The Anti-Transparent Administration

Remember when Barack Hussein Obama promised us “the most transparent administration in history” -- ? Remember when he vowed to set a new ethical standard for Washington? Unless my memory has deceived me, he made those promises major components of his 2008 campaign for the presidency. Apparently, quite a lot of voters either believed them, or failed to disbelieve them sufficiently to deny him the Oval Office.

Doug Ross, from whom much goodness flows, today provides us with Sharyl Attkisson’s revealing look at “the most transparent administration in history:”

Someone is attempting to harass and intimidate media personalities that are very critical of Barack Obama and his administration. Whoever is doing this has extremely advanced technical capabilities. As you will see below, there is very strong anecdotal evidence that federal agents are involved. But these agents would never commit such actions on their own. It seems clear that they are getting orders from someone above them. Of course Barack Obama (or any of his top lieutenants) would never come out and publicly admit that Gestapo tactics are being used against media personalities on Obama’s rumored “enemies list”, but that appears to be precisely what is happening. Hopefully by shining a light on these activities it will cause those that are doing these things to cease and desist. And it is very important to point out that what is being done to these media personalities is illegal. Anyone that is involved in harassing media personalities because of what they are saying is violating federal law and is in danger of going to prison for a very, very long time.

Later in this article, I want to share with you the shocking harassment and intimidation that Rick Wiles of TruNews has been enduring lately. But first, let’s review what has happened to former CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson. She was an award-winning journalist for more than thirty years, but that didn’t stop the Obama administration from systematically harassing her. In her new book entitled Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington, she makes some extremely startling claims. She believes that the harassment and intimidation that she experienced were the direct result of her determination to get to the truth about Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the green energy scandals and Obamacare.

Please read the whole thing—and if the prospect of spending more than $13 on an eBook doesn’t offend you, read Attkisson’s book as well.

---

“Transparency.” “Open government.” “Reaching across the aisle.” “Representing the whole people.” These and other shibboleths of American politics have a common meaning: he who invokes them suggests that he–possibly he alone—can and will rise above political considerations in conducting the affairs of government. He means for his audience to take him as one who will practice unflagging candor. More, he implies that he’s willing to consider ideas from every source, regardless of political alignment or ideological orientation—that he would judge a proposal on its merits alone, rather than whether it serves some personal or partisan end.

Has that ever been less true about an administration than the one we endure today?

No less an authority than the late, great Cyril Northcote Parkinson has told us “Do not say, ‘Trust me. Rely on my word.’ Only politicians say that.” He had a point to make that’s infinitely worth repeating:

Before awarding your trust,
Demand performance.
He who asks you to “trust me”
is unlikely to be trustworthy.

Surely the visible aspects of ObamaCare alone, given the several promises openly broken by Obama and his caucuses in Congress, would nail that to the wall. But we have even more evidence than we need:

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass… Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.” Jonathan Gruber, University of Pennsylvania in October, 2013.

Longtime favorite Deb Heine is unsparing about the will-to-deceive involved here:

As the media circles the wagons around Jonathan Gruber, Obama and ObamaCare, it’s really important to remember one key thing. They – like the people they’re trying to protect – think their audience is stupid. Media Matters, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, think that their readers’ confirmation bias makes them easy to fool, aka- stupid....

Gruber went to the Regime’s propaganda arm MSNBC to explain his comments and apologize for the confusion on Tuesday afternoon during an on-air interview with Ronan Farrow.

“The comments in the video were made at an academic conference,” Gruber said. “I was speaking off the cuff and I basically spoke inappropriately and I regret having made those comments.”

Although Gruber apologized for the language he used, Gruber said that the larger point he was trying to make centered on the political pressures that shaped the law. He added that those pressures “led to an incomplete law with some typos.”

The typos would later lead to “speak-os” as evidenced in the American Commitment video Gruber vs Gruber.

---

It’s been clear for far too long that the American political class holds us of the hoi polloi in utter contempt—that in their eyes, we’re merely “sheep to be shorn.” If we judge by the demonstrated hostility of the Obamunists to the press, by the several cases in which imposed (and unlawful) secrecy measures are all that stands between the Administration and multiple fatal scandals demanding impeachment, and by the barefaced admissions of such pillars of the regime as Jonathan Gruber, their skill at deceiving us was once greater than it is today. This suggests that remedial measures are now possible.

We hold the means in our hands: the World Wide Web’s ability to preserve the evidence against all possibility of later effacement or denial.

No one can say with assurance how such an accumulation of the evidence will play out, long term. That it must occur—that those of us who write for the general public must each take a hand and press the case until our readers can no longer stand to read about it—seems beyond dispute. And of course, every attempt by the political class to establish political control over the Internet must be resisted with unprecedented ferocity and vigor.

---

I’ve lost my ability to believe that a government, however constituted, can be compelled long-term to remain within any imaginable set of bounds. The American experiment in constitutionalism was a brave and noble attempt. Nevertheless, it has failed. It took many years before its cracks were revealed, but it did fail. I can think of no way to form and constrain a government that hasn’t been tried and found wanting.

As Shakespeare has told us, the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves. We aren’t stupid—a stupid species with our abilities would have destroyed itself long ago—but we are deceivable. Our propensity for wishful thinking appears to be ineradicable. The implication is that even anarchism—the absolute abjuration of the notion of “legitimate authority”—is unstable, as I’ve tried to depict here. Politically speaking, our doom is to keep trying...and failing.

Oldsters: it’s time either to revolt or to relax. Youngsters: brace yourselves, ‘cause you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.