“The Marriage from Hell: Jane Harman & the Woodrow Wilson Center�

Last year investigative journalist David Boyajian wrote two exposés on Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center, revealing how the center has been violating its Congressional mandate and been up to its neck in tainted corporate cash. You can read Boyajian’s exposés here and here. Many agreed with Boyajian’s damning assessment, including a prominent journalist who called the WWC “a global joke.� I too wrote a follow up article on WWC with a special focus on its ‘oily’ President, Mr. Lee Hamilton. By oily, I mean ‘glisteningly greasy.’ I am sure you recognize his name from his highly publicized position and face as one of the 9/11 Commissioners, but his possibly pay-off position with WWC was not the lone factor for his glistening status in my report. Here are a few excerpts from my piece to illustrate what I mean:

Fortunately one independent reporter researched and reported on one such case, call it ‘chased the egg,’ on one of the 9/11 Commissioners, a Former Representative, Mr. Lee Hamilton, which I happened to come across yesterday. It was truly interesting to see how many ‘honorary’ positions Mr. Hamilton has been given, handed, by our government alone, just check out a few here:

-Co-chair of the Department of Energy Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future with Brent Scowcroft

-Serves on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board & the FBI Director’s Advisory Board,

-Serves on the US Department of Homeland Security Task Force

- Serves on the CIA External Advisory Board

The White House, the CIA, and the FBI must have been extremely well-served by Hamilton’s performance as the commissioner to grant him this many prestigious quasi positions. No? For me, the most interesting aspect which was covered by CounterCurrents.Org had to do with Hamilton’s position with and current salary from the Woodrow Wilson Center, and his questionable corporate ties, particularly with BAE Systems, the main sponsor of his forthcoming gala dinner…

You can read my entire article ‘9/11 Commissioner’s Turkey Baste: Chicken or the Egg?’ here. Now back to the focus of this post.

Read more È

 BFP Nightly Quote

“Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today” – Mahatma Gandhi

International Newsworthy

Pepe Escobar: Syria- Why the Regime Won’t Fall

Lebanon Intercepts Covert Arms Shipment Bound for Syria

IED Attacks: Wikileaks Afghanistan War Logs

The Pain to Come for Chinese Export

Russia & Azerbaijan: An Obstacle to the U.S. in the Caucasus

Tajikistan: In Dushanbe “Religious Radicalism” Comes in Many Forms

France, Italy, Spain & Belgium Ban Short-Selling

* * * *

Read more È

Pepe Escobar had another brilliant piece on Obama’s recent Middle East speech, and as always he is on the money:

So to make a story short, here’s a concise New Middle East Obama policy. We support “our” bastards (dictators) who are sophisticated enough to beat, arrest and kill their own people in the low hundreds (Bahrain). We get slightly annoyed by “our” war on terror collaborators who crudely beat, arrest and kill their own people also in the low hundreds (Yemen). We’re strongly inclined to ditch our support for unreliable, Iran-aligned dictators who beat, arrest and kill their own people in the high hundreds (Syria).

We unleash war – via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a weaponized arm of the United Nations – over unreliable oil-wealthy dictators who beat, arrest and kill their own people in alleged thousands (Libya). And we remain absolute mute about “our” monarchical bastards who pre-empt the possibility of democratic protests (Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia) or invade their neighbors to smash ongoing peaceful protests (Saudi Arabia).

            …

And this on Obama’s flowery rhetoric which failed big time to conceal what that speech was all about:

And when Obama stressed that “endless delay” won’t “make the problem go away” he totally missed the point; it’s by employing “endless delay” tactics that every Israeli government has kept settlement-building on overdrive and totally encircled East Jerusalem, while relentlessly applying a “divide and rule” strategy (pitting Fatah against Hamas) to crush Palestinian morale.

No flowery rhetoric can conceal that this is all about – what else – “protecting” Israel (mentioned 28 times in the speech). Further factual confirmation this weekend, when Obama addresses the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee bash, and next Monday, when Netanyahu addresses that Tel Aviv talk shop known as the US Congress.

You can read the entire article here, and tune in to our latest Podcast interview with Escobar here.

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

Great start for the Move Over AIPAC event in D.C. this weekend. I am planning to stop by in the next couple of days and shake everyone’s hand! Meanwhile, here are two video clips for you:

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

Grant F. Smith joins us to discuss Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, a 2009 Council on Foreign Relations book authored by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. He tells us about rarely discussed “massive non-market subsidies and distortions� designed and implemented to benefit Israel, such as an agreement with the Pentagon for Israel to provide goods and services to the US military, and gain access to the US military procurement system, and other congressionally approved agreements that create jobs in Israel rather than in the US. Mr. Smith talks about AIPAC, Israel’s vast network of legal and illegal campaign contributions, their influence and propaganda infrastructure with the US media, and more!

Grant F. Smith is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government and Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal. He is a contributor to Radio France Internationale and Voice of America’s Foro Interamericano, and has appeared on BBC News, CNN, and C-SPAN.

Here is our guest Grant Smith unplugged!

Interview with Grant Smith [ 56:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

To my good friends and supporters who have been warning and preparing me for the ‘siege to come’ after writing my last post on the Israel Lobby: Here I am still standing, stronger than ever, after speaking the ‘unspeakable.’ Granted some of those warnings were anything but friendly. I’d say they were more like ultimatums. Others reminded me of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride: watch out woman, the labeling Nazis are coming! As always I lost a few registered users and various forum followers, and gained some new forum friends and registered BFP followers; I’d say on balance I am up;-)

Here is what I have to say to those of you who have not very gracefully (and unsuccessfully) gone down the classic labeling attack route: your efforts were totally wasted. I don’t have a paid media job you can take away via your usual tactics. I don’t have a think tank or NGO position you can eliminate. I don’t have a book promotion you can try to sink. I don’t depend on advertisers to run this site, and you don’t have a way of putting it out of business…Basically I ain’t got nothing ‘you’ can take away. I would have thanked you if I were seeking publicity, since negative publicity is far better than no publicity, but since I don’t I don’t owe you a thank you either. And finally, I consider myself pretty much ‘label-proofed,’ and here is how: I’ve been every woman!

Despite many warnings by colleagues and friends I chose to report wrongdoing aka becoming a whistleblower. They said I’d be labeled a disgruntled employee. And some did try to stick that label to me, as they have done to all whistleblowers before and after me: the Disgruntled Government Employee.

My family warned me about disclosures concerning my home country Turkey. They said I’d be considered a Traitor. I chose to take that risk for what I believed to be the greater good (it’s debatable whether it was or not), and to some over there in Turkey, I became that; a Traitor.

When I went to the United States Senate with my documented disclosures both parties found me to be potentially worrisome. A Republican Senator told my legal representative: ‘on bringing up the issues regarding the Bush administration she sounds like a Bleeding Heart Liberal.’ A Senator from the other party had different worries: ‘Is she a trap set up by the Republicans? Because the stuff on the Clinton administration seems like a God Da.. Republican Ploy!’ So I became a God Da.. Republican Ploy and Bleeding Heart Liberal simultaneously. And to this date they haven’t come to any conclusion!

During my 7 years of legal and congressional battles with the Bush administration I may have become the left’s favorite whistleblower heroine, but I got tons of attacks from the blinded right for being a secret Democrats’ Puppet Woman. Then Obama came, and my unabashed criticism of him turned me into a villain in the blinded and wanna-be progressive Democrat community, and gave me a new name there: Anti Liberal Repug.

Then came this website, my articles, interviews, and commentaries:

I write on Imam Fethullah Gulen, and some attack me with Anti-Muslim & Anti-Islam labels.

I write on the Israel lobby contributions to candidates, and others come after me with Anti-Israel & Anti-Semite tags.

I write on the Turkish lobby and it’s octopus like tentacles in purchasing politicians, and I become Anti-Turkey & Anti-Turkish to some.

I interview a respected guest like Chris Hedges, and my new label becomes Socialist-Communist within certain circuits.

My Boiling Frogs Podcast presents an admirable expert Dr. Woods on significant issues, and I get Tea-Bagger labels thrown at me from various websites and forums.

I criticize certain Neocon policies, and I am an Unrealistic Liberal Fantasist to certain people who consider themselves realists.

I go after our out-of-control federal government police practices, and I am called Libertarian Anarchist by a few.

I stand by my rights and do my share by handing out information on TSA-DHS airport abuses, and many stop to call me Terrorist Sympathizer.

I choose to raise my daughter as a full-time stay at home mother, and to some I become a disgrace to the Feminist movement.

My whistleblower organization members happen to be mainly men, and I’m accused of being Sexist.

I could write pages and pages on the labels I have received, the things I’ve been accused of, and the names I’ve been called: Despicable Middle Eastern, Feminist, Anti-Feminist, Right Wing Mouthpiece, Left Wing Agent, Tea Bagger, Anarchist, Racist, Traditionalist, Modernist, Anti-Semite, Too Conservative, Too Liberal, Socialist, Communist, Islamist, CIA Mole, 9/11 Disinformation Agent, Sexist …

I am not going to disregard my long-term kind supporters and pass over the positives. It is just that it is hard to list nice and positive compliments (or labels), and not sound egotistical. You have kindly considered and called me: courageous, dignified, patriotic…and other similarly supportive adjectives. Even those of you who have complemented me in some strange ways with even stranger imagery to go with them, such as ‘when it comes to guts and courage far more testicularly endowed than most men in this country’!! I humbly thank you for all that.

So there you have it my recent Labelers. You see, I’ve been every woman, and I’ve lived through them all; I’m still standing. What are you gonna do about it, ey??!!
 

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.