Torturing the Truth Vigilantes
"WHAT ELSE ARE WE ON THIS EARTH TO DO???," Dan Froomkin tweeted as he contemplated the NYT's Public Editor, Arthur Brisbane, asking for reader input on whether or not its reporters should correct false statements made by those they report on.
I’m…
Zardari Flees to Dubai Again Under Cover of "One Day" Trip: Is He Finished?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqrl17tZCw[/youtube]
Events continue to unfold at a very rapid pace in Pakistan. On Tuesday, I had noted, in comments to my post on the constitutional crisis facing the country over implementing the…
Santa's Elves Just Got Fired
Remember the "good" jobs report last week? As Dean Baker explained, many of the new jobs were actually the "couriers" who delivered your holiday presents.
The sharp drop in the unemployment rate over the last four months (from 9.1 percent to…
Why Won't the FAA Tell EFF Who's Flying the Drones in US Airspace?
According to this October 2010 report, these are all the locations at which someone--DOD, DHS, and NASA are publicly admitted users; "Other Government Agencies" (spooks) are always included in the discussion though not detailed--got waivers…
Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli to Leave DOJ in March
The guy in charge of--among other things--the elusive foreclosure fraud settlement with the banksters just told NPR's Carrie Johnson he'll be leaving in March.
Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli will leave the third highest-ranking post…
The Mafia Bank
In his book, McMafia, Misha Glenny describes how mobsters filled the vacuum left by communism in Eastern Europe and Russia.
The new circumstances bewildered old international institutions. All had to improvise and no party quite understood…
"Creative Destruction" as Catchall
Matt Yglesias has responded to my post on the destruction wrought by some capitalism with a fairly narrow complaint about my sarcastic comment about what I still maintain his original post entailed: an apology for the kind of destruction that…
This Gitmo Anniversary Needs to Be about Bagram, Too
On a near daily basis in the last week or so, Jason Leopold has tweeted some quote from the daily White House press briefing in which a journalist asks Jay Carney a question about detention, to which Carney responds by insisting the Administration…
Iran Begins Uranium Enrichment at Qom Tuesday, Enrichment Scientist at Natanz Assassinated Wednesday
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton railed Tuesday against Iran's beginning of operations at its Qom uranium enrichment facility, which is buried deep within a mountain to protect it from bunker-buster bombs. Less than 24 hours later,…
The Greatness of America: "Ashes of Doomed Factories, Pink-Slipped Workers, and Towns Laid to Waste"
I'm utterly delighted with this paragraph:
But as is so often the case, the reality is more complicated. Almost every successful business career is built on the ashes of doomed factories, pink-slipped workers, and towns laid to waste.
Not…
Our New Teachers about Rule of Law
The Gray Lady is dedicating space this week to reflections on Gitmo. In addition to a debate on it (more on that tomorrow), it offered Lakhdar Boumediene and Murat Kurnaz space to tell their stories, albeit in the opinion section.
Both men…
Fast and Furious Money Laundering
Every time I read Treasury's updates of sanctions designations, I'm reminded that two of our three new trade partners--Colombia and Panama--are really centers for corruption, money laundering, and crime. One of three new kingpins added to the…
Commodity Bubbles and the Resource Curse
The FT links to this Oxford Policy Management study showing that 15 low and medium income countries have become newly dependent primarily on some commodity--fuel or minerals--for export income in the last 14 years.
The number of low- and middle-income…
In Constitutional Showdown, Pakistan Supreme Court Cites Quaint Olmstead v. US on Rule of Law
The precarious hold that Pakistan's civilian government has on power took another severe blow today, as the Supreme Court handed down a decision (pdf) which threatens to find Prime Minister Yousuf Reza Gilani unfit to hold office. At issue…
Obama Swaps a JP Morgan Chase Chief of Staff for a Citi One
Former JP Morgan Chase Exec Bill Daley has finally quit the job he sucked at, White House Chief of Staff. He will be replaced by former Citi Exec and current OMB Director Jack Lew.
Chicagoan Bill Daley is stepping down as White House chief…
The Beat from Hell: Carol Rosenberg's Decade Covering Gitmo
For the record, Carol Rosenberg has been covering Gitmo for more than the decade that has elapsed since she arrived there on January 9, 2002 to cover the impending arrival of the first war on terror detainees. She filed this story on March 22,…
While NY Times Agitates for Resumption of Drone Strikes, Peace Talks Set to Add Afghanistan, Haqqani Network
Over the weekend, the New York Times published a piece whose headline seemed to cry out that drone strikes in Pakistan need to resume: "Lull in Strikes by U.S. Drones Aids Militants in Pakistan". In reading the article, it is difficult to find…
William Welch, Jeffrey Sterling, and the Sixth Amendment
As Josh Gerstein reported, the government has submitted a filing in its appeal of some rulings in the Jeffrey Sterling case that reveals a little more about their reason for appealing. The key detail is that the government considers two people,…
The Corporatist Free Speech Superiority of the Roberts Court
Adam Liptak has a pretty interesting article up in today's New York Times on the relative free speech strength of the Supreme Court under the leadership of John Roberts.
The Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the conventional…
Wildcard Weekend and Battleship Potemkin Trash
Sometimes you see things that just make you shake your head and say "what the hell is going on here?"
Here we are at the start of the NFL Playoffs - the always thrilling, and often surprising Wildcard Weekend - topped off by the Saturday…
