On Monday, The New York Times defined as “news” a hard-left award to Edward Snowden. The headline was “Snowden to Receive Truth-Telling Prize.” There was no leftist label as they explained the award came from The Nation magazine’s Nation Institute.
"It's the latest honor for the reporting based on the top-secret material leaked by Mr. Snowden, who was a contractor for the National Security Agency,” Noam Cohen wrote. “While the public and Congress debate whether Mr. Snowden should be considered a hero, a criminal or both, journalism and public policy organizations have heaped praise on the reporting based on the disclosures.”
Surveillance
By Tim Graham | April 8, 2014 | 9:49 AM EDT
By Tim Graham | March 10, 2014 | 9:45 PM EDT
Leftists and libertarians who join them in their “national security state” rhetoric love Edward Snowden for leaking thousands of classified documents to leftist journalist Glenn Greenwald and to The Washington Post, exposing and compromising U.S. surveillance programs.
On Monday night, the public radio show “The World” – distributed to NPR stations across America by Minneapolis-based Public Radio International – oozed online that Snowden was “bigger than a rock star” in his appearance at an ACLU event at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. That same line was announced by anchorman Marco Werman:
By Jeffrey Meyer | February 5, 2014 | 2:53 PM EST
A few weeks ago, PBS host Tavis Smiley got in some hot water for comments he made about Edward Snowden. On January 19, Smiley appeared as a guest on ABC’s This Week w/ George Stephanopoulos and argued that, “Edward Snowden might be on a postage stamp somewhere down the road.”
Despite the controversy surrounding Smiley’s extreme comments, the PBS host took to his nightly program on February 4th to double down and argue that someday Snowden would be viewed not as a traitor but rather an “American hero.” [See video below.]
By Jeffrey Meyer | January 19, 2014 | 6:31 PM EST
Tavis Smiley is known for making extreme statements that make even his fellow liberals cringe in fear. Whether he is comparing the Tea Party to Jihad or saying Republicans only oppose ObamaCare because they hate the president, the PBS host never stops making inflammatory comments.
Appearing on This Week w/ George Stephanopoulos on January 19, Smiley asserted that, “I think very quickly that in the long run, Edward Snowden, we were joking earlier, Edward Snowden might be on a postage stamp somewhere down the road. How history is going to regard what Mr. Obama has done in this moment is an open question.” [See video after jump.]
By Noel Sheppard | January 4, 2014 | 1:21 PM EST
On Thursday, the New York Times called for the Obama administration to enter into a plea bargain or offer clemency to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden in order to bring him back to the United States.
On PBS’s McLaughlin Group Friday, syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan observed during a discussion about this issue, “There is an inherent conflict of interest between journalists and so-called whistleblowers” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | December 19, 2013 | 11:21 AM EST
Russian President Vladimir Putin is jealous of Barack Obama.
At a news conference in Russia Thursday, Putin said, "How do I feel about Obama after Snowden's revelations? I envy him, because he can get away with it."
By Mark Finkelstein | November 8, 2013 | 10:56 AM EST
President Obama's narcissistic hits just keep on coming. Yesterday, we noted that in his interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, President Obama cast himself as the victim of the ObamaCare mess, complaining that "I've been burned" by the bad website.
In a new clip from the interview, aired during today's Daily Rundown, President Obama bragged "I can guarantee you that I have been more deeply involved in our intelligence operations on a whole set of areas where there real threats against us than just about any President." As with his victim whine, the prez caught himself and amended his remark. But once again, his true feelings were clear. View the video after the jump.
By Jack Coleman | October 29, 2013 | 6:51 PM EDT
Liberal radio talker and ex-"Crossfire" host Bill Press has awakened from his half-decade long slumber when it comes to dubious actions by the Obama administration.
The longtime Obama butt-kisser complained on his radio show yesterday that it's bad enough for Americans to learn the NSA has been eavesdropping on foreign leaders long considered allies of the US. Even worse, Press complained, is the claim that Obama was unaware of the spying, since this leads to the unavoidable conclusion that it was authorized by others without the president's consent. (Audio after the jump)
By Kyle Drennen | October 28, 2013 | 12:59 PM EDT
Showing more concern for President Obama's popularity than the national security implications of the latest leaks in the NSA spying scandal, on Monday's NBC Today, chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell lamented: "When he was a candidate, Barack Obama was a rock star in Europe. That was then, this is now. As Europe reacts angrily to news that the U.S. spied on 35 leaders..." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Moments later, Mitchell continued to worry: "How did the man who won the Nobel Peace Prize just months into his presidency become the subject of Europe's scorn?" She denounced the leaks, but not the spying itself: "The White House can thank NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who's latest revelations have forced President Obama to apologize to France's President Hollande, Germany's Chancellor Merkel, as well as current and former leaders in Mexico, and Brazil's President Rousseff, who even cancelled a state visit to Washington she was so angry."
By Matthew Sheffield | October 24, 2013 | 4:49 PM EDT
While much of the political world is focused on the fraying of the solid front that Democratic Senators have been putting up in defense of President Obama’s healthcare law, there’s another area where Obama’s base is beginning to defy him: the massively widespread spying operation on American citizens that the National Security Agency has been conducting.
Actors Maggie Gyllenhaal, John Cusack, and Will Wheaton and director Oliver Stone, are among several others appearing in a new video promoting a march in DC this weekend under the tagline “Stop Watching Us.” Even more interestingly, congressman-for-life John Conyers (a prominent Democrat) also appears in the clip as he and others compare the NSA’s spying on Americans to the Watergate scandal.
CBS Allows a Scant 21 Seconds to Revelation That NSA Is Snooping on Millions of Internet Address Books
By Scott Whitlock | October 15, 2013 | 12:50 PM EDT CBS This Morning on Tuesday allowed a scant 21 seconds to the newest revelations about the National Security Agency. The government organization has been secretly collecting millions of internet address books and instant message accounts from around the world, including Americans. In contrast, ABC and NBC highlighted the story in full reports and news briefs. [See video below of ABC's Good Morning America coverage. MP3 audio here.] None of the three network morning shows made any reference to Barack Obama or speculated on what the President's responsibility might be.
In the briefest of summaries, This Morning anchor Charlie Rose explained, "The agency is pulling the information from address books and buddy lists accounts on instant message accounts worldwide." He reassuringly added, "But a government spokesman says NSA is not interested in personal information about so-called ordinary Americans." However, the same morning show devoted three minutes to the not-so important story of President William Taft's attempts to lose weight.
By Noel Sheppard | August 20, 2013 | 11:14 PM EDT
The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald made a comment on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Tuesday that out of context might make conservatives who believe the media is corrupt chuckle.
“Journalism is not a crime and it is not terrorism” (video follows with transcript and commentary):