just as it became clear the president had won a second term.
The photo, taken by campaign photographer Scout Tufankjian just a few days into the job, pretty much won the internet: 816,000 retweets, the most likes ever on Facebook; thousands of reblogs on Tumblr. And yet it wasn’t chosen by the president’s press secretary, or even a senior-level operative, but by 31-year-old Laura Olin, a social media strategist who’d been up since 4am. For the first time since the campaign ended, she talked to Tumblr, in partnership with The Daily Beast, about what it’s like being the voice of the President — where millions of people, and a ravenous press, await your every grammatical error.
So how does it actually work, being the voice of the President? Who makes the decisions about what to post?
All of our decisions were made in-house — in Chicago, mostly — so we weren’t getting direct directives from the White House or anything. But we tried as much as possible to have voices for each account, so depending on the message — because we had all these channels — we had an appropriate place to put it. Obviously some stuff was sufficiently huge so that it went everywhere, but as much as possible we tried to tailor the message for the channel and the audience.
It must be daunting.
It was kind of terrifying, actually. My team ran the Barack Obama Twitter handle, which I think was probably most susceptible to really embarrassing and silly mistakes. We didn’t ever really have one, which I still can’t believe we pulled off.
Reblogged from storyboard with 2,815 notes / Obama Social Media Journalism Twitter
