Prop8 Liveblog: The City of SF Weighs In
Therese Stewart: The fact that legislation costs govt money is not sufficient to make law unconstitutional. Court decision on public schools. Considered toll on children, but also role of education, basic tools. Serious harm that Prop 8 imposes…
Prop 8 Liveblog: "June Is the Month for Marriages"
Teddy and I are in the ceremonial court room to watch the Prop 8 Trial. bmaz is making friends down in the actual court room. Teddy's doing a full liveblog over there where the wireless signal is strong. Until he needs a break, I'm just going…
The Return of CIFA. Now, with Interrogation Capabilities!
Jeff Stein notes that the Defense Intelligence Agency has plans to set up a new records center for its counterintelligence operation.
The Defense Intelligence Agency wants to open a new repository for information about individuals and groups…
In Bitchy Outburst, Risen Confirms Lithium Story Timed to Afghan Setbacks
Frankly, I'm willing to cut James Risen some slack. So much so that when Monday's !Afghanistan is Rich! story appeared, I didn't post my first instincts: that the story felt more like a planted David Sanger or William Broad story (or, for old…
Killer Drones Coming To America!
The FAA has been asked to issue flying rights for drones to carry out military and civilian law-enforcement functions in the US. How long before they hit one of our precious wedding celebrations right here in the homeland of the good old “real America”?
Erik Prince Follows Halliburton Beyond Reach of US Law
Remember how Halliburton decamped to the United Arab Emirates a number of years back? There was some discussion that might be because UAE won't extradite people to the US.
The suggestion that he's moving to a place where he can't be extradited…
Obama Administration Defends Stupid Counterterrorism Decisions, Again
Only this time, those decisions were made by his own Administration:
The Department of Defense said Monday it acted correctly when it barred three journalists, including Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg, from covering military hearings…
Touchdown Jesus Struck Down by Act of God (or Maybe Al Gore)
This is perhaps a post that klynn and Leen (and BoxTurtle, too?) will appreciate more than the rest of you. Because they, like me, have undoubtedly almost crashed their car because they were laughing so hard as they drove by Touchdown Jesus,…
Briefing Congress and Destroying Torture Tapes
As I mentioned in this post, I've been weeding through the documents released under FOIA to Judicial Watch last week. I think they suggest there's a much closer relationship between the CIA misrepresentations on Congressional Briefings and the…
BP's Well Failure Due to Effort to Save $10 Million?
Henry Waxman just put up a letter and a whole bunch of backup documents in preparation for a hearing with Tony Hayward Thursday. In it, he lists 5 shortcuts BP used in the days before the well explosion, all of them with real risks. But BP chose…
SCOTUS Denies Cert for Maher Arar
Apparently, this country has deemed it okay to take an innocent Canadian citizen transiting through US airports and instead send them to a third country to be tortured. That seems to be the lesson from SCOTUS' decision to deny Maher Arar cert…
White House Won't Tell DNI It Should Be More Powerful
Now for your latest installment of DOD's expanding intelligence authorities, DNI's increasing irrelevance, and the White House's efforts to make sure those trends continue.
As you'll recall, back in March, the Senate Intelligence Committee…
BP Well Bore/Casing Integrity Issues and Senator Nelson's Statements
A week ago, Florida Senator Bill Nelson stated on MSNBC the BP Macondo well was substantially breached and there may be seepage and leakage from the well reservoir escaping through the surrounding sea floor. It appears Nelson was correct about the breach of well integrity and may well be right about seepage from the sea floor as well.
CIA Changed the Pelosi Briefing Description after Deciding to Destroy Torture Tapes
I'm working on some deep weeds for a post later on Monday (hopefully).
But as a preliminary to them, I wanted to point out a minor--but very critical--bit of timing.
As I pointed out in the comments to this thread, someone (I'll show in my…
NYT, Republican Opposition Rag
Clark Hoyt has a really curious final column summarizing his three years as the NYT's public editor. A lot of it is self-congratulation to the NYT for even having a public editor. But I'm most fascinated by Hoyt's rebuttal of reader claims that…
"Incentives for Cooperation"
David Kris gave a speech at the Brookings Institute last week, largely intended to make the case for civilian trials. Here's the main framework of the speech:
Today, however, the consensus that developed in the aftermath of 9/11 shows some…
House Intelligence Staffer Tried to Intervene on Illegal Wiretap Program
Scott Shane and Eric Lichtblau tell a sort of weird story of how a House Intelligence Committee staffer, Diane Roark, tried to reach out to William Rehnquist to get him to review Dick Cheney's illegal wiretapping program.
Within months of the…
Are You Ready For Some Futbol? Special FIFA Trash
Time for Trash Talk. We got futbol, football, NCAA baseball and F1 in Canada.
Cables on Church Sex Scandal among those Sent to Wikileaks
Threat Level posted a quarter of the chat logs between alleged Wikileaks leaker Bradley Manning and hacker Adrian Lamo (it didn't post those with particularly personal or potentially dangerous national security information).
While the logs…
Time to Check In on Our Relations with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
Apparently, the Brits are calling Americans--including President Obama--xenophobic for referring to the company shitting up our Gulf as "British Petroleum." So for this installment of my now-regular reflection on how, fifty-some years ago,…