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,…
Feed the Generals Catfood, Too
I had a bit of fun with Michael O'Hanlon on Tuesday. At the America's Future Now conference, he was pitted against Juan Cole in a debate over the future of our Afghan war. I took the first question to note that we weren't just facing a choice…
Dawn Johnsen: Finish the Job of Fixing Office of Legal Counsel
Dawn Johnsen has a must-read op-ed today describing how the Bybee memo damaged the Office of Legal Counsel.
In 2004, the leak of a controversial memo on the use of torture catapulted the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel into the…
Judge: One Night at a Zubaydah-Related Guest House Not Grounds for Indefinite Detention
As McClatchy reported yesterday, Judge Henry Kennedy granted a the habeas petition of a Yemeni man, Mohamed Hassan Odaini, several weeks ago. That brings the total number of men held at Gitmo who have won habeas petitions to 36.
Kennedy's ruling…
Oil Flow Rate More Than Double What BP and Government Have Said
BP and the US government have yet again been dishonest about the nature and size of the oil gusher leaking into the Gulf of Mexico water; it is over twice the highest estimates to date.
The Blind Leading the Blind
The WaPo is scouring the business world looking for the perfect talent to lead the failing company. Today, they announced they've hired the guy who drovem GM into the ditch to its board.
Rick Wagoner, who was fired as chief executive of General…
David Boies: Prop 8 Trial Establishes as "Matter of Fact" that Marriage Equality Doesn't Hurt Straight Marriage
The lawyers for the plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial had a conference call to preview what they will say in next week's closing arguments (which Teddy, bmaz, and I will cover from the courthouse).
The most interesting response from…
Chamber of Commerce Flip-Flops on Retroactive Legislation
As you've likely heard, the Chamber of Commerce has officially endorsed government welfare to limit corporate risk. (Again.)
The head of the United States Chamber of Commerce said Friday that his group is not yet lobbying against legislative…