The bipartisan rogues gallery of Albany

This is a recap of recent developments in New York's legislature.




The Democratic Assembly speaker has been indicted for a massive bribes and kickback scheme.




The Republican leader of the Senate is under investigation, also for his outside sources of income.



The Republican deputy leader of the Senate has been indicted for lying to the FBI.



Every living former Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader has been indicted, all for financial crimes.




So how has that "lesser of two evils" voting strategy working out?




"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." -Benjamin Franklin.




If you're tired of the insanity, check out the Green Party of New York. Or if you're so inclined, the Libertarian Party of New York. These are the only two organized alternatives in this state to the two corporate parties.

How corporate interests have taken over our politics

The Nation has a very good piece on how special interests dominate Washington (as well as the states) and undermine our democracy. This is not new - liberal hate figure and progressive hero Ralph Nader has been warning about this for years. But the extent to which our political process has been corroded keeps edging closer and closer to 100%, particularly since the fraudulent Citizens United ruling was decreed. The increasing replacement of serious journalism with transcription, talking point-saturated commentary and horse race analysis only makes things worse.

The piece also points out that the much vaunted 'tension' between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and tea partiers is mostly a sideshow, a narcissism of small differences. Both major parties are thoroughly corrupted by corporate cash. Neither wants any sort of fundamental change that would redefine their primary role back to representing real human beings. Their main argument is whether we should be speeding down a hill toward a cliff at 80 mph or 65 mph.

What are the solutions? There are no easy answers. But two that come to mind immediately are:

-Help support and build grass roots parties who are accountable to human beings. The Green Party is my choice. If you're of a different mind set, I believe the Libertarian Party also refuses legalized bribes ("donations") from corporations.

-Join the movement to amend the Constitution to repeal Citizens United and affirm that money is not speech (it is, in fact, property): We the people, not we the corporations.

New York comptroller exposes IDA racket

Late last year, New York's attorney general concluded that regional economic development and industrial development (EDCs and IDAs) slush funds were rife with the potential for seal-dealing, nepotism, improper loans and exorbitant expenses.

These taxpayer-supported rackets do government business but have little oversight and are exempt from being audited by the state comptroller's office. To say nothing of the massive redundancies of similar overlapping agencies. I've opined many times that a sober and thorough cost-benefit analysis would show this.

So it's little surprise that the comptroller has recently concluded that IDAs are a huge waste of money. Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said more than 4,000 businesses received the tax breaks, but that IDAs realized 22,000 fewer jobs last year than the year before while using the economic development tool.   "Taxpayers are not getting enough bang for their buck when it comes to IDAs,"DiNapoli said, according to the Associated Press.


The comptroller noted that the cost of the average IDA-secured job increased 9 percent from 2010 to 2011.

DiNapoli proposed a bill that would allow taxpayers to better analyze the effectiveness of IDAs and their tax breaks. His bill would require clearly described job goals when a tax break is provided, followed by an accounting when the tax break expires. If the jobs promised weren't created, local governments would have a "claw back" provision to extract the avoided taxes from the company.   


DiNapoli's proposal would also require annual reports from IDAs and a report card on projects and their job success. 

Update: The Innovation Trail public radio project has a great piece on the lack of transparency in IDAs and its consequences.

Governor One Percent pretends to denounce his puppetmasters

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is jumping on the fake populist bandwagon by pretending to rail against so-called Super PACs -- even as the largest and most secretive one in the state, the ironically-named Committee to Save New York, is spending huge sums of money on his behalf. That Super PAC was given an 'F' by Common Cause New York for its complete lack of transparency; by contrast, none of the public sector unions so demonized by Cuomo received anything close such a failing grade. Governor One Percent is obviously counting on liberals to pay more attention to pious words than actual deeds, which is usually a good bet. A bill before the state legislature would implement a degree of public financing of political campaigns. We'll see if the governor, so beholden to corporate campaign bribes (I mean, "donations"), will throw his considerable influence behind public financing or if his words on this are as hollow as his promises on mandate relief.

Arrogant Post-Star launches outrageous campaign against privacy

The Post-Star engages in a lot of self-righteous crusades, perhaps as reflection of the paper's increasingly desperate attempts to stay relevant in the midst of a changing media landscape and self-cannibalization. One of the most prominent is related to teen drinking/binge drinking/drunk driving, which the paper dishonestly conflates as a single issue - a crusade so carefully demolished by Mark Wilson here and here.

More recently, the daily has taken the Lake George School District (LGSD) to task on a pair of controversies.

At a public hearing on the budget, LGSD asked for people who wanted to receive budget information *from the district* to sign up to an email newsletter. Those interested provided their email addresses (*to the district*).

But a critic of the school board inexplicably felt he was somehow entitled to those email addresses, so he could give these people his version of things. The Post-Star, even more inexplicably, backed his Freedom of Information request, under some demented notion of "transparency."

Apparently, private citizens who want to stay informed actually owe transparency to the presumptuous newspaper. Who knew?!

Eventually, a quasi-public, two-person body called the Committee on Open Government (COG) decreed that these private emails were in fact public information.

In a recent blog piece, the daily's pooh bah Ken Tingley again denounced LGSD superintendent Patrick Dee for "playing games." He agreed with the COG that decreeing the email addresses public information did not constitute "an unwanted invasion of privacy."

According to Tingley, the superintendent made the issue about privacy when it should be about transparency. There is no privacy risk here.

Dee should not have dithered or played games. Instead, he should've been direct. He should've said HELL NO. He should have said that the district will not give the paper the email addresses of private citizens. He should have told the paper that since the *private* emails weren't given to The Post-Star, IT'S NONE OF THEIR DAMN BUSINESS.

I believe in transparency for public officials and generally agree with most of the COG's decisions. But I also believe that private citizens should be able to maintain a level of privacy judged by their own discretion, not by an unaccountable newspaper or a mysterious two-person panel.

Mr. Tingley says there is no threat to privacy. He implied that the paper wants the private emails not for any actual newsworthy purpose, but just to set a precedent that they are public information.

He is dead wrong.

What the paper intends to do with the email is completely irrelevant. Once the precedent is set that private emails are public information, then anyone can get them via a Freedom of Information request and do whatever they want, including publishing them in print or online. Clearly, the activist in Lake George wants them so he can spam people with unwanted propaganda. How Tingley can say that this is not an invasion of privacy defies any sensible analysis.

I make no value judgment on the worthiness of the activist's campaign. If he wants to get people's private email addresses, he has every right to do what LGSD did: ask people for them so they can choose of their own free will who they want to share their private details with. Instead, he's choosing the lazy way of essentially trying to steal them.

Ironically, The Post-Star's crusade will deter participation more fully in civic bodies, the lack of which it often bemoans. Many people may want to stay informed on public issues, but may want not to do so at the cost of potentially broadcasting their email addresses to the world's spammers.

If I were Superitendent Dee, I would appeal this via the courts. Anything else is a violation of trust given to the district by the people who voluntarily submitted their email addresses under the expectation that it would be for internal use only.

If The Post-Star really wants more transparency, they should do a little digging on the opaque workings of Fred Monroe's taxpayer-funded Local Government Review Board... though since the Review Board and the newspaper share the same activist agenda, that kind of "transparency" is pretty unlikely.

NYS budget observers 'heartened' by secrecy

There’s something appropriate about the fact that the New York state budget is due on April Fool’s Day.

Public radio journalist Karen DeWitt reported on the adoption of the budget. She noted that observers “were heartened by the process” immediately before commenting on the nature of “the secretive negotiations”...

The fact that this can be said without apparent irony speaks volumes about NYS government.

How ethics and transparency work in NYS

The new panel charged with regulating ethics in state government met late last week.

It met in secret.

It met with no public notice.

A spokesman for the Joint Commission on Public Ethics defended the move, citing the board’s exemption from the state’s Open Meetings Law.

That’s right: a committee set up to regulate public ethics and transparency is legally allowed to meet in complete secrecy.

Is it any wonder why New York state government has such an abysmal reputation for good governance?

Panning the New York state ethics bill

The Glens Falls Post-Star is generally known for offering poorly thought out, small-minded editorial positions completely devoid of any nuance or forward thinking. The one exception is that they typically run pretty good editorials on issues related to governmental transparency, the topic which earned its editorial writer, Mark Mahoney, his Pulitzer Prize.


An editorial earlier this week dealt with the proposed bill in the New York state legislature on ethics and public integrity (try saying that without a snicker). The governor and two legislative leaders fell over themselves patting themselves on the back and describing the agreement as ‘historic’ about as often as Rudy Giuliani invokes 9/11.

The Post-Star points out that the bill is seriously flawed and said that it is, at best, a mere first step. Unfortunately, we know that it’s not to be; Albany only ever does the bare minimum necessary to give the illusion of something meaningful.

It points out that the new ethics commission would have even fewer investigators and less time to do its work than the current, ineffectual panel. The bill makes it virtually impossible for the commission to actually take action, since nearly everyone has veto power.

State electoral law is rigged to ensure that the two corporate parties are the only ones realistically able to win any party-based election. Leaders are so confident of the rigged system that the ethics bill contains no provision for enforcement against elected officials who are outside the two corporate parties. They can’t conceive that there would ever be a non-Democrat or –Republican in state government to worry about.

Ethical standards as well as the organization and conduct of elections are supposed to be non-partisan, not bipartisan. Kudos to my friend Bob over at Planet Albany for being one of those rare mainstream journalists aware enough to actually understand the difference.

Obama (secretly) deepens US involvement in Libyan civil war

According to Reuters, Pres. Obama has signed a ‘secret order’ authorizing covert US support for the rebels in Libya.

Nice move by the man who promised the most transparent administration in American history. So he breaks his promise on transparency (yet again) but his people aren't even competent enough to keep it secret.

Then again, this was also the same man who said the US attacks in Libya were solely to impose a no-fly zone and protect civilians and implement the UN mandate, not to take sides in the Libyan civil war.

Apparently, he'll say whatever he thinks will make neutered liberals feel warm and fuzzy.

Fortunately, Rep. Dennis Kucinich is not one of those. He asked why the president had time to consult with the international community before launching attacks on Libya but not the US Congress.

Incidentally, the folly of liberals supporting humanitarian interventionism (as I once did) is that it’s based on the premise that militaries can be primarily governed by humanitarian interests. It’s not their raison d’etre nor can it ever be.

Adirondack Local Government Review Board overrides local governments

A few weeks ago, I published an essay about controversial attempts by the Adirondack Local Government Review Board to meddle in the New York state’s purchase of two tracts of land, which is not part of the LGRB’s taxpayer-funded mandate. The purchase was approved by every single one of the municipalities affected. Any one of them could’ve vetoed it and a few towns did, which forced the deal to be re-worked. The LGRB, without consulting the towns affected, wants to override the localities in question. The LGRB’s purpose is to represent local interests against top-down imposition from the state and yet top-down imposition is precisely what the LGRB wants in this case.

I’m not the only one who’s noticed this hypocrisy. In something else you’d never read in The Post-Star Duane Ricketson wrote a good essay in Adirondack Almanack explaining the recent history of state land purchase inside the Blue Line and brought some-much needed illumination of actual facts regarding the process. He also noted that LGRB executive director Fred Monroe is a member of a hunting club that would be displaced if the purchase went through.

Taxpayer funded local government group misrepresents its members, exceeds its mandate

The Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board (LGRB) is a taxpayer funded group whose statuatory objective is to provide oversight of and feedback to the Adirondack Park Agency (APA), purportedly as the voice of the Park's local governments.

In reality, the LGRB's main objective is to lobby on behalf of development interests and against conservation efforts. A look at the Board's Our Issues webpage looks more like the writings of a private advocacy group than a public oversight board. Except private advocacy groups aren't funded by taxpayers.

The Board is chaired by the rabidly anti-conservation Fred Monroe, who is also the town supervisor in Chester and was, until recently, the chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors.

The LGRB recently passed a resolution urging the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to not go ahead with the planned purchase from the Nature Conservancy of Follensby Pond and the former Finch Pruyn lands in the Adirondacks. The Board argued that with the state facing dire financial circumstnaces, this was not the time for it to keep its promise to the Nature Conservency.

The resolution caused quite a stir for two reasons.

First, the LGRB was created by the legislature to provide oversight to the APA (which acts as a Park-wide zoning board for private land). As the LGRB's own website describes its mission: We work to insure that the interests of the people of the Adirondack Park and their local governments are protected as the Adirondack Park Agency carries out its duties set forth in the Adirondack Park Agency Act, the Freshwater Wetlands Act and the Wild Scenic and Recreational Rivers Act.

And yet this taxpayer funded board was trying to block the actions of the DEC (which manages state-owned land), which is outside of its mandate.

As North Country Public Radio investigation pointed out, the way state law on land purchases is written, any town can single-handedly nix a land purchase paid for by the Environmental Protection Fund. All the towns involved okayed the deal, including Fred Monroe's town of Chester.

So how did the LGRB pass a resolution opposing the Finch and Follensby land deals?

The NCPR investigation explained: But an investigation by North Country Public Radio found that in fact no local government leaders from any of the towns affected by the Finch deal voted on the Review Board’s new resolution.

What’s more, Monroe now acknowledges that most town leaders involved in the Finch project weren’t consulted about the resolution before it was passed.

Monroe said, “Did I specifically go to all the towns that voted to approve these deals? No, that’s a valid criticism," but then went on to suggest that the opinions of the towns involved don't matter because he personally thinks it's the wrong time to be expanding the Forest Preserve.

NCPR also spoke with the town supervisors of Minerva and Indian Lake about the LGRB's resolution. They both re-iterated their towns' support for the deal.

Monroe dubiously claimed that the all the towns involved agreed to the deals under duress. A rather flimsy explanation was offered by member of the Saranac town board, though one wonders if such 'duress' was complained about at the time. But numerous other local elected officials quoted by NCPR involved disagree and cite the process as a model for how such deals should be done.

The Nature Conservancy, for its part, pointed out that that they also canceled plans to expand the forest preserve in two communities, Fort Ann and Long Lake, because town boards there objected. Even Monroe doesn't deny this.

Fred Monroe has some explaining to do. Why is the LGRB not only ignoring the wishes of its elected government members but to openly campaign against them? Why is Monroe having the LGRB using tax money to agitate on an issue outside its legal mandate?

If Fred Monroe wants to advance his personal anti-conservation agenda, that's his prerogative. But he ought not to falsely claim he speaks for town governments who actually oppose his position and he ought not to use taxpayer money to do so.

NYS moves to minimize judicial campaign corruption

Whenever they don't like a judicial decision, many conservatives rant against 'unelected judges'... except of course, for US Supreme Court justices Scalia and Thomas. Calling a judge unelected is suppose to delegitimize his or her authority, even though our sainted Founding Fathers structured the judiciary this way intentionally to give it a degree of independence.

However, electing judges, as most states do to varying degrees, has its own problems. In a system where money is fraudulently equated to speech, elected judges are subject to the same corrupting influence of legalized campaign bribes as elected politicians.

New York's top judge has recognized this and made the state the first in the nation to implement a policy on the financing of judicial campaigns. Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman announced new rules that would bar judges in the state from hearing any case in which the lawyers or participants donated $2,500 or more to the judge's electoral campaign.

This is a very welcome move by the chief judge to help ensure the integrity of the courts. The move also recognizes the corrupting influence of money on electoral campaigns in a way that should give lie to the 'money equals speech' fraud.

Lying weasels

When I lived in West Africa, one of my Guinean friends often remarked a bit sarcastically, “Toute opposition est démocrate” -- all opposition parties believe in democracy. The implication being that parties advocate democracy, good governance and all sorts of neat things when they are in opposition because it sounds good and are quick to jettison those 'principles' when they actually gain power.

As Bob over at Planet Albany blog noted, this phenomenon is just as prevalent in the banana republic of Albany as in West Africa.

He points out that New York Senate Republicans have ran away from their promise to support a non-partisan process to draw electoral districts. It’s a process they supported when they were in opposition last year (and campaigning against the incompetent and corrupt Democrats then running the chamber) and are now weaseling out of now that they’re in power.

And it’s pretty impressive. Most politicians take time to weasel out of their promises. Senate Republicans have only taken a few weeks. Of course, that is not the only example we've seen recently.

Though actually, my earlier characterization is not quite fair. Legislators from West Africa have higher standards and would not tolerate Albany’s level of dysfunction and corruption.

"Fair fight" elections

How rigged is the legislative redistricting process (gerrymandering)? If they have to combine two districts, sometimes they resolve it by a solution know as a "fair fight" district.

Shouldn't "fair fights" be the rule rather than the exception?

This is why our we should have an independent redistricting commission, as the New York Public Interest Research Group and other good government groups have called for, as has the Green Party of New York State.

The NYPIRG report points out that in 2002, only 5 legislative races out of 212 were decided by a margin of 10 percent of less.

It also noted that only 25 of the 212 legislative districts (11 percent) have close enough enrollments that could allow frequent competitive elections.

Legislators, particularly in the Assembly, do not want an independent redistricting because it would take away of the biggest powers: the power to pick the voters that would pick them. Citizens are supposed to choose their representatives, not vice versa.

The truth about Wikileaks (for a change)

Twitterers were able to publicize a correction that National Public Radio tried to bury.

The broadcaster's wrote: In recent weeks, NPR hosts, reporters and guests have incorrectly said or implied that WikiLeaks recently has disclosed or released roughly 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables. Although the website has vowed to publish "251,287 leaked United States embassy cables," as of Dec. 28, 2010, only 1,942 of the cables had been released.

By all accounts, the correction was the result of a number of listener complaints to NPR's Ombudsman.

And this is why we need Wikileaks and sites like it. Mainstream media outlets in this country, even the best ones, have a truth telling problem. And while NPR deserves some credit for actually running corrections, unlike most broadcasters, it shows how important it is for people to be watching the self-appointed watchdogs and holding them accountable.

The correction also rubbishes one of the many dubious claims of anti-transparency advocates that Wikileaks is "not showing any restraint." The site has published fewer than 0.8% of the cables it was given.

Periodic Twitter update

Note: This is a series highlighting selected stories from the Twitter feeds for my blogs Musings of a (Fairly) Young Contrarian and Black Star Journal. The Twitter feed contains not only links to original pieces from my blogs but also links ("re-tweets") to diverse stories from other media outlets. 129 people presently get their updates this way. Those interested are encouraged to subscribe the Twitter feed to get all stories by going to Twitter.com/mofycbsj and clicking 'follow'.



-Poll: [NYS] Voters Say No To Raises, Yes To Taxing Rich (The Journal News)

-EU to sanction Cote d'Ivoire (al-Jazeera)

-How Glenn Beck's Twisted Worldview Goads Disturbed People into Acts of Violence (AlterNet)

-Australian Media's Finest Defend Wikileaks [unlike craven American journalists] (The Wakely Foundation)

-TX GOP Official Opposes Jewish House Speaker: Christians ‘Are The People That Do The Best Jobs’ (Think Progress)

-Indoleaks launched [Indonesian answer to WikiLeaks] (Jakarta Globe)

-Rwandan genocide finds release in photos (NPR)

-Julian Assange, like Daniel Ellsberg and Joe Wilson, Feels the Heat (The Progressive)

-Howie Hawkins says the Green campaign continues (GPNYS)

-Phone Companies' $100 Billion Rip-off -- Where Is That Hidden $6 a Month Going in Our Phone Bills? (Alternet)

-Guinea's [President-elect Alpha] Conde plans truth commission on violence (Reuters)

WikiLeaks

Although I've often said "Secrecy is the enemy of democracy," I'd be lying if I said the WikiLeaks' dump of diplomatic cables didn't make me a little uncomfortable. I think the public interest would've been better served by a more targeted leak. Much of the information was more along the lines of high school gossip: juicy but harmless. I think this overload of trivia diminishes the real impact of the more important revelations.

However, the leaks show exactly to what extent the US government is wedded to secrecy. Much of the stuff 'revealed' did not need to classified. Is it really a state secret that Libya's leader likes his hot blonde Ukranian nurse or that Germany's chancellor is uncreative? Transparency should be the default position in a democratic society, with secrecy allowed only when truly necessary and under stringent, demonstrable conditions and okayed by an objective third party. Our national security state has it bass ackwards.

I'd prefer a more restrained WikiLeaks [WL] and a less restrained government, but if only given two choices, I'd rather have radical transparency than radical secrecy.

One thing I am certain about is that the reaction to WL frightens me far more than WikiLeaks' actions. Though none of this surprises Pentagon Papers 'leaker' Daniel Ellsberg, who pointed out that: "EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and [its founder] Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time."

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the most insufferably self-righteous man in Washington, bullied Amazon.com into booting WikiLeaks from its servers. If Amazon wants to boot WL, that's its prerogative. But when pompous politicians start pressuring organizations to impose censorship, that's pretty unnerving in a society that claims to be free.

Then there's Rep. Peter King, who opined that WL should be treated as a terrorist organization. In recent years, conservatives have waged war on many things, including language. Violence and the threat of violence is inherent to terrorism. To describe WL as a terrorist organization is to strip the word 'terrorism' of any meaning. To people like King, the war on terrorism includes the war on the unvarnished truth.

That's to say nothing of people like Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who said that if WL didn't do anything illegal, then the law should be changed.

And to say nothing of scum like Bill Kristol and Sarah Palin who called for the assassination of Assange. This terrorist organization needs to be dismantled via... umm... assassination (the non-terroristic kind of course).

The vice-president of PayPal said it froze WL's assets because the State Department unilaterally decreed the organization illegal. This McCarthyistic trashing of the rule of law is a far more dangerous precedent than anything WL did.

Oh by the way, none of the above incidents or suggestions involved in any way a court of law.

WL opponents claim that the organization has blood on its hands, that people have died because of its revelations. When reporters challenged their vitriolic rhetoric against WL, both the State Dept. and the Pentagon admitted that it had no evidence that anyone had actually died because of the leaks. Furthermore, Assange claims that before all three major leaks this year (Afghanistan, Iraq, diplomatic cables), it asked the Pentagon and State Dept. for its assistance in redacting out the names of people who might be at risk. In all three cases, the government refused cooperation... and then later whipped out the 'people will die' card.

For all the huffing and puffing, the fact is that innocent people were dying before WL's revelations. Those deaths were revealed by WL. And they continue to die.

For all the hysterical libel/slander, one fact remains indisputable: WL has not killed a single human being. It's merely revealed the killings of human beings by others.

Opponents are trying to have it both ways. They say the leaks are pointless because so much is frivolous. Then they claim that the leaks are reckless and putting people's lives at risk. Which is it: frivolous or life-threatening?

They are also trying to spin it by saying that the cables reveal that a) America's private diplomacy is remarkably consistent with its public diplomacy and that b) diplomats are doing a great job in a very complicated world. Neat trick.

I haven't looked extensively but the few cables I've looked at have actually redacted the names of "innocent bystanders." Though I suppose this means anyone named XXXXXXX has reason to fear for their life.

The cables have revealed some very important things related to US foreign policy. For example, I think it's important to know that the Saudi king is baiting the US to launch an aggression against Iran. I think it's useful to know that US diplomats privately admitted that the overthrow of Honduras' leftist, democratically-elected president was indeed illegal and unconstitutional, even as they publicly waffled.

Some people are concerned with provided metaphoric 'ammunition' to the bad guys. I’m more concerned about providing REAL ammunition to bad guys... something the cables and other reporting has revealed that our 'allies' in Pakistan and Afghanistan are doing. The cables reveal that Afghan head of state Hamid Karzai, whose government and personal protection would collapse without my tax dollars, is corrupt and in league with drug dealers and terrorist thugs. Ditto the Pakistani 'security' forces, who also receive more than a few of my tax dollars. My money is funding this crap. And thanks to WL, I know that even our diplomats admit this is a sham. I have personal friends who are putting their lives at risk to defend the crooked regime in Kabul. And my outrage and disgust supposed to be directed at Assange? Give me a break!

Despite all the sanctimonious official outrage at WL, what do I hear on the Voice of America's African news program a few days ago? A piece about a WikiLeak cable concerning the political situation in Kenya, another on a cable about Nigeria and a third about cables concerning African leaders. This includes the a bit about how angry the US government is that these cables have been published. That's the same VOA is run and funded by... the US government.

So it’s supposedly illegal for ordinary Americans to share the WikiLeaks cables but ok for a US government mouthpiece to publicize them?

Some argue that WL has been reckless and unrestrained. Yet, according to The New York Times:

Had it chosen to do so, WikiLeaks could have posted on the Web all 251,287 confidential diplomatic cables about six months ago, when the group obtained them. Instead, it shared the cables with traditional news organizations and has coordinated the cables’ release with them. As of Friday, fewer than 1 percent of the cables had been released on the Web by the antisecrecy group, The Times and four European publications combined.

“They’ve actually embraced” the mainstream media, “which they used to treat as a cuss word,” [Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University] said. “I’m watching WikiLeaks grow up. What they’re doing with these diplomatic documents so far is very responsible.”

When the newspapers have redacted cables to protect diplomats’ sources, WikiLeaks has generally been careful to follow suit. Its volunteers now accept that not all government secrets are illegitimate....

What is the ultimate illustration of US government hypocrisy? The fact that some of the WL leaks were published on... the State Department's own website.

The Wikileaks' revelations will harm Afghans and that shows why we need to get out

The Obama administration freaked out at the historic leak of Afghanistan war documents by the whistleblower website Wikileaks and subsequent publication of articles based on that information by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the UK Guardian and Germany's der Spiegel.

Many people, including Daniel Ellsberg himself, compared the significance of what Wikileaks did to the release of the Pentagon Papers. Though, the respected non-profit journalism organization Pro Publica disagrees.

I tend to side more with Pro Publica. The Wikileaks information paints a damning portrait of a morass that was never going to be winnable, but even though I'm no South Asia expert, there wasn't a lot of stuff I hadn't heard before.

It's certainly important in that it illustrates to governments and bureaucracies that secrets are a lot harder to keep in the Internet age and that's certainly a good thing. Bureaucracies, even those of sainted 'liberal' administrations, tend to loathe transparency even though secrecy is the enemy of democracy and good governance.

As expected, the Obama administration and the Pentagon blasted the leaks, as did Afghan president Hamad Karzai. They all claimed it would put Afghan lives at risk. It goes without saying that there's a huge element of spin in this. 'National security' is the perpetual claim any time anything comes out to offer a real version of reality that contradicts the officially approved version of reality.

Yet here's also an element of truth to the claims.

But I think that element of truth is even more damning to the cause of the eternal occupation. How can the foreign occupation possibly succeed (whatever 'success' means) if Afghans who openly cooperate with it are literally risking their lives?

Americans like to believe we can accomplish anything if we just beat our head against a stone wall a little bit harder and never give up until that wall comes down. But what can we possibly accomplish if Afghans are too fearful to work with us? What kind of Afghanistan can be built if Afghans are too afraid to be a part of its construction?

Or maybe the definition of 'success' has other priorities than the security of Afghans and Americans.

And if there's any doubt that the present sainted 'liberal' administration has no interest in even beginning the dismantling the American empire, look no further than the fact that Pres. Obama has ordered all federal agencies to prepare for a five percent budget cut for the next fiscal year... except for the Pentagon, while will be exempted.

What's the polar opposite of preaching to the choir?

Then again, I suppose if anyone needed to hear this...

Tibet's spiritual leader The Dalai Lama was in Albany this week, during which the Nobel Peace laureate briefly addressed the New York state Senate.

As The Buffalo News described it with great journalistic understatement: The Dalai Lama also stressed the importance of “transparency,” something usually lacking in the Capitol.

“Sometimes I feel like Albany needs divine intervention,” quipped Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Group, one of the rare paragons of virtue in the state capital.

The Dalai Lama's comments came during the same week as it was reported that lobbying remained one of the few industries in the state that doesn't seem hit by the recession. Special interest groups spent $174 million last year to influence the nation's most dysfunctional legislature, a 15.2 pct increase in the last two years.

Of course, they're only dysfunctional from the perspective of the ordinary people. I'm sure those who've hired the highly paid lobbyists find legislators quite useful.

There are over 30 registered lobbyists in Albany for every lawmaker.

Who wears the pants in Albany?

On Monday, state leaders emerged from hiding (perhaps lounging in Dick Cheney's famous 'undisclosed location') to announce $131.8 billion budget. The budget resulted from the infamous 'three men in a room' process that was so often denounced by both Gov. David Paterson and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, when both were minority leaders in the Senate -- the proverbial fourth man.

"If the Legislature can maintain this type of fiscal discipline over the next few years, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel." explained the governor, which seems an Orwellian way to describe a budget that increases spending by 8.7 percent. The current budget is double the size of the budget of only 12 years ago, according to The Times-Union.

Gov. Paterson and Sen. Smith each apologized for the secretive process that resulted in the budget and wished things could have been done differently.

The reputation of both Democrats, both of whom, it could be argued, backed into their positions, has been seriously tarnished by an increasing public perception of incompetence and ineffectual leadership. The fact that two of the three men in a room 'wished' the secretive process could have been different but were too weak to make it happen hardly inspires confidence in either of them, in their ability to take tough decisions or in the budget they helped produce.

Secrecy is the enemy of democracy. So it's no surprise that this is how Albany continues to be run. But as usual, the public is the big loser here.