Ray Paints Putin as Bête Blanche on Russian TV Channel 1 Evening News today (Moscow time)

http://www.1tv.ru/news/world/279330

The ten-minute segment focused on familiar Western media snow-job showing Putin = Pure Evil. Camera crew had to four-wheel it to Ray through heavy snow Friday to tape interview, much of which actually survived (in Russian). Cravenly, Ray seized the opportunity to fall in tune — sort of – with the U.S. media that find all manner of reasons to paint Putin bête noire. Ray painted him bête blanche, as well, for arranging for so much snow to be dumped on Washington (Channel 1 actually left that part in).

In more serious vein, there is nothing remotely like this critique of U.S. media in U.S. media (surprise, surprise). Not even (as far as I know) by Jon Stewart — not even by democracynow, which is still using labels like “pro-Russian separatists” for those more accurately as described as anti-coup federalists.

Speaking of which, this story on page A6 of today’s Washington Post, says it all – or maybe not all. Does anyone notice anything missing?

RUSSIA

Putin had early plan to annex Crimea

Russian President Vladimir Putin has described a secret meeting with officials in February 2014 during which Russia decided it would take the Crimean Peninsula, the Black Sea region that Moscow annexed from Ukraine a month later.

In a trailer for an upcoming documentary, shown on state-owned television Sunday, Putin said he met with security officials early last year to make plans for saving Ukraine’s then-president, Viktor Yanukovych, who soon fled the country in the face of months of protests. Putin said that after the meeting he told the security chiefs that they would be “obliged to start working to return Crimea to Russia.”

He said the meeting was held Feb. 23, 2014, almost a month before a referendum in Crimea that Moscow has said was the basis for annexing the region.

— Associated Press

And so it goes.

​

VIPS Memo: Curbs Needed on Surveillance State

 

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/05/curbs-on-surveillance-state-urged/

This memo discusses in some detail how close we now are to what Ed Snowden called “turnkey tyranny,” and offers constructive suggestions as to how we can remain free. It was drafted by longtime NSA official Edward Loomis who, together with William Binney and Kirk Wiebe quit NSA when Director Michael Hayden decided (now by his own admission) that he had the power to suspend the 4th Amendment – previously known at NSA as its “First Commandment.” The memo is meant as follow-up to our VIPS Memorandum of Jan. 7, 2014:

“NSA Insiders Reveal What Went Wrong:

NSA Insiders Reveal What Went Wrong

 

Gen. Petraeus: Too Big to Jail

While “lesser” Americans face years in jail for leaking secrets – even to inform fellow citizens of government abuses – retired Gen. David Petraeus gets a misdemeanor wrist-slap for exposing covert officers and lying about it, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who was jailed just for trying to ask Petraeus a question.

Gen. Petraeus: Too Big to Jail

 

A Lucky Day (Ray gets into the Times once every 10 years)

To the Editor of the New York Times:

February 25, 20015; page A22

The headline of David Cole’s essay asks, “Did the Torture Report Give the C.I.A. a Bum Rap?” We should recall that the Senate Intelligence Committee’s “torture report,” which rebutted C.I.A. claims that torture worked, was based on original C.I.A. documents.

Mirabile dictu, Mr. Cole gives the C.I.A.’s rebuttal equal weight: “When one places the C.I.A.’s accounts of the 20 cases side by side with the committee’s accounts, however, the truth is far from clear.”

As a former Army intelligence officer, I was proud when the Army’s chief of intelligence, Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, said at a 2006 Pentagon news conference: “No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tells us that.”

General Kimmons’s gutsy words were meant as a pre-emptive rebuttal of claims by President Bush just hours later that his “alternative set of procedures” yielded good intelligence.

RAY McGOVERN
Arlington, Va.

The writer served as an Army intelligence officer from 1962 to 1964 and as a C.I.A. analyst for the next 27 years. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

 

Rabble Rousers: Peace Activists Give Food for Thought

by Jacquelin Agostini, February 20, 2015

http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/opinion/readers/2015/02/20/rabble-rouser-peace-activists-give-food-thought/23572359/

Ray was happy to spend February 14 at Sacred Heart parish, Camden, NJ, discussing the moral imperative of activism. It was a particular honor to be asked to share the podium with the Pastor of Sacred Heart, Fr. Michael Doyle of “The Camden 28,” and Bonnie and John Raines of the “Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI.”

Bonnie and John were part of a smaller group, which, on March 8, 1971, mounted a small raid on the FBI office in Media, PA, removing files that documented serious FBI crimes like COINTELPRO. They were never caught. Five months later, “The Camden 28” raided a Selective Service office in Camden, but the action was sabotaged by a FBI infiltrator.

After an historic trial in Camden, the jury decided that those committing this high-profile act of nonviolent civil disobedience in protest of an unjust war did the right thing. They were acquitted on all counts.

Good news: There is a very professional, and very moving, documentary on this, called “The Camden 28.” More good news: now there’s one on the Media, PA, raid, as well, called simply, “1971.”

When I was in NYC in early February for my Court appearance, I was invited to see this gripping new film by Johanna Hamilton, telling the story of the courageous folks who raided the FBI office in Media 44 years ago, escaped with documents more valuable than they could ever have imagined, and kept their involvement quiet until they announced it last year. This was no small embarrassment to J. Edgar Hoover and his stalwarts. It was not as though they were after professional criminals like Willie Sutton.

Stay tuned for further information regarding when and where to see “1971.”