Showing posts with label washington post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label washington post. Show all posts

Thursday, March 19, 2015

The Resignation of Aaron Schock

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Congressman Aaron Schock R-Illinois has resigned from the House of Representatives. This comes just a few weeks after Washington Post writer Ben Terris wrote a story about Schock's Congressional Office, which was lavishly decorated to resemble the sitting room on the show Downton Abbey. Terris showed up and was given a tour by the designer herself, and that should have been the end of it. But Rep. Schock himself refused to talk about the decor, and that raised red flags, then his communications director got all huffy about the tour. Terris wrote the story anyway and it went viral.

From Ben Terris, Washington Post
A blond woman popped out of an inner office. “Want to see the rest?” she asked.

She introduced herself as Annie Brahler, the interior decorator whose company is called Euro Trash. She guided me to Schock’s private office, revealing another dramatic red room. This one with a drippy crystal chandelier, a table propped up by two eagles, a bust of Abraham Lincoln and massive arrangements of pheasant feathers.

Then, my phone rang.

It was Schock’s communications director, Benjamin Cole.

“Are you taking pictures of the office?” he asked. “Who told you you could do that? . . . Okay, stay where you are. You’ve created a bit of a crisis in the office.”

A staff member then came and asked me to please delete the photos from my phone. So started a day of back-and-forths with a congressman’s office about interior design.



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After the story was picked up by all the national media, reporters began to find anomalies in his other expenditures, including reported mileage reimbursements on his cars, and asking about his political donors. Schock couldn't stand the heat in Downton Abbey's (I mean Washingon's) below-stairs kitchen, so he quickly got out.

From Politico
llinois Rep. Aaron Schock resigned Tuesday, less than 12 hours after POLITICO raised questions about tens of thousands of dollars in mileage reimbursements he received for his personal vehicle.
Schock billed the federal government and his campaign for logging roughly 170,000 miles on his personal car from January 2010 through July 2014. But when he sold that Chevrolet Tahoe in July 2014, it had roughly 80,000 miles on the odometer, according to public records obtained by POLITICO under Illinois open records laws. The documents, in other words, indicate he was reimbursed for 90,000 miles more than his car was driven.
. . . Schock’s resignation marks a swift downfall of one of the GOP’s most promising young stars and prolific fundraisers. The former state legislator was elected to Congress in 2008 and shot through the ranks of the House GOP, at one point gracing the cover of Men’s Health magazine. He was a fresh face in a party eager to update its image.
But as his prominence grew, Schock adopted an expensive lifestyle — staying in luxury hotels, dining at pricey restaurants, flying on private jets. Mounting questions about how he paid for it eventually caught up with him.



From Yahoo
. . .In a statement confirming his resignation, Schock said that “the constant questions over the last six weeks have proven a great distraction that has made it too difficult for me to serve the people of the 18th District with the high standards that they deserve and which I have set for myself. I have always sought to do what’s best for my constituents and I thank them for the opportunity to serve.”
Those “constant questions” all started with a February story on the Washington Post’s website that, at first, seemed like little more than a quirky anecdote. But upon closer inspection, the story raised eyebrows and, as Schock mentioned, real questions. Lots of them.
Washington Post reporter Ben Terris went to interview Schock at his office last month and found himself surrounded by deep-red walls, gold wall sconces, and pheasant feathers. The room's ornate decor had been based on that of the set of the popular PBS period drama, “Downton Abbey,” a woman who turned out to be Schock’s decorator told Terris.

Washington Post: "The self-destructive mania of Rep. Aaron Schock"
. . . Schock’s choice of that vibrant color underscored his lifelong determination to go big and brash. According to a review of newspaper clippings going back to when he was a teenager in Peoria, Ill., Schock always pushed for more, more, more — and to be the youngest to ever have it.
It’s a characteristic that propelled Schock to be the youngest school board member, the youngest Illinois state legislator, one of the youngest members of Congress. It pushed him to work out so hard it looked painful, to clog his Instagram profile with action-star theatrics, to get into business hot and early because that’s what Aaron Schock does. He wins. He takes risks. He’s bold, like his bright-red office.
. . . But looking back at Schock’s history, his preternatural drive is unsettling, even for a politician. Schock didn’t want two phone lines. He wanted six. He didn’t want one credit card in middle school. He wanted 13. He wasn’t satisfied graduating high school in four years. He didn’t want to just sit on the school board — he wanted to be its president. He wanted to be the youngest everything. Health wasn’t enough. He needed a six-pack. He didn’t want his office to be beige. He wanted it red.










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Monday, April 14, 2014

All Hail The Snowden Pulitzer



Previous Related Posts:
Smashing Hard Drives ~ The Miranda / Snowden / Guardian Saga Continues
Was Miranda a Mule or a Journalist?
Greenwald Threatens to Spill UK Secrets
UK Detains Greenwald's Partner - Twitter Erupts
Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger Spins Away
Edward Snowden Releases NSA Secrets

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Both the Washington Post and Guardian UK won Pulitzer Prizes for releasing many of the secrets Edward Snowden stole from the United States Government. The award also went to Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Ewen McAskill and Barton Gellman for their Obama-slamming coverage as Snowden escaped his own country, first to Hong Kong and later Russia. Yeah, that's great. The Pulitzer Committee obviously overlooked the major flaws in the reporting, including contradictions, unfounded fear-mongering, and just pure lies (see previous posts listed above for examples). But that's okay - bad reporters win awards all the time. Have your happy day, but realize that while you may have "started a conversation" about U.S. Spy techniques it remains to be seen if the reporting was actually the "public service" you think it is. Hisory and future actions of spies like Snowden will judge this reporting much more harshly than critics on twitter. Good luck with that.


From Yahoo News
The Guardian and The Washington Post won a prestigious Pulitzer Prize on Monday for reporting on secret US surveillance programs revealed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The shared award went to the two newspapers credited with breaking the news about NSA surveillance programs, without specifically citing the journalists involved.
The reporters who played key roles in the story included Glenn Greenwald, who has since left the Guardian, and colleague Ewen MacAskill. Barton Gellman, who already has two Pulitzers, was the writer of most of the Washington Post reports.
Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who was the point of contact for Snowden, had the unusual distinction of sharing bylines in both the Guardian and the Post on the topic.

Disclosing the massive expansion of the NSA’s surveillance network absolutely was a public service. In constructing a surveillance system of breathtaking scope and intrusiveness, our government also sharply eroded individual privacy. All of this was done in secret, without public debate, and with clear weaknesses in oversight.”
. . . (Without Snowden) we never would have known how far this country had shifted away from the rights of the individual in favor of state power. There would have been no public debate about the proper balance between privacy and national security. As even the president has acknowledged, this is a conversation we need to have.
~ Martin Baron, Editor of Washington Post













We are truly honoured that our journalism has been recognised with the Pulitzer prize. This was a complex story, written, edited and produced by a team of wonderful journalists. We are particularly grateful for our colleagues across the world who supported the Guardian in circumstances which threatened to stifle our reporting. And we share this honour, not only with our colleagues at the Washington Post, but also with Edward Snowden, who risked so much in the cause of the public service which has today been acknowledged by the award of this prestigious prize.
~ Alan Rusbridger, the editor-in-chief of the Guardian

Today's decision is a vindication for everyone who believes that the public has a role in government. We owe it to the efforts of the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face of extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of pressure to get them to stop what the world now recognises was work of vital public importance.
~ Edward Snowden, via Guardian UK









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Edward Snowden didn’t win a Pulitzer on Monday, but he might as well have.
~ Dylan Byers on Politico

The Guardian and Washington Post Don't Deserve Pulitzers Just for Sparking a Debate
. . . if sparking a debate is enough to earn the Pulitzer’s coveted public service medal, then sure. Congrats. I would note, however, that merely sparking a debate is an exceedingly low standard.
There was a time, and it wasn’t very long ago, when this medal meant something more, when “aggressive reporting” meant more than being a vehicle to shovel leaked documents to the public, with stops along the way for obligatory government comment, for fawning characterizations of one’s own sources, and for tendentious claims about what those documents say.
~ Benjamin Wittes on New Republic

Pulitzers don’t make Snowden a hero
. . . It is not the media or the Pulitzer committee that should judge what Snowden did. The main judgment should come from the courts, which are now considering what the government was up to in its collection programs and should also consider what Snowden did. You may think Snowden a whistle-blower, but the only way of knowing whether he is or not is for him to return to the US and face a jury of his peers. He may continue to refuse to do that, and prefer to be sheltered by a government whose behavior he surely knows is at least as bad as that of the one he fled, but that doesn’t make him a hero. It makes him a fugitive.
~ Daniel Serwer on Peacefare.net










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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Dick Armey's Literal Armed Coup at FreedomWorks ~ Updated

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From Washington Post

The day after Labor Day, just as campaign season was entering its final frenzy, FreedomWorks, the Washington-based tea party organization, went into free fall.

Richard K. Armey, the group’s chairman and a former House majority leader, walked into the group’s Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel Armey’s enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted FreedomWorks’ top two employees off the premises, while Armey suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.

. . . “This was two weeks after there had been a shooting at the Family Research Council,” said one junior staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. “So when a man with a gun who didn’t identify himself to me or other people on staff, and a woman I’d never seen before said there was an announcement, my first gut was, ‘Is FreedomWorks in danger?’ It was bizarre.’ ”


From Mother Jones about "Armey's Hostile Takeover"
On December 12, James Burnley IV and C. Boyden Gray, two FreedomWorks board members (and allies of Armey), sent Kibbe a letter informing him that they had received "allegations of wrongdoing by the organization or its employees."
. . . Shortly after receiving the December 12 letter, Kibbe wrote a memo outlining his beef with Armey, Burnley, and Gray....
. . . (From Kibbe's Memo:)
Our favorite "Armey's Axiom" goes something like this: "Every argument in Washington, like in a marriage, is really about something else." So it goes with the attempted hostile takeover of FreedomWorks by three Republican insiders from the old guard. Is it about a book contract, or a pilfered appearance on CNBC? No, it is not. As it turns out, the fight for lower taxes, less government and more freedom is all well and good until it is Republicans—"old friends"— that are the ones needing to be held to account. It is our sense that the irresponsible acts of the so-called Trustees of FreedomWorks—Dick Armey, C. Boyden Gray, and James C. Burnley—on September 4th, and their continued hostile acts today, are all about retribution for our willingness to take a strictly nonpartisan approach to politics, our willingness to hold both Republicans and Democrats to the standards set out by our freedom philosophy and the clear limits on government power delineated in our U.S. Constitution.

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Dick Armey agreed to quit FreedomWorks back in September in exchange for $8 million.
Holy grassroots, Batman. It was worth $8 million to FreedomWorks to make Dick Armey go away.
For Mr. Armey`s part, he says that really his departure from FreedomWorks is just a matter of principle. That was the quote from him.
"My differences with FreedomWorks are a matter of principle." Which means on the $8 million check that you write to me, please put principle in the memo line, because that`s why I`m leaving -- principle.
The right seems to be imploding since the election, which we expected. It turns out though that the unexpected thing is that the implosion is going to happen very, very slowly, day by day by day, with new acrimonious details dripping out in every news cycle.
~ Transcript of Rachel Maddow Show, December 4, 2012

The republicans and the Tea Party are like a bowl of guppies, all swimming around, eating each other AND their young.
I love it. For so long they attacked teachers, fire fighters, police, unions, the American worker, education, and science. Now they get to eat each other, and maybe it will give them indigestion.
~ comment by Clemans on Mother Jones

FreedomWorks: another oxymoron.
~ comment by dennycrane on RawStory

So let me get this straight. If this had been a Joe Nobody, he would have been sent to prison. Yet, because this guy is wealthy and connected, it's viewed as "just" a bizarre act by an eccentric old man? And he extorted a half mil a year for the next 20 years?
~ comment by Christopher O. on Gawker

So Dick nearly unloaded on an army of teabaggers? Fitting.
~ comment by Gadzodilo on Gawker

[military-themed dick joke]
~ comment by NotevaluatedbytheFDA on Gawker

If you put this in script form and took it to Hollywood, they would throw you out of their offices for come up with something totally unbelievable. Unfortunately, nowadays, in order for something about the GOP in Washington to be believed, it must be unbelievable.
~ comment by Its the Supreme Court Stupid on Daily Kos

Ah, the Banana Republic of FreedomWorks.
It's how they want to run everything, isn't it?
Bizarre, truly bizarre.
~ comment by Onomastic on Daily Kos

































UPDATE: Mother Jones Reveals Gunman's Identity
Armey tells Mother Jones that this episode has been hyped up by his FreedomWorks foes, and he says the not-so-mysterious gun-touting assistant was a former Capitol Hill police officer named Beau Singleton, who used to be part of Armey's congressional security detail and who has volunteered his security services to Armey and FreedomWorks for years.

"He was well-known to the people at FreedomWorks," Armey says. "He has provided me personal security on many occasions when I was in Washington." Singleton also oversaw security for FreedomWorks in September 2009 when it organized a large rally in Washington. Singleton, Armey says, is authorized to carry a gun, but he does so in a back holster that cannot be seen by an onlooker. "I was unaware he had a gun [at the meeting]," Armey maintains. "He kept it under his coat in the back....But the news looks like Armey came in there like John Dillinger, all guns a-blazing. That was false."

Armey says that his wife, Susan, and his assistant, Jean Campbell, were concerned about a FreedomWorks official losing his temper at this meeting and suggested that Singleton join Armey and the two of them on this trip to the group's office. But he insists there was nothing odd with him showing up at FreedomWorks with Singleton by his side.

Singleton, 56, confirms Armey's account. He says that he has known Kibbe and Brandon for years and that he had often "been around" at FreedomWorks. He adds that during the meeting between Armey and Kibbe, he "just observed. I was just kind of there....I can't see why they would act like I was menacing."

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UPDATE: Hardball ~ December 26, 2012

David Corn of Mother Jones: It's become very bitter. . . . That story obviously came out because people favorable to Kibbe wanted it out and wanted to make Dick Armey look like a complete madman.
But the Post didn't report who the gunman was. Just an hour ago before coming on the show I spoke to Dick Armey and I spoke to the guy with the gun! He's a former Capitol Hill police officer who Dick Armey has used time and time again as a private security guy when he's in Washington. The guy volunteers his services.
Chris Matthews: Why did he need him in that moment?
Corn: What happened was, they knew it was going to be a contentious meeting.
Matthews: So bring a guy with a gun?
Corn: His wife and his assistant said 'bring Beau along just in case the FreedomeWorks guys go ballistic. And the thing is - Beau Singleton, that's the name of the guy--
Matthews: What was he going to do with the gun?!
Corn: He's done private security at FreedomWorks to begin with. So they knew him. It wasn't like they didn't know who he was. To me a big mystery is why the Washington Post didn't just say who this guy was? They made it sound like a guy in a hoodie brought in off the street. It was a guy who did security at FreedomWorks and he was brought in and it wasn't as menacing as it sounds. But this indicates how bad the blood is between these two sides and there is now people allied with Dick Armey . . .

Joan Walsh: It's the right versus the far right - they're all a bunch of grifters. I love you (Matthews) and David (Corn) to death, but you're both being way too nice to Dick Armey.
Matthews: You're calling Dick Armey a 'grifter'?
Joan Walsh: Yes, I am.
Matthews: Meaning he's stealing money?
Walsh: He walked with - grifting isn't stealing, necessarily. He walked away with 8 million dollars and he's mad at Matt Kibbe because he (Kibbe) got 50 thousand dollars?
. . . and David, for you to say it's not a big deal because they walked in with a guy with a gun and say they supposedly knew the guy. I mean, they're all crazy! A pox on all of their houses!
What's going on you guys? . . . (the guy with the gun) scared some people, and I once sat here while Dick Armey said he was glad he wouldn't have to be married to me. He's a grifter. He's not an attractive or decent guy. . . . I don't have a dog in the fight but I came on TV to talk about politics and I was insulted. I think he's a jerk. I think his wife came with him and she's a big jerk. And I say a pox on all their houses. I'm glad they're shooting at each other and not at the rest of America.

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