All posts by Thomas L. Knapp

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Pompeo vs. WikiLeaks: It’s No Contest

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English: A van that purports to be the 'WikiLe...
English: A van that [falsely] purports to be the ‘WikiLeaks Top Secret Information Collection Unit’ parked at the protest event Occupy Wall Street in New York. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Last July, while stumping for then-candidate, now-president Donald Trump, US Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) gleefully referenced nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails released by the transparency/disclosure journalists at Wikileaks. “Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down?” Pompeo tweeted. The emails showed that DNC officials had worked overtime to rig their party’s primaries for eventual nominee Hillary Clinton and against challenger Bernie Sanders.

What a difference nine months makes! On April 13, Pompeo — now in charge at the Central Intelligence Agency — used the bully pulpit of his first public speech in his new job to call out his old ally as “a nonstate hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.”

WikiLeaks says that no, it is not in fact abetted by Vladimir Putin’s regime.

If I have to choose between believing WikiLeaks or believing Mike Pompeo, I’ll believe WikiLeaks six days a week and twice on Sunday.

Over the course of more than a decade, WikiLeaks has built a sterling reputation for delivering the real goods on various governments (including Russia’s). The next document it releases which is shown to be fake will be the first. WikiLeaks has earned the trust of the public — and moreover, it has shown that it trusts the public with information about what our governments are doing in our names and with our money.

The US intelligence community, on the other hand, spies on us, lies to us about it, and expects us to pick up the check even after decades of irrefutable evidence of its dishonesty and incompetence.

The publicly released evidence for Pompeo’s allegation that WikiLeaks is in bed with the Russians is: Zero, zip, zilch, nada, a big fat goose-egg. If Pompeo has any such evidence, he’s keeping it secret. And  that’s not very believable: After all, the CIA has done a pretty poor job of keeping secrets lately.  WikiLeaks is in the process of releasing “Vault 7,” a trove of CIA documents revealing the agency’s work to subvert the electronic devices we all use on a daily basis and spy on us through them.

If Pompeo had any evidence that WikiLeaks was working with or for Putin, someone (maybe even WikiLeaks itself) would likely have already procured and published that information. Just sayin’.

WikiLeaks has changed the world, and it’s changed it for the better. Pompeo and his old and busted spy mill, not so much.

 

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“Safe Spaces,” Notre Dame Edition: Who’s Afraid of Mike Pence?

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University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indian...
University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana – just to the north of South Bend (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At the beginning of their first terms in office, US presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were invited (and accepted the invitation) to speak at the University of Notre Dame’s commencement ceremonies in South Bend, Indiana.

This year, university president Father John Jenkins tried to avoid an obvious and seemingly inevitable controversy by snubbing new US president Donald Trump, going instead with a “safe” speaker: Vice president Mike Pence.

Not safe enough, Father Jenkins.

In fact, according to student protesters, safety is precisely the problem. According to one Imanne Mondane, as quoted in the student-run Observer newspaper,  “for many people on our campus, it makes them feel unsafe to have someone who openly is offensive but also demeaning of their humanity and of their life and of their identity” (I’m going to take a shot in the dark here and speculate that Mondane is probably not an English major).

I note that Mondane is a senior, and have to wonder why she didn’t feel too “unsafe” to attend Notre Dame for the past 3 1/2 years. After all, Mike Pence was the governor of Indiana from 2013 until this January.

How is it that she suddenly finds Pence more scary in a nearly powerless position and living at the Naval Observatory 600 miles away in Washington than she found him when he was actually her state’s chief executive, lurking a mere 150 miles from South Bend in Indianapolis and exercising considerable power over her life?

If Pence is really such a scary guy, why didn’t she flee his domain and cross the river to Cincinnati, Ohio, where fine Catholic university educations may be had at Xavier and Mount St. Joseph, instead of risking it at Notre Dame? Was John Kasich equally terrifying?

Melodramatic much, Ms. Mondane?

There are all kinds of good reasons for students to protest over their schools’ speaking invitations to politicians they dislike. There are all kinds of good ways to demonstrate at or around the offending speeches, persuading others and promoting social dialogue.

“I’m scared, please don’t let the bad man talk” is neither one of those good reasons nor one of those good ways. In fact, if Donald Trump and Mike Pence really are the kind of monsters their critics describe them as, it plays right into their hands.

Fear is what authoritarians crave and what demagogues feed on. “Safe spaces” are cages for you, not barriers to them.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Trump’s Security Tab: A Good Case for Separation of Church and State

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Photo of President Bush with Secret Service Ag...
Photo of President Bush with Secret Service Agents, Presidential Limousine and Air Force One. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Palm Beach County, Florida Commissioner Dave Kerner wants to tax a resort. Nothing unusual about that — politicians love to mug tourists in the name of “economic development” —  except that the resort in question is Mar-a-Lago, US president Donald Trump’s private club and preferred getaway spot when he tires of the White House.

Kerner complains that Trump’s visits cost the county government $60,000 a day in police overtime and other expenses and wants to turn the resort into a “special taxing district” to claw back that money.

Business owners at the local airport have complaints as well. The Secret Service shuts them down whenever Trump’s in the neighborhood, costing them thousands. A new tax doesn’t address those complaints. What’s really needed is some good old-fashioned separation of church and state.

Every time a president goes anywhere, a giant, expensive, purpose-built security apparatus goes with him. And when he gets there, entire city governments drop whatever they’re doing to shut down the streets and ensure that the Divine Presence remains undisturbed by the presence and activities of mere mortals.

The national media issues breathless breaking news reports, followed by endless updates, whenever some idiot climbs over the White House fence and profanes the sacred grass of the North Lawn with the soles of his unconsecrated shoes.

Treating presidents and former presidents as God-Kings at taxpayer expense violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause. It’s ceremonial observance of an official state religion, a religion the Libertarian Party’s Statement of Principles calls “The Cult of The Omnipotent State.”

In theory, the president is just a mere citizen, the guy we elected to do a particular job.

Why should he be entitled to any more personal security at taxpayer expense than you or me?

Why should the highways that we all pay for be closed to us whenever he happens to want to barge through with his motorcade?

Why should people with plans to fly — commercially or privately — be held up for hours or days just because that plane landing over there happens to be Air Force One?

No reason at all, unless you’re of a religious bent.

Instead of enacting a new tax on Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach County’s government should inform Donald Trump that there will be no special police accommodations for his presence, and tell the Secret Service that attempts to shut down the airport will earn them free accommodations at the county’s correctional facility.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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