Why is the Corporate Media Ignoring Sibel Edmonds? Do we need a VIRTUAL CONGRESS to protect our lawmakers from outside influence?
Everyday Citizen is asking that very question today.
I saw their Facebook link about it this morning and added this comment, which I'm blogging here.
Sibel Edmonds may be the Bush Era's Pandora.
The American Conservative has opened Pandora's blog with a startling interview of Sibel Edmonds, whose story should be exploding in big headlines and feature stories across the country, but it is being summarily ignored by every mainstream media outlet.
Brad Friedman's been covering it in depth on BRADBLOG
And Sibel's got her own blog up and running, where she interacts very personally with her readers and commenters.
I sincerely hope TPM picks up on it and helps disseminate this tale of espionage, intrigue and the dark side of politics.
Here's a quote from Sibel's deposition about foreign agents and how they gained access and control over some of our lawmakers;
"and this information would include all their sexual preference, how much they owed on their homes, if they have gambling issues,"
How many etceteras might one add to that short list?
The fact we put all our lawmakers together in one city makes it too easy for either K-Street or foreign agents to access them all in one spot.
I say lets bring em' all home, make them live with their constituents and do their debating and voting online, publicly.
The horse and buggy technology during the writing of the Federalist Papers is obsolete, to say the least, we don't drive horse-drawn carriages any more, so why do we send our lawmakers to one easily accessible spot as if that arcane model still existed?
"VIRTUAL CONGRESS!" should be the battle cry of the new Netroots. Our lawmakers are too accessible to these dangerous influences of intrigue and international espionage when they are all clustered together in one place.
Get them out of DC and back home with their constituents! Let them debate and vote online, PUBLICLY!
Viva la blogs!
Have to differ here. Having the reps and senators dispersed also makes it far easier for them to carry out their more...questionable activities without the presence of watchful eyes.
I will grant, hell, I'll stipulate that the press has not done what we'd call a bang-up job of it on that score, still, I prefer at least the potential of observation of misconduct to the obscurity of home grounds for these "characters" of low moral character.
September 24, 2009 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would guess the local media would pick back up their traditional watchdog roles, especially if their story was closer to home.
Considering how isolated and detached people are from DC, it gives them MORE cover to hide their indiscretions and intrigues. Local exposure would surely shine more light on the everyday issues, the ones that directly affect those local voters, instead of the pupil-dilating sensationalism we see now from the WaPo, NYT et al..
September 24, 2009 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a deep thought; Virtual GOVERNMENT.
Turn all that expensive government infrastructure into home offices. Let our federal employees virtually run their offices from home.
Just food for thought.
September 24, 2009 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kevin Phillips proposed exactly this idea in his 1993 book "Arrogant Capital."
Great minds think alike Jep07.
September 24, 2009 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Phillips has me by about 10 years on this one, I started promoting "virtual government" beginning back in 2003, about the time we saw the ticking time bomb in the form of mushroom clouds Big Lie being promulgated to proficiently by our President and his puppetmasters.
I'll have to take a peek at that book, thanks for the tip.
Still haven't seen a single media outlet allow even their most objective (Keith and Rachel come to mind) reporters to do their work about the Sibel Edmonds story, the power behind sqhelching her story is incredibly well-connected.
Problem is, Sibel's an equal opportunity whistleblower, along with the usual Republican suspects, some of the Democrats we know and love are getting caught up in Sibel's casting nets, and it is hard to for many to accept that the corruption goes so deep.
September 24, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good call. Auctioning off federal buildings, lands, parks, and monuments might even pay down the debt. Of course, getting the teleconferencing and electronic infrastructure up and running would be an Eisenhower-interstate-system type project, but it might also be almost as useful as the Eisenhower Interstate System, which is probably the best idea the Feds ever had.
September 24, 2009 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Of course, getting the teleconferencing and electronic infrastructure up and running would be an Eisenhower-interstate-system type project"
Actually, we could just co-opt Poindexter's TIA monstrosity that turned into the whole Bush Era telecom immunity debacle we are still watching play out. In this situation, I think the private sector has already provided that cyber-interstate system.
You've no doubt heard of 3G and 4G networks, I would suggest there's already another G in the works, maybe by the time we get to 7G, that generation will be both space-based relayed and fast enough to accomplish this task.
It is also an idea that transcends party limitations.
Any fiscal conservative Republican worth their salt should appreciate this idea, simply on the merits of making government literally smaller, and at a fraction of the current costs.
And any progressive with a grain of sense already knows the power of the toobz, and also knows that MySpace and Facebook are already more complex than this government site could ever be.
So I guess I'm suggesting the transition might not be as difficult as building the interstate highway system, but it would surely create high-tech jobs the way building an interstate creates labor jobs.
September 24, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Auctioning off federal buildings, lands, parks, and monuments.."
The administration buildings, maybe, but the lands, parks and monuments are worth keeping, expanding and developing for the public as a whole, not special interests who plan to clearcut every inch of public property they get power over.
How about we turn Congress into a museum, and let schoolchildren see reenactments of historic events there?
Then every now and then, as a formal formality, our contemporary lawmakers could gather there to enact some legislation, remember the good old days when their arcane ancestors could hide from us in those halls, making all those back room, cloakroom and restroom deals we have been so saddened and shocked by.
Bring em' home. Save them from themselves and each other.
WE NEED A VIRTUAL CONGRESS!
September 24, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't find her very credible. I dislike Bush as much as anyone, but the idea that he knew and allowed 9/11 to happen is just not credible. Not in the least.
The thing is, huge conspiracies like this need too many parties to remain secret conspiracies.
September 24, 2009 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
How bout Cheney, Rummy, and a few of their old time Vulcan buddies in the CIA keeping every law enforcement off the case in time for their saudi partners to get their kids in place? Just a small tight group built of trust from 40 years in government together and in strategic positions of authority.
No? Ok, taking off the tin foil and putting the Ludlum books down.
Truth is I don't really believe it either, but I don't know what to believe. Regardless even if the most fantastical stories are true the narrative has been set and once you make the argument you are deemed crazy.
However, I would have liked a thorough 911 investigation instead of the whitewashed report we received. So many legitimate questions were left unanswered that it has left fertile ground for theories to arise.
September 24, 2009 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't seen where she's made the assertion Bush knew about 9/11 in advance and let it happen. Well, not beyond things of the infamous "Al Quaeda Plans to Attack the US using Commercial Aircraft" report variety - which obviously had filtered up to official report status and WAS indeed ignored.
What she asserted is that months before 9/11 there were negotiations with Turkey on the division of Iraq in exchange for letting us invade from their territory. So she adds more grist to the assertion that the Iraq invasion was planned in advance and 9/11 was just a convenient excuse. But this is hardly a novel disclosure and has been pretty much confirmed through many other sources. She provides far greater detail as to what the Turkish interests were pushing for during this period.
She also alleges some gun/drugs shenanigans involving US officials and several members of the bin Laden family. This seems to be a statement of intertwined US interest with the bin Ladens - which is also well documented through other sources(remember the Michael Moore movie?). Again, she provides some interesting detail about a specific situation that centered in Turkey: "they were putting all these bin Ladens on NATO planes. People and weapons went one way, drugs came back.". Sounds an awful lot like the Iran/Contra mechanism to me.
I'm having a hard time just dismissing her out of hand.
September 24, 2009 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I don't find her very credible."
It is the underlying story that seems incredible. Just the thought that so many of our lawmakers might be frozen in the submerged iceberg that Edmonds shows us the tip of boggles the mind.
She is talking about much more than 9-11 here, you must be reading comments about her, not her own story. She is certainly not obsessed with Bush and 9-11, it is just a distractive sidebar to the bigger story.
What she has revealed goes deeper than just the war on terror, it goes to the heart of our lawmakers' easy accessibility and apparent naive vulnerability to pernicious intrigue and blackmail on the part of more than one underworld player.
I would suggest you read a bit deeper, her credibility is shown to be unquestionable by the sheer weight of logic. Sherlock Holmes would agree after reading the first two pages of her deposition..
"huge conspiracies like this need too many parties to remain secret conspiracies.."
Well, by golly, she's one of the parties who refused to remain secret.
SHE WAS AN INTERPRETER!
Interpreters aren't chopped liver, they tend to be very intelligent, and by nature are also living breathing human beings, some with an admirable depth of soul and conscience.
It is a big mistake to assume you can muzzle someone with a conscience, who just happened to be an interpreter privy to all this intrigue.
September 24, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Conspiracies do not need to include a huge number of active participants to be huge.
The right combination of aggressiveness in a very few, and passivity in all the rest, can easily lead to a precipitous event. After it is over, all the passive co-conspirators can claim plausible deniability, while the core, pro-active co-conspirators try to disappear into time, if they can manage the media.
So, in reality, it doesn't take a big team to actually commit a conspiracy.
It only takes two to tango. It wouldn't take an extended involvement, just a few key individuals in key spots.
Remember how ALL information from EVERY intelligence agency was filtered through ONE office, (Deadeye's Patriot-Act-4th-Branch-third-rail, remember?) And recall for a moment how THAT intelligence was considered so good until it proved so bad? (If not for Joe Wilson III and his wife Valerie, we might not have such proof.)
Suddenly it looks more like a small group of dancers on the tango floor, with a lot of others watching from the plausible denial bleachers.
Why does this make me think of Tom Delay?
September 24, 2009 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with JEP07 on the thread of Edmonds story. She has not said Bush permitted or planned 9-11. She has indicated that US agencies interfered with counter-intelligence surveillance against persons and groups who appear to have connections to a number of US politicians, and that political behavior of these politicians appears to exhibit compliance or maniplulation. She has indicated the extent of influence by foreign actors on US politicians which is startling.
September 25, 2009 8:23 AM | Reply | Permalink