C Street's Waterloo
Jim DeMint's "Waterloo" comment is not just an indication of how little Republicans care about the American people. It's also one of C Street's members prominently seeking to impede any improvement in Americans' lives.
Is DOD So Sure They Weren't Involved in the Rashid Dostum Massacre?
Last Monday, I noted two particular details of the Obama Administration's response to news of spiked investigations into General Rashid Dostum's massacre of up to thousands of prisoners in 2001. First, DOD said it didn't need to investigate because there was no evidence American personnel were involved.
There's DOD, which bases its opposition to an investigation on the claim that there's no evidence US forces were involved in the massacre.
Days after Cronkite Passes with Little Notice from CBS, Rather Gets Discovery
One of the indignities of Walter Cronkite's death on Friday was that CBS ignored his passing in favor of their regular crappy Friday night lineup. At the time, I hoped Rather would soon get discovery to expose CBS in its cravenness. And today, Rather got that discovery.
"Protecting" President Cheney, Too
Obama's DOJ is still inventing an "embarrassment exemption" for FOIA, to prevent us from learning what Dick Cheney said to Patrick Fitzgerald as part of the CIA Leak investigation.
"Protecting" President Cheney
Dick Cheney not only just got six more months of taxpayer paid protection from having to hear from taxpayers, but his friends suggest he's going to ask for such protection indefinitely.
Panetta's Parsings
Royce Lamberth really smacked down Leon Panetta's declaration in the Horn v. Huddle case. That probably going to make it a lot easier for other plaintiffs to question his good faith going forward.
CIA Fraud In State Secrets Assertions
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bmazThere is a new case causing a stir on the state secrets front today. The case is Horn v. Huddle et. al, is filed in the DC District, and has been quietly going on behind the scenes since 1994. From Del Wilber at the Washington Post:A federal judge has ruled that government officials committed fraud while defending a lawsuit brought by a former DEA agent who accused a CIA operative
CIA: A Different Kind of Derivative Trading
The CIA explains away its Vaughn Index sampling gaps by claiming documents listed on its index as cables are derivative, not original reporting on the torture.
The Changing Story on Past Torture Investigations
It's funny how numbers have a way of changing as the need for different spin arises.
California's Detroit
We need to get beyond looking at individual communities and start solving our big economic problems as a nation.
The Use of Photographs as Propaganda
The government is complaining that the Taliban is using a video of a captured soldier as propaganda. Unfortunately, the last Administration not only did the same, but bragged of it.
Bill Leonard: Congress Is Responsible for CIA Not Informing Them
Leonard points out that Congress needs to amend the National Security Act if it wants to get serious about forcing the executive to inform Congress of covert activities.
One Former Official Ready to Bust Others for Torture
Remember how I said that if you went after the torturers, they would implicate the architects of the torture? Here's an example.
The Real Reason They're Hiding Cheney's Interview?
Ostensibly, DOJ is trying to withhold Dick Cheney's interview materials for the following three reasons (in order of their centrality to the argument):Law enforcement privilege: If DOJ turns over Cheney's interview, it will make future Vice Presidents unwilling to cooperate in investigations. This argument fails given the evidence that it has long been routine to release interview materials from high ranking White House figures, going back to the era of Cheney's
Im-me-di-ate: adjective (DOJ) 1. More Than 2 Years
Among other stupid claims DOJ made in its latest effort to hide Dick Cheney's interview report was that, in spite of CREW's list proving that the public release of investigation materials has always been routine, if a high level White House official thinks it will be routine, he won't cooperate.
Senate Hate Crimes Bill Threatens First Amendment
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bmazThere are inherent First Amendment and equal protection issues with any "hate crime" legislation as I pointed out when Eric Holder started aggressively pushing Congress. That said, if you are going to enact such laws, they must be targeted, rational and designed to effect the result desired and not any other. The Senate just violated that with their Hate Crimes Bill passed last night.
Meet the Press STILL Lets Guests "Control the Message"
Tim Russert may be gone. But his craven ways have not ended at Meet the Press. Like Russert, David Gregory allows his guests to control the show when they appear.
Silvestre Reyes Announces Investigation into Violations of National Security Act
Reyes announces an investigation into both the reported assassination squads and more generally, whether CIA has withheld information from Congress.
Will Miguel Estrada Represent John Yoo Before Sonia Sotomayor at SCOTUS?
Will Miguel Estrada face Sonia Sotomayor in one of her early cases on SCOTUS, as Estrada tries to defend John Yoo's crappy lawyering?
Chuck Todd's Law
Aside from MSNBC's squeamishness about blowjobs (but not about the murder of teenagers or slobbering racism), here's why, according to Chuck Todd, we cannot have an investigation of the crimes Dick Cheney committed because the media is incapable of learning the facts on a story well enough to present it as anything but a partisan fight, and because of that, any investigation would be a show trial of ideology rather than facts.