Tag: secrecy

Biden Makes History As First ‘Absentee President’

Transparency and accountability now seem to be a thing of the past for the White House. Since taking office, Joe Biden has signed a record number of executive orders, proclamations and directives, but hasn’t held one formal press conference to answer for them.

In January, Biden promised to address a joint session of Congress “next month” in February, which he may not realize already passed. Biden also claimed he would hold a press conference, but that too has not happened or even been scheduled. This is quickly earning Biden the reputation of an “absentee president,” and we’re not just talking about the ballots.

This week, Biden set a 100-year record by not holding a solo press conference, something that usually happens within an administration’s first 33-days. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said there are still no plans to do so, just as there are no plans to even schedule Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress. This is something that traditionally happens in the month of February.

As what now seems customary for the Biden White House, the speech has been pushed off and made conditional. Psaki said it is contingent on certain legislation being passed in Congress.

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Conspiracy Theories Are Caused By Government Secrecy

The DC Circuit has ruled that the CIA is under no obligation to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests pertaining to its involvement with insurgent militias in Syria, overturning a lower court’s previous ruling in favor of a Buzzfeed News reporter seeking such documents.

As Sputnik‘s Morgan Artyukhina clearly outlines, this ruling comes despite the fact that mainstream news outlets have been reporting on the Central Intelligence Agency’s activities in Syria for years, and despite a US president having openly tweeted about those activities.

“In other words, the CIA will not be required to admit to actions it is widely reported as having done, much less divulge documents about them to the press for even greater scrutiny,” Artyukhina writes, calling to mind the Julian Assange quote “The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security.”

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Federal Secrecy Protects the Crimes of Every President

Ever since the 9/11 attacks, Republicans and Democrats have conspired to keep Americans increasingly ignorant of what the federal government does. The number of secret federal documents skyrocketed, and any information that was classified supposedly cannot be exposed without dooming the nation.

Politicians and federal agencies recognize that “what people don’t know won’t hurt the government.” James Madison, the father of the Constitution, declared in 1798 that “the right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon … has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right.” But this right has faded badly in recent decades. During the 2020 Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer warned that if the Senate did not vote to hear witnesses, “this country is headed towards the greatest cover-up since Watergate.”

Actually, “conventional wisdom” in the nation’s capital is often the result of cover-ups, ignorance, and servility. Daniel Ellsberg, who risked life in prison to leak the Pentagon Papers, observed in 2002, “It is a commonplace that ‘you can’t keep secrets in Washington’ or ‘in a democracy.’ … These truisms are flatly false…. The overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the American public.”

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California keeps key virus data out of public sight

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has from the start said his coronavirus policy decisions would be driven by data shared with the public to provide maximum transparency.

But with the state starting to emerge from its worst surge, his administration won’t disclose key information that will help determine when his latest stay-at-home order is lifted.

State health officials said they rely on a very complex set of measurements that would confuse and potentially mislead the public if they were made public.

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THE DECADES-LONG UFO TABOO THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WILL HAVE TO FACE

When Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States on January 20th, he will be embarking on an undoubtedly stressful tenure as commander in chief. A raging global pandemic; escalating tensions with Iran; aggressive moves by China; increased Russian hacking; and, lest we not forget, that whole insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. 

The soon-to-be president may not realize it yet, but there’s another challenge looming on the horizon involving a subject long relegated to society’s fringe. Viewed through the lens of history, however, it could end up defining Joe Biden’s presidential legacy. 

We’re speaking here of unidentified flying objects. Or in currently favored parlance, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).  

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