What's It Take for Holder to Be Allowed to Do a Sunday Show? Kill Miranda!
The White House press made a bit of a todo over the fact that Eric Holder was finally allowed to go on a Sunday show today (he's appearing on both ABC and NBC). Given all the somewhat bizarre claims from people like Rahm that Holder botches…
Joshua Claus: The Rape Threat and the Dead Detainees
Jim White catalogued some of the hesitancy among the traditional media (and, frankly, the blogosphere) to highlight the precise piece of news that DOD banned four reporters from Gitmo over: the name of the witness dubbed Interrogator #1 who…
Pew: 70% Experienced Significant Financial Issue
Jeebus. Found these numbers via Susie.
70% of those surveyed by Pew have either had someone in their household looking for work, had their hours/wages cut, or had problems paying significant bills.
70%.
I'm writing this from the Clusterfuck…
Trash Talk: Viva Los Suns!!
Talk some trash and rip this joint.
EU Won't Hand Over Their Data
Last year and in February, we watched as the EU balked at US demands for data-sharing under the SWIFT program. The Belgian cooperative in charge of the international money transfer database moved its servers to the EU, but the US still wanted…
Cancer, Chemicals, and Corporations
As you might know, my family is a walking cancer cluster: three out of five of us had some form of cancer. What has frustrated me as I've lived through three bouts of cancer in my family was the cancer industry's focus on "curing cancer," with…
DOD Kicks Out Gitmo Reporters for Reporting Publicly Available Information
Spencer just tweeted:
Pentagon BANS Michelle Shephard, Paul Koring, Steven Edwards & @carolrosenberg from #GTMO for reporting Interrogator #1's name #solidarity
And Al Arabiya's Muna Shikaki tweeted:
Office of Sec of Defense issues statement…
"It’d be easier to launch a Hellfire missile at a non-citizen than a citizen"
The whole point of Joe Lieberman's tea-bagger bait Terrorist Expatriation Act, according to his Republican House co-sponsor Charlie Dent, is to make it easier to launch Hellfire missiles at people. And Lieberman, too, ties his citizenship-stripping…
They Used Threat of Prison Rape to Scare Omar Khadr
As Spencer reports from Gitmo, the first interrogator to question Omar Khadr at Bagram told him a story suggesting that if he lied, he'd be sent to an American prison where he'd be likely to get raped.
“I told him a fictitious story we had…
"Pattern of Life" Drone Strikes
The LAT reports that targeting for most of the drone strikes that have killed more than 500 people in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been based not on information about an individual's ties to terrorism, but rather on "pattern of life" analysis…
Rahm and Axe: Timmeh Has Got His Groove Back
What a ridiculous piece of crap this A1 article by Anne Kornblut is, proclaiming that Eric Holder is having a good week.
It parrots conventional wisdom about what a bad time Eric Holder has had--pointing to turf battles he lost, rather than…
ACLU Better Spooks than the Torturers
Apparently, the ACLU (or rather, private investigators hired by the John Adams Project) are better spooks than the torturers. I say that because John Rizzo has now confirmed what had not been certain before: that when ACLU asked the PIs to figure…
Oil and Water and Leaky Hydraulics Don't Mix?
I wanted to call your attention to this excellent story from the Houston Chronicle describing some of the potential causes of the Deepwater Horizon spill. The short version appears to be that they were switching the drill chamber over from mud…
The Brits Refuse Secret Trials Even as Obama Doubles Down
As bmaz reported last night, the Obama Administration has refused to accept Vaughn Walker's ruling in al-Haramain--in fairly spectacular fashion (and yes, bmaz, Mary, MadDog and others did tell me this was going to happen).
Meanwhile, across…
Government Remains Belligerent in al-Haramain; Will Fight On
The government has responded to Plaintiffs' al-Haramain's proposed judgment. To put it lightly, the DOJ is NOT going to give up and pay.
Halliburton: We Worked to Spec
As oil continues to gush into the Gulf, I've been haunted by the statement Halliburton put out about the Deepwater Horizon spill.
Here's the statement, dated April 30, in its entirety.
Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) confirmed today its continued…
BP Oil Slick The Result Of Republican DOJ And Regulatory Policy
The one constant theme underlying all the elements that could have and/or did lead to the BP Gulf oil spill is the mendacious corporate servitude of the Republican party, their leaders and policies. The arrogance and recklessness of BP and its oily partners gestated wildly under the Bush/Cheney administration and little is changing significantly under Obama.
Erik Prince Proposes Blackwater Become Big Oil's Enforcer
Jeremy Scahill reports on a recording that was liberated from a recent Erik Prince talk in which Prince talks about all the great roles he thinks Blackwater should play in protecting Big Oil. Mind you, he didn't call it Big Oil. But he proposed…
Top Journalist's Husband Argues People Are Too Stupid for Debate
Hopefully, you've already seem Ryan Grim's explosive report on how, in 2004, Alan Greenspan argued the Fed should keep worries about a growing housing bubble secret because the chumps buying the houses were too stupid to engage in a debate about…
John Yoo: Stupid Political Hack AND Craven Addington Disciple
If ever there were a doubt that John Yoo was not just a craven lackey for David Addington, but also a stupid political hack, his op-ed today puts that doubt to rest. After whining about how mean the Senate Judiciary Committee was to Robert Bork…