Tim Griffin: Rove's US Attorney Project Comes Full Circle
Remember the entire point of Karl Rove's plot to fire a bunch of US Attorneys and replace them with partisan hacks? It was to advance the political career of the new USAs.
Perhaps his most prominent success on that measure is Chris Christie.…
A Signing Statement to Protect Presidential Powers Obama Won't Commit to Use
That's the short version of this Dafna Linzer story on Obama Administration plans to combat Congressional efforts to keep Gitmo open forever. Obama will include a signing statement with the appropriations bill asserting that limits on what he…
W Apparently Understood "What's Good for GM Is Good for the Country..."
... to refer not to General Motors, but to Genetically Modified food:
The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released…
More New York Republicans Providing Material Support to Terrorists
Speaking of material support for terrorism, David Cole uses the recent trip by Rudy Giuliani and others to suck up to the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) as an opportunity to explain the idiocy of the Holder versus Humanitarian Law Project SCOTUS verdict.
DID…
Peter "Material Support for Terrorism" King
The NYT has an editorial rightly condemning ascending Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee Peter King's upcoming hearing to attack Muslims.
It is disturbing to listen to Representative Peter King, the incoming chairman of the Homeland…
Move Over 2010, It's A New Year Of Trash Talk!
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bmazIt is hard to believe 2010 is over and gone already, but nevertheless we have blasted through another year here at Emptywheel full of substantive and important issues on the merits and fun and relaxation with Trash Talking. And another year…
El País Editor: When Democracy's Rules Are Flouted, Democracy Is Put at Risk
The Editor of Spain's El Pais, Javier Moreno, has an interesting piece explaining why he published the Wikileak cables. He points to the same thing I pointed to--American efforts to squelch torture investigations in Spain and Germany--to explain…
Trash Talk: Horny Roses Edition
It's New Years, and given that there are no PAC-10 teams at the Rose Bowl this year, I'm gonna assume that bmaz is still asleep. So I better get a trash talk up for the college games today, at least, if only to keep scribe quiet.
Though…
A New Year
It's been a hectic few weeks for me.
From December 11 to December 19, my life was a blur of boxes and U-Hauls and trips back and forth between People's Republic and DeVos' Dominion. On December 20, Mr. EW and I left our apartment still packed…
Lamo's Two (?!) Laptops
In the original story about Adrian Lamo's involuntary hospitalization, he loses his medication and calls the cops.
Last month Adrian Lamo, a man once hunted by the FBI, did something contrary to his nature. He picked up a payphone outside a…
Pulling Some Threads on Lamo's Inconsistencies
In her post laying out the many inconsistencies in Adrian Lamo's account of turning in Bradley Manning, Jane says:
I only see two possibilities. One, Wired had the chat logs before Lamo made any calls to authorities, and was a party to whatever…
Oops! Bribing Nigeria for Cheney's Freedom Not Legal
A lawyer in Nigeria has reminded the country's anti-corruption watchdog that the recent deal buying Cheney's freedom for $35 million is not legal.
In a letter to Nigeria’s anti-corruption watchdog, Osuagwu Ugochukwu, a prominent lawyer in…
Assange Alerts His Hostages
Remember how I suggested that Obama was establishing a practice of only making deals with people--whether they be Republicans or Democrats--who take hostages?
Well, Julian Assange just made it clear who his hostages are:
Top officials in several…
Four Words You Didn't Want to See Together Again
"Judith" "Miller" "Embedded" "Iraq"
By Judith Miller
It was the suicide vest that clinched it.
John C. Myers, a veteran law enforcement officer embedded in the U.S. Army’s 1st Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq’s Anbar province,…
Floyd Abrams' Abuse of Power
I promise I'm going to catch up on the WikiLeaks stuff in more detail soon, but I wanted to do a quick post pointing out the idiocy of Floyd Abrams' attack on WikiLeaks. The logic of Abrams' op-ed--which argues that WikiLeaks is different from…
Did Brennan and Napolitano Have Advance Warning of the UK Arrests?
Now that I've fetched Mr. EW from his 48 hour trip to Philadelphia from Dublin, my entire family will be in one place for the next day or so, so don't expect much posting from me in that period.
But I did want to point to this detail about…
TSA's Legal Justification for Gate Grope
The Electronic Privacy Information Center has been suing the Department of Homeland Security because it refused to engage in the public rule-making process before it adopted RapeAScan machines as part of the primary screening at airports. DHS…
Fat Trash
Get some food, find the couch and man the remote - it's time for some football!
When Did Adrian Lamo Start Working with Federal Investigators?
The first suspicious moment in the chats between Adrian Lamo and Bradley Manning occurred at 12:54 on May 22--ostensibly the second day of chat communication between them (though Manning had sent Lamo encrypted emails for an unspecified period…
Obama/Bush DOJ Update to OLC Christmas Carol
Through what can only be described as a Christmas miracle, our very own Mary has “discovered” the new version of the OLC Christmas carol, as updated by the Obama/Bush OLC.
