By David Swanson

I think that's a fair question. When Rood worked for TPMMuckraker he complained to CBS News about the life of a blogger.

When he got hired by the Disney Corporation (ABC News) he begin tackling such tasks as burying a story of war lies and war crimes in order to blog about phone sex.

Now he's added a followup to the original story that still fails to note that I blogged the full story over a year ago, and still fails to tell most of the story.

By David Swanson

On Thursday, ABC News reported a big new break in the story of illegal and unconstitutional spying that our government has engaged in for years now, except that there was nothing new in the story and the important parts were left out.

The ABC News announcer began the video report thus:

"This is the first time any of the actual intercept operators, the people who listen in and record phone calls on behalf of U.S. intelligence agencies, the first time any of them has come forward."

By David Swanson

Here's a typical example of how the news cycle works now that the blogosphere interacts (or doesn't) with independent and corporate media:

July 1, 2007, AfterDowningStreet.org Breaks Story of NSA Whistleblower Adrienne Kinne
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24183

May 13, 2008, Democracy Now picks up the story of Kinne
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/13/fmr_military_intelligence_officer_...

May 19, 2008, AfterDowningStreet.org Breaks Story of NSA Whistleblower David Murfee Faulk
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/33525

October 9, 2008, ABC News picks up both stories with a focus on phone sex
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=5987804&page=1

October 10, 2008
Congress notices, yawns, scratches its ass, goes back to what it had been doing. Talk shows make jokes about the phone sex.

By Dave Lindorff

With the government now having spent over $800 billion in less than
a year shoring up tottering financial companies that had become little
more than casinos (and rigged ones at that), America is looking
increasingly like China, a country where the state has been gradually
getting out of the business of directly owning companies.

At this point, with the US government owning 80 percent of the
world’s largest insurance company, AIG, and essentially owning mortgage
firms Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well as bankrupt Lehman Brothers,
and with the nation’s two largest automakers in line asking for $25
billion in government loans, one would be hard-pressed to spot the
difference between the two systems.

By Dave Lindorff

I was a speaker last night at an anti-war event sponsored by the
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County, Progressive
Democrats of America and Democrats For America in Lincroft, NJ, near
the shore. It was a great group of activist Americans who want to see
this country end the Iraq War, turn away from war as a primary
instrument of policy, and start dealing with the pressing human needs
of the country and the world.

Yet even in this group of committed people, one woman stood up
during the question-and-answer session and said, “I want to get
involved in writing emails to members of Congress urging them to cut
off funding for the war and other things, but if I do that won’t I end
up getting put on a `watch list’” or something?”

By Dave Lindorff

The dramatic hearing on presidential crimes and abuses of power
held on Friday by the House Judiciary Committee was both a staged
farce, and at the same time, a powerful demonstration of the power of a
grassroots movement in defense of the Constitution. It was at once both
testimony to the cowardice and self-inflicted impotence of Congress and
of the Democratic Party that technically controls that body, and to the
enormity of the damage that has been wrought to the nation’s democracy
by two aspiring tyrants in the White House.

By Dave Lindorff

I was injured thanks to the government’s ridiculous airport
security program last week on a US Air flight from Chicago to
Philadelphia. I also saw how pointless the whole thing is, if the
supposed goal is really to prevent airline hijackings.

First, my injury. Because of a silly fear that I might blow up a
plane with explosives tucked into my running shoes, I, along with
everyone else in the security checkpoint line at O’Hare, including
two-month-old babies wearing little booties, had to doff my footwear.
Clad in just socks, I tried to maneuver my way around a metal counter
that held those plastic trays carrying my laptop, my shoes, my belt and
change and keys, and my carry-on bag, and in the process my unprotected
big toe hit a sharp piece of metal protruding from the table.

By Dave Lindorff

There are two ways to view the news that the House Judiciary
Committee will be holding a hearing on impeachable crimes by President
George W. Bush.

One view would be that this is all a charade and that after all, it
will not be a real impeachment hearing, but rather, simply a hearing
into the impeachable crimes of the Bush administration. As committee
Chair Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) put it, “We’re not doing impeachment,
but he [Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who introduced 36 articles of impeachment]
can talk about it.” Viewed that way, this is not such a big deal. Rep.
Kucinich gets to make his case that the president is committing high
crimes and misdemeanors and abuses of power and war crimes, but then
Congressional Democrats will continue to ignore all the crimes as it
has done since taking control of Congress in November 2006.

The Senate will cast its final vote on warrantless wiretapping late Tuesday or Wednesday, so we need to flood Congress with petitions and calls demanding a no vote on the FISA bill.

Sign our petition for impeachment, not immunity:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/141?ad=d1

Call your Senators through the switchboard at 202-224-3121 or dial direct
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or let BlueAmerica connect you for free:
http://tools.advomatic.com/7/fisa

We were extremely disappointed in our House Rep. Adam Smith and the 104 other Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, who voted in favor of H.R. 6304, FISA Amendment Act of 2008. They caved in to the Executive Branch by granting the giant telecoms and Bush executors’ immunity for illegal wiretapping citizens of the United States. It is a sad day for civil rights of the citizens of the United States and the 4th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. Barack Obama, concurring with John McCain and Geo. W. Bush, endorsed H.R. 6304. Easy passage is expected in the Senate next week. Apparently what we have to look forward to in 2009 with the 111th Congress and Executive Branch is the mcsame. Oh, how truly I miss my Democratic Party!