Long Island Republican-Conservative "Big-Brother" Congressman Peter King is getting a well deserved kick in the ass from some of the mainstream media and a few in the routine left American nomenclatura.
BUT, where is the proper outrage from the libertarian Republicans and other conservatives against this ill-conceived "Republican Defense" of another Obama agency overstepping its bounds against the American people? Well, there has been a little.
However, by a wide margin, most of the citicism and contrary opinon to Peter King's modest proposals comes from the mainstream media or leftward, like some of the following pieces.
King's views on prosecuting newsies made few friends at his hometown daily (See "Peter King's all wet on fixing security leaks" by Ellis Henican, 6/15/13, Newsday [http://www.newsday.com/columnists/ellis-henican/peter-king-s-all-wet-on-fixing-security-leaks-1.5491211]; for those who can't open the Newsday link it's also available at Ellis Henican's official website {http://henican.com/2013/06/16/king-report-a-leak-get-locked-up/]). According to Henican, "The voluble South Shore Republican, who used to chair the House Committee on Homeland Security, clearly hasn’t lost his bluster since passing on his beloved gavel. *** As civil libertarians and terror hawks debate the National Security Agency phone-data dragnet, King has found his own pet target. No, not the former government contractor accused of leaking the massive spy program. News reporters who pass along such leaks.... No journalist has ever been successfully prosecuted for publishing classified material. But Fox News reporter James Rosen recently found his way into the crosshairs for reporting secrets from a government source. *** And isn’t that more or less what all good reporters seek to do every day? Keeping the people informed, it used to be called."
The Huffpost said that "King's claim about what Greenwald has threatened to do is, of course, a complete falsehood. There is no record anywhere of Greenwald having made such a threat (nor is there of Snowden)...." (See "Why Is Congressman Peter King Lying About Glenn Greenwald?" by Jonathan Weiler, 6/14/13, Huffington Post [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-weiler/why-is-congressman-peter_b_3441867.html]).
Speaking of Edward Snowden, Congressman Peter King has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous with his unsubstantiated accusations. According to Media-ite, Peter King said on MSNBC's Andrea Michell program on Friday afternoon that there’s “a lot of reason” to suspect Snowden’s ties to China — and King questioned what the Chinese may be doing with the revealed information. “There’s a lot of reason for suspicion,” King asserted on the leftwing cable network; his list included the following "facts": “First of all the fact that he transferred money to China, the fact that he has studied Chinese, the fact that his girlfriend had some connections to China. The fact that, of all the countries in the world, he went to China, and he arranged to have the papers — all his documents — released on the same weekend that President Obama was meeting with the president of China. And why is he still in China? What is Chinese intelligence doing with all this?” (See "‘He Has Studied Chinese’: Rep. Peter King Raises ‘Suspicion’ About NSA Leaker Snowden’s Ties To China" by Meenal Vamburkar, 6/14/13, Media-ite [http://www.mediaite.com/tv/he-has-studied-chinese-rep-peter-king-raises-suspicion-about-nsa-leaker-snowdens-ties-to-china/]).
The quote of the week about Peter King and his views on national security, the war on terror and the fundamental rights of Americans: "“Only In America can a renowned and devoted terrorism supporter like Peter King be the arbiter of national security and treason.” That was part of Glenn Greenwald's response to King's initial call for Greenwald's arrest.
UPDATE: SARAH PALIN REFUSES TO CONDEMN WHISTLEBLOWER EDWARD SNOWDEN
ReplyDeleteIn comments made to the Daily Caller, Sarah Palin declined to join many of her fellow Republicans in condemning the National Security Agency contracter and leaker Edward Snowden. Speaking with The Daily Caller after her speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference, Palin said, “Edward Snowden today is not the problem.... The problem is what the government is doing to usurp our rights.” ( See "‘Snowden is not the problem’ Palin says" by Breanna Deutsch and Sarah Harvard, 6/16/13, Daily Caller [http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/16/snowden-is-not-the-problem-palin-says/#ixzz2WRufPgje]).
The 2008 Republican candidate for vice president energized a group of social conservatives at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference Saturday by blasting the Obama Administration’s apparent lawlessness. Palin called the current state of America “Orwellian.” Also, In her speech, Palin said that the current political atmosphere was rife with scandals and a “a symptom of a bigger disease.” “Like the other day,” she said ”[Director of National Security Intelligence James Clapper] bragging that they used the ‘least untruthful statement.’ Now, where I come from that is called a lie. Yes, the officials lied and government spied — and in Benghazi government lied and Americans died.”
Multiple posts concerning the remarks made by Ms. Palin at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference and to the Daily Caller have appeared on various conservative and libertarian blogs since she made them and they were reported by the Daily Caller.