Amy Klobuchar Shreds Coburn's "Concept of Freedom"
Senator Coburn spent about 20 straight minutes today whining to Elena Kagan about how much less freedom we have today than we did 30 years ago.
Which Amy Klobuchar promptly shredded--by far the highlight of today's hearing. As she points…
Waterboarding Is Only Torture If John McCain Says So
Time for another blogger ethics panel. Or maybe just a bloggers' style guide, one that states unequivocally that waterboarding is torture. Because--as Glenn reported earlier--the dead tree press only calls waterboarding torture when others do…
Elena Kagan on Illegal Wiretapping
From Elena Kagan's first comments about Cheney's illegal wiretapping program yesterday (at 2:10), it sounds almost like she'd vote for rule of law in the al-Haramain case (though the case is probably in the gray area of cases on which she…
DOJ Blows Smoke on Timing of Russian Spy Bust
Earlier Tuesday, I did a post aiming to understand the timing of Monday's bust of 11 alleged Russian spies. Later in the day, Mark Hosenball did a post--heavily reliant on DOJ press spokesperson Dean Boyd--that doesn't make any sense.
First,…
Elena Kagan and Lindsey Graham on the Global Battlefield, the Sequel
This exchange is one of the most telling from the entire Kagan hearing today (note; we've edited this exchange for length; here's the full exchange; also, while you're watching, keep an eye on the body language of the bearded man sitting behind…
Does Kagan Think the 2001 Afghan AUMF Authorized Iraq?
I'm going to assume that this was just a misstatement on Elena Kagan's part, but it's one that I hope she corrects before her confirmation hearings are done. In response to a question from DiFi, Kagan suggested that SCOTUS' decision in the…
Why Roll Up the Russian Spy Network Now?
As a number of you have commented, DOJ announced the arrest of 10 alleged Russian spies yesterday (with one person, based in another country, remaining at large). The alleged spies are basically people living under false identities tasked to…
Judicial Ethics in the Gulf: Judge Feldman's Conflicts and DOJ Malpractice
Oiled up BP Judge Martin Feldman was required by both statutory and ethical considerations to recuse himself; at a absolute base minimum to disclose his appearances of conflict on the record; but he did neither. Any competent standard of lawyering would mandate the government to raise the issue if they are going to fight Feldman's ruling; but they have not. The public ought to be asking what the hell is going on here.
DiFi Will Cave on Intelligence Reform
As I've noted before (here and here), confirmation hearings for James Clapper have gotten bogged down in a dispute between the Administration and both houses of Congress over whether Congress should have the tools to exercise real oversight…
Erik Prince, Sanctions, and Mineral Wealth
Let me start by laying out a few details about Erik Prince that have been reported of late.
Prince recently gave a speech I interpreted as a proposal for private contractors to serve as big oil's enforcer--including in Nigeria and Iran
Blackwater…
Tapper Throws Softball on Drones to Panetta
Jake Tapper's interview with Leon Panetta has made a lot of news already and he deserves credit for getting the CIA Director on film in the first place. But one question he asked did more harm than good. Tapper asked Panetta to assure us that…
We Spend $1 Billion/Year Fighting Each al Qaeda Member in Afghanistan
Think Progress does the math on Panetta's admission that there are just 100 al Qaeda members in Afghanistan, and discovers we've got 1,000 American troops in Afghanistan for each al Qaeda member.
The U.S. has committed nearly 100,000 troops…
DARPA Seeking CompLit Experts
Oh boy, I've got a lot to say about this:
After nine years of conflict, the U.S. military is still having trouble finding common ground with warzone locals. One way to fill that breach, Darpa figures, is through “interactive stories.”
Counterinsurgency,…
The WaPo's Very Funny Idea of Source Protection
So on the same day that WaPo accepted Dave Weigel's resignation for the unauthorized publication of emails that were off the record, it also published an article relying on anonymous sources--with no discussion of whether these sources have…
The Perils of Giving John Brennan Unchecked Power
Before you read this post, go read this Glenn Greenwald one highlighting an Eli Lake interview with John Brennan. Lake reports John Brennan describing "dozens" of Americans against whom the US will bring the full brunt of its power.
"There are,…
One Acting OLC Head Replaces Another
Charlie Savage reports that Acting OLC head David Barron is returning to spend more time with his law students at Harvard, to be replaced by Jonathan Cedarbaum. Unlike several of the legal jobs that have turned over under this Administration,…
We Can't Even Get Japan to Stop Whaling...
And now we're going to have to try to get them to give up Maguro sushi.
Fearing that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will deal a severe blow to the bluefin tuna, an environmental group is demanding that the government declare the fish…
Obama Embraces Killer Drones with Communications Problems
As bmaz pointed out last week (and Darkblack illustrated so brilliantly), killer drones are coming to America.
In fact, they're coming to America in more formalized fashion, as Janet Napolitano confirmed that the US will add drones to the Texas…
What Did Hillary Think about McChrystal's Firing?
There's a lot that's interesting in this tick-tock of General McChrystal's firing. It's a finely crafted narrative, down to the foregrounding of Joe Biden, in spite of the way that the chronology appears to belie that narrative (that is, the…
Win One for Democratic Institutions
In his statement announcing the firing (technically, acceptance of resignation) of Stanley McChrystal and McChrystal's replacement with David Petraeus, Obama emphasized the importance of chain of command and civilian control of the military.
War…