Late last night I posted a link list to a day's worth of articles about Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, Larry Johnson, Jason Leopold and others in their cabal. A good number of the links were discussing the ongoing Johnson/Leopold saga that Seixon has been involed in disclosing. This morning, Seixon has posted the following:
At approximately 7:00 AM Central European Time I received a phone call from a blocked number. The person on the phone told me I had written naughty things on my blog, and then laughed when I asked them who they were.
"You're a dead man."
There is nothing funny about those words. Some want to write off this crazy group as BDS sufferers and think that designation explains all. I agree that they all suffer from BDS, but BDS is not what is driving this story. Like I said yesterday, keep your eye on the ball. This is a rogue CIA cabal of ex and active CIA agents working all around the world. It is unraveling, in large measure because Joe Wilson has a big mouth and an even bigger problem with the truth. A few years ago, it was much easier for a rogue group to operate under the radar, but the advent of the blogosphere, with its Army of Davids, has made this much more difficult. The leaks to the NYTs and the WaPo were pounced on by the blogging world and even with limited amounts of public information, a picture has begun to emerge and there are many in and out of government who should be quaking in their boots about now.
Related:
The Saga Of The Digital Brownshirts "(I did a little bit of humor about it here). But I don't think George is laughing right now."
Another Lefty Melts Down "This has gone from amusing to creepy."
Protein Wisdom in his Brave New Worlds post speaks to the larger issue:
But as I noted on Hoist the Black Flag yesterday, there is more at work here than simple playground bickering. To wit: beyond a particular individual’s pathology, what the Frisch incident revealed—to me, at least—was the lengths some in press will go to to turn a clear case of boorish behavior into a story about the “cycle of violence” between political opponents; what the Greenwald (alleged) sockpuppetry episode reveals is that many of those being cited as “experts” on issues that will shape public opinion and could, in theory, manifestly impact public policy and law, are in fact puffed up creations of an organized message machine whose goal it is to shape the official public narrative—even if doing so requires behind the scenes machinations. Because to adherents of such a worldview, anything is acceptable once you’ve decided that it is up to you to fight for the “greater good”—an impulse that I imagine grows even stronger once it joins forces with others who share that same tinpot Machiavellian’s sense of social pragmatism.
And now, with this new story, what we have is several reporters and a former CIA agent using base intimidation that has escalated into a potentially actionable—and quite serious—offense.
And then nails it with You know…
...for a supposedly peaceable, “reality-based” community, they sure do have a thing for online puppet shows and overt thuggery, don’t they?
Of course, in their defense, I suppose one can begin to get a bit cocky when one has had the intelligence bureaucracy and the press on one’s side for so very long. Or, you know—so they think.
Patterico has been covering the sock puppet/blog war shenanigans and sees them as all connected too.
MacRanger asks: Is Larry Johnson harrassing Seixon? and gives some good advice.
I would suggest keeping a copy of the email and forwarding to the FBI. Interstate communication of a threat is a Felony and as such Johnson could be in a jam if in fact he sent the email. To wit:
"Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
Again, finding out if it is Johnson isn't hard and it would seem to be his MO. So don't let it go by, report it.
Mac has been on the entire "big picture" case that goes way beyond the small minds of Larry Johnson, Jason Leopold or even Joe Wilson. See: The Coming Storm - Rep. William Jefferson - Jefferson, Wilson, Clinton and the tenacles of corruption and his whole Rockefeller did you "teller?" series.
So tell me now Mr Greenwald: does Jason Leopold constitute "a known opinion maker," as a "regular contributor" to CNBC and National Public Radio? Is he "representative of the 'Left'" as a writer for Alternet, CounterPunch, Common Dreams, Raw Story, and Truthout?
What of Larry Johnson, who gave the weekly radio address on July 23, 2005 for the Democratic Party, and wrote a July, 2001 NY Times editorial claiming a declining terrorist threat, and has appeared on many of the major news channels? I think he qualifies as well.
Leftist Hate Campaign Against Blogger Gets Deadly Serious
Byron York stays on the Wilson/Plame story.
You probably haven't heard of former CIA employee Larry Johnson, but he has a certain cachet on the left. He has given the Democratic Party's weekly radio address, is a big favorite among liberal bloggers, and has appeared as an "expert" on terrorism on PBS and other mainstream outlets. So you might assume he isn't a complete moron.
Think again. The Larry Johnson paper trail starts in July 2001--two months before September 11--when he wrote in the New York Times that the terrorist threat was "declining," and that Americans, despite being "bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism," have "little to fear" from such attacks. An interesting window into the mindset of the CIA, or at least a portion thereof, pre-September 11, but hardly a qualification to be considered an "expert" on the subject.
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