A few of points on the domestic propaganda issue that we discussed:

(1) Rep. Smith claimed that legal prohibitions on the domestic dissemination of government propaganda apply only to the State Department, whereas other agencies (such as the Pentagon) are already free of such restrictions; I explained that I believed that was untrue, that there are clear legal frameworks in place barring the use of domestic propaganda by all agencies, and this was what I was referencing;

(2) Rep. Smith repeatedly insisted that his bill would not permit the domestic dssemination of any State Department program “intended to” influence public opinion inisde the U.S., but only ones intended for a foreign audience; aside from the impossibility of enforcing that distinction, I pointed out that the Press Release distributed by him and his GOP co-sponsor clearly argues that one reason this repeal was needed was to enable the State Department to influence public opinion among certain population segments within the U.S. The Press Release I referenced is here, and it states:

Contemporary interpretations of the law interfere with a range of communications activities, including public diplomacy, military communication efforts, and emergency and disaster response activities.  It has also led to inaccurate reporting by American media about issues affecting global security.

For example, in 2009 the law prohibited a Minneapolis-based radio station with a large Somali-American audience from replaying a Voice of America-produced piece rebutting terrorist propaganda.  Even after the community was targeted for recruitment by al-Shabab and other extremists, government lawyers refused the replay request, noting that Smith-Mundt tied their hands. 

If one of the problems this bill seeks to solve is the inability of the State Department to “rebut terrorist propaganda” by targeting U.S. citizens with its own information campaign, then, by definition, the bill seeks to allow the State Department to attempt to influence public opinion within the U.S.

(3) This morning, Mother Jones published a piece defending this legislation. It was written by Adam Weinstein, a former Navy vet and ex-Iraq contractor who (as he acknowledged) himself wrote propagnada for the U.S. military in Iraq (what Weinstein calls “upbeat, if technically accurate, press releases for the US Army in Iraq”). Rep. Smith unsurprisingly touted this article, and it is here.

Everyone can, and should, listen for themselves to Rep. Smith’s defense of the bill and decide if they are persuaded by his assurances that this bill would not legally empower the State Department to propagandize the U.S. citizenry directly.

Undeterred by any of that unpleasantness, President Obama instead named Brennan to be his chief counter-Terrorism adviser, a position with arguably more influence that he would have had as CIA chief. Since then, Brennan has been caught peddling serious falsehoods in highly consequential cases, including falsely telling the world that Osama bin Laden “engaged in a firefight” with U.S. forces entering his house and “used his wife as a human shield,” and then outright lying when he claimed about the prior year of drone attacks in Pakistan: “there hasn’t been a single collateral death.” Given his history, it is unsurprising that Brennan has been at the heart of many of the administration’s most radical acts, including claiming the power to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA without due process and the more general policy of secretly targeting people for death by drone.

Now, Brennan’s power has increased even more: he’s on his way to becoming the sole arbiter of life and death, the unchecked judge, jury and executioner of whomever he wants dead (of course, when Associated Press in this report uses the words “Terrorist” or “al-Qaida operative,” what they actually mean is: a person accused by the U.S. Government, with no due process, of involvement in Terrorism):

Needless to say, all of this takes place in total secrecy, with no legal framework and no oversight of any kind. Indeed, even after they had Brennan publicly defend the CIA drone program, the Obama administration continue to insist in federal court that the program is too secretive even to confirm its existence. It’s just a tiny cadre of National Security State officials who decide, in the dark, whom they want dead, and then — once the President signs off — it is done. This is the Change with which the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate has gifted us: ”some of the officials carrying out the policy are equally leery of ‘how easy it has become to kill someone.’”

Reuters previously described the secret process used to determine which human beings, including American citizens, would be targeted for due-process-free death-by-CIA: they “are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials” with “no public record” nor “any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules” — an actual death panel, though one invented by the White House rather than established by law. And now John Brennan has even more control over the process, and fewer checks, when issuing these death sentence decrees.

Remember in the Bush era when little things like the Patriot Act and warrantless eavesdropping and military commissions were the Radical and Lawless Assaults Trampling on Our Constitution and Our Values? Now, all those things are completely normalized — controversies over those policies are like quaint and obsolete relics of a more innocent era — and we now have things like unelected Death Sentence Czars instead.

* * * * *

Charles Davis has two good posts — one here and one here — on the desperate mental gymnastics invoked by some Obama fanatics to justify (and, when that fails, ignore) all of this.

UPDATE: I was on Al Jazeera yesterday debating the potential de-listing of the MeK as a Terrorist group, and that can be seen here (because of technical issues, my participation began at 19:40). I was also interviewed yesterday by Anti War Radio about Obama’s detention policies and the recent court case invalidating the NDAA’s detention powers, and that can be heard here.

While Romney himself has received more contributions from his former firm than Obama has, “President Obama received a sizable share as well.” More generally, “campaign finance records show that Democrats collect more money from Wall Street than does the GOP.”

Why would these cunning Master of the Universe villains want so robustly to fund a party that is so adverse to their interests? The only coherent answer is that the party which they’re funding is anything but adverse to their interests. From today’s Washington Post, comparing White House visitor logs to lobbyist registration records:

The lobbying industry Obama has vowed to constrain is a regular presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The records also suggest that lobbyists with personal connections to the White House enjoy the easiest access. . . . 

The White House visitor records make it clear that Obama’s senior officials are granting that access to some of K Street’s most influential representatives. . . . Lobbyist Marshal Matz, for example, who served as an unpaid adviser to Obama’s 2008 campaign, has been to the White House roughly two dozen times in the past 2 1/2 years. He has brought along the general counsel for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the chief executive of cereal maker General Mills and pro bono clients, including advocates for farmers in Africa. . . .

Among the lobbyists with close ties to the White House is former New York congressman Tom Downey, who is married to Carol Browner, until last year Obama’s energy czar. Downey is the head of Downey McGrath Group, a lobbying firm whose clients include Time Warner Cable and Herbalife, which sells nutrition and dieting products. He has been to the White House complex for meetings and events 31 times. . . .

On Dec. 10, 2010, Downey held a meeting with economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers and Bill Cheney, the head of the Credit Union National Association, one of Downey McGrath’s clients. John Magill, the top lobbyist for the association, said that the group was pushing to lift the cap on the percentage of assets its members can lend out. The group asked Downey to request the meeting because he is a well-known Democrat.

“Had it been the Bush administration, we probably would have asked one of our Republican consultants to make the call,” Magill said. “That’s the way it works.”

That is indeed “the way it works” — as much as ever (the Obama administration agreed to release the visitor logs in order to settle a lawsuit, and it is the first administration to do so). Some of the lobbyists identified by the Post as frequent White House visitors are advocating for liberal causes rather than corporate interests, but many are simply there to shill for the industries that pay them to peddle their influence.

Yesterday, Newark Mayor Cory Booker went on Meet the Press and angered hordes of Democrats when he condemned the Obama campaign’s attacks on Bain as “nauseating,” equated the anti-Bain messaging to the GOP’s sleazy use of Jeremiah Wright, and then demanded: “stop the attacks on private equity” (in response to the backlash, Booker then released a hostage-like video recanting his criticisms and pledging his loyalty to President Obama). But as my Salon colleague Steve Kornacki noted, this was not some aberrational outburst from Booker; to the contrary, as Mayor of Newark, home to numerous Wall Street executives and firms, “financial support from Wall Street and, more broadly speaking, the investor class has been key to Booker’s rise, and remains key to his future dreams.”

But there’s nothing unique in that regard about Booker, who has long been regarded as a rising star in the Party. The same can be said of the Democratic Party generally. There was more or less a conscious decision in the early 1990s that the Party would transform itself into a servant of Wall Street and corporatism. It became the party of Robert Rubin and Larry Summers as it presided over massive de-regulation of the financial industry. And in response, the corporate money poured into the Party’s coffers and hasn’t stopped pouring in. Recall this December, 2008 New York Times article on key Party fundraiser Chuck Schumer — entitled “A Champion of Wall Street Reaps Benefits” — detailing the New York Senator’s loyalty to the banking industry and how crucial it has been in building and sustaining Democratic Party power in Washington:

As the financial crisis jolted the nation in September, Senator Charles E. Schumer was consumed. He traded telephone calls with bankers, then became one of the first officials to promote a Wall Street bailout. . . .

The next day, Mr. Schumer appeared at a breakfast fund-raiser in Midtown Manhattan for Senate Democrats. Addressing Henry R. Kravis, the buyout billionaire, and about 20 other finance industry executives . . . “We are not going to be a bunch of crazy, anti-business liberals,” one executive said, summarizing Mr. Schumer’s remarks.

The message clearly resonated. The next week, executives at firms represented at the breakfast sent in more than $135,000 in campaign donations. . .

Mr. Schumer led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the last four years, raising a record $240 million while increasing donations from Wall Street by 50 percent. That money helped the Democrats gain power in Congress. . . .

As a result, he has collected over his career more in campaign contributions from the securities and investment industry than any of his peers in Congress, with the exception of Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which analyzed federal data. (By 2005, Mr. Schumer had so much cash in reserve that he shut down his fund-raising efforts.)

In the last two-year election cycle, he helped raise more than $120 million for the Democrats’ Senate campaign committee, drawing nearly four times as much money from Wall Street as the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Donors often mention his “pro-business message” and record of addressing their concerns. John A. Kanas, the former chief executive of North Fork Bank, said: “He would solicit my opinion, listen to my advice and he appeared to take it into consideration.”

Lee A. Pickard, a lawyer representing clients including the Bank of New York, whose employees have been significant donors to Mr. Schumer and other Senate Democrats, turned to Mr. Schumer last year to successfully beat back a regulatory initiative by the Securities and Exchange Commission. “If you get Chuck Schumer on your side, you are O.K.,” he said.

And then there’s the always-annoying fact that Wall Street poured far more of its money into President Obama’s 2008 campaign than it did into John McCain’s, then placed large numbers of its former lobbyists and officials in key administration positions beyond just Summers and Tim Geithner, then received full-scale protection for the crimes leading to the 2008 financial crisis. Thus far, the banking industry — angered by Obama’s tepid anti-oligarch rhetoric and symbolic Election Year populist proposals, and excited to elect one of their own — has donated substantially more to Romney than Obama. It remains to be seen if that trend continues, but whatever else is true, the Democratic Party has been the recipient of ample amounts of Wall Street largesse for two decades now, and with good reason.

Romney’s record at Bain, like everything else about a presidential candidate, deserves real scrutiny, and the private equity and hedge fund conduct that made him rich has indeed played a substantial role in exploding levels of income inequality and the relentless assault on basic middle class security. But the Democratic Party has been nothing close to a force standing in opposition to any of that. They’ve been, and continue to be, enthusiastically along for the ride. Despite the industry’s petulant anger, Wall Street has thrived under the Obama administration, and even in those areas where the White House had full authority and the ability to help ordinary Americans — such as the HAMP fund to aid defaulting homeowners — they displayed overwhelming indifference. Not only did President Obama propose large cuts to Social Security and Medicare, he has been assuring Washington insiders such as GOP Sen. Tom Coburn that he intends even larger ones if re-elected:

If President Obama is president again, those problems are still there and we have to solve them. He knows that. We’ve had conversations where he’s told me he’ll go much further than anyone believes he’ll go to solve the entitlement problem if he can get the compromise. And I believe him. I believe he would.

In sum, as is typically true, there is a huge gap between tactical Election Year rhetorical posturing and the reality of whose interests the two parties are serving.

UPDATE: Here are the all-time leaders in receiving campaign contributions from the securities and investment industry, including the employees of organizations within the industry, their family members, and their political action committees, through the end of 2011 (h/t Vox Vocis res Publica):

In The Audacity of Hope, President Obama himself explained why this matters (h/t The Ox):

Increasingly I found myself spending time with people of means – law firm partners and investment bankers, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists. … As a rule, they were smart, interesting people, knowledgeable about public policy, liberal in their politics, expecting nothing more than a hearing of their opinions in exchange for their checks. But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class: the top 1 percent or so of the income scale that can afford to write a $2,000 check to a political candidate. … They had no patience with protectionism, found unions troublesome, and were not particularly sympathetic to those whose lives were upended by the movements of global capital. … I know that as a consequence of my fundraising I became more like the wealthy donors I met.

Romney spent much of his professional adult life on Wall Street, but in a different though real sense, as Obama himself recounted, so has the President. That chart above cannot be dismissed as meaningless.

INTRO [announcer]: Life after center court turns hot. Tennis legend Martina Navratilova, is she anti-American? Tonight, Martina sets the record straight with Connie. . . .

CHUNG [intro]:  It’s not the game that’s now getting Navratilova in the news again. The very personal admission to a paper that she wants to adopt a child and some very damaging quotes in German newspaper allegedly made by the tennis phenom. . . . All of this has pitted Navratilova against the country that has given her so much.

CHUNG [interview starts]: All right. I’m going to read what was said, a quote from that German newspaper. Quote: “The most absurd part of my escape from the unjust system is that I have exchanged one system that suppresses free opinion for another. The Republicans in the U.S. manipulate public opinion and sweep controversial issues under the table. It’s depressing. Decisions in America are based solely on the question of how much money will come out of it and not on the questions of how much health, morals or environment suffer as a result.”

So, is that accurate? . . . .

NAVRATILOVA: Well, obviously, I’m not saying this is a communist system, but I think we’re having — after 9/11, there’s a big centralization of power. President Bush is having more and more power. John Ashcroft is having more and more power. Americans are losing their personal rights left and right. I mean, the ACLU is up in arms about all of the stuff that’s going on right now. . . .

CHUNG: Can I be honest with you? I can tell you that when I read this, I have to tell you that I thought it was un-American, unpatriotic. I wanted to say, go back to Czechoslovakia. You know, if you don’t like it here, this a country that gave you so much, gave you the freedom to do what you want.

NAVRATILOVA: And I’m giving it back. This is why I speak out. When I see something that I don’t like, I’m going to speak out because you can do that here. And again, I feel there are too many things happening that are taking our rights away. 

CHUNG: But you know what? I think it is, OK, if you believe that, you know, then go ahead and think that at home. But why do you have to spill it out? You know, why do you have to talk about it as a celebrity so that people will write it down and talk about what you said?

NAVRATILOVA: I think athletes have a duty to speak out when there is something that’s not right, when they feel that perhaps social issues are not being paid attention to. As a woman, as a lesbian, as a woman athlete, there is a whole bunch of barriers that I’ve had to jump over, and we shouldn’t have to be jumping over them any more.

CHUNG: Got you. But sometimes, when you hear celebrities saying something, do you ever say to yourself, I don’t care what so and so thinks, you know. Yes, go ahead and say whatever you want to say. But you’re not a politician. You’re not in a position of government power or whatever.

NAVRATILOVA: No. And I just might do that. I may run for office one of these days and really do make a difference. But…

CHUNG: Are you kidding me?

NAVRATILOVA: No, I’m not. One of these days, hopefully. But when you say go back to Czech Republic, why are you sending me back there? I live here. I love this country. I’ve lived here 27 years. I’ve paid taxes here for 27 years. Do I not have a right to speak out? Why is that unpatriotic?

CHUNG: Well, you know the old line, love it or leave it. 

I can’t even put into words how ugly that is on almost every level: the nativism and jingoism, the equation of dissent with lack of patriotism, the imperious decree of who should and should not remain in the country, the total abandonment of journalistic pretense. My first reaction was to think that this was very reflective of the political climate that prevailed back then, as though it were some temporary by-product of the 9/11-produced hysteria. But on second thought, I’m not sure that’s true. I don’t recall this exchange generating much controversy; would it now? I doubt it.

The Other Side revolves around a school-going child in Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan. The child’s neighborhood gets bombed after the people of the region are suspected for some notorious activities. He ends up losing all of his loved ones during the bombing and later becomes part of an established terrorists group who exploit his loss and innocence for their own interests.

On the reasons for picking such a sensitive topic, the film-maker said, “Most of the films being made right now are based on social issues, so we picked up an issue of international importance which is the abrogation of our national space by foreign countries.”

When asked how this film on terrorism will be different from all the others that have been released since 9/11, he said, “The film takes the audience very close to the damage caused by drone attacks. I have tried my best to connect all the dots that lead to a drone attack and have shot the prevailing aftermath of such attacks in a very realistic and raw manner.”

In particular, “the film identifies the problems faced by families who have become victims of drone missiles, and it unearths the line of action which terrorist groups adopt to use victimised families for their vested interests.” In other words, it depicts the tragedy of civilian deaths, and documents how those deaths are then successfully exploited by actual Terrorists for recruitment purposes.

We can’t have the U.S. public learning about any of that. In April, Qasim was selected as the winner of the Audience Award for Best International Film at the 2012 National Film Festival For Talented Youth, held annually in Seattle, Washington. Qasim, however, along with his co-producers, were prevented from traveling to the U.S. to accept their award and showcase their film because their request for a visa to travel to the U.S. was denied. The Tribune reported: “Despite being chosen for the award, the filmmakers were unable to attend the award ceremony as their visa applications were rejected twice. ’If we got the visa then it would have been easy for us to frame our point of view in front of the other selected youth filmmakers,’ Qasim said.” And:

“I believe the most probable reason for the visa denial was the sensitive subject of my film,” says Qasim. He recalls that when the visa officer asked about the subject matter of the film, he suggested making changes in the letter issued by his University upon hearing that the film dealt with terrorism and drone attacks.

“Although I made the changes to the letter according to the visa officer’s recommendation, they still rejected the visa and did not disclose the reason for it,” says a disappointed Qasim.

According to Qasim, “NFFTY is considered to be the biggest event for young film-makers of the world. Film schools as well as potential Hollywood producers attend the event in order to interact with young, talented film-makers. I’m disappointed that my team, especially my crew members Atiqullah, Ali Raza Mukhtar Ali and Waqas Waheed Awan, who made the film possible with their hard work and support, missed out on a major opportunity to represent Pakistan on an international forum.”

Although it’s not proven why the visa was denied — the U.S. government, needless to say, refuses to comment on visa denials — this case is similar to that of Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who had sued the CIA on behalf of civilian drone victims and was also denied a visa to travel to the U.S. to attend last month’s Drone Summit in Washington; the Obama administration relented and permitted him to travel to the U.S. only once a serious outcry arose. The Bush administration also routinely excluded Muslim critics of U.S. foreign policy from entering the U.S.

Banning filmmakers, lawyers, political activists, and scholars from entering your country out of fear of their criticisms is the behavior of an insecure, oppressive nation. It’s also natural behavior for political leaders eager to maintain an impenetrable wall of secrecy around their conduct.

Just to underscore how extreme is the Obama administration’s reflexive secrecy in such matters: yesterday, ABC News‘s Jake Tapper asked National Security Advisor Tom Donilon whether the U.S. Government compensates the innocent victims it kills outside of Afghanistan, and Donilon simply refused to answer (“I’m just not going to go there”). There’s no legitimate reason that this information should be concealed, but for a government that views disclosure as inherently unnecessary, that is enamored of its own secrecy power for its own sake, and that is desperate to prevent its citizens from knowing what it is doing, this sort of imperious decree of secrecy is the natural course (for an even more egregious case, see this amazing summary from the ACLU’s Ben Wizner on how Obama DOJ lawyers defend the U.S. government’s secret, definitively Kafkaesque, unappealable no-fly and Terrorist watch lists).

That the U.S. is routinely killing innocent civilians in multiple Muslim countries is one of the great taboos in establishment media discourse. A film that documents the horrors and Terror brought by the U.S. to innocent people — and the way in which that behavior constantly strengthens the Terrorists, thus eternally perpetuating its own justification — threatens to subvert that taboo. So this filmmaker is simply kept out of the country, in Pakistan, where he can do little harm to U.S. propaganda (as usual, U.S. government claims of secrecy based on national security are primarily geared toward ensuring effective propagnada — of the American citizenry). Isn’t it time for another Hillary Clinton lecture to the world on the need for openness and transparency? “Those societies that believe they can be closed to change, to ideas, cultures, and beliefs that are different from theirs, will find quickly that in our internet world they will be left behind,” she so inspirationally intoned last month.