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Say, has anyone noticed how omnipresent Ari Fleischer has been, of late? Obviously, the big news is his pimping for a $15 million propaganda campaign in favor of death and destruction. "For those who believe in peace through strength, the cavalry iscoming," said former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who isa founding board member of the group. But Ari is also, all of a sudden, a seemingly acceptable source of the

Before we crown Michael Chertoff Attorney General, I recommend we pull him before some oversight committee and ask him if he ever used Department of Homeland Security's Privacy Office to review planned domestic surveillance activities before they're used to collect data on American citizens. CSM reports that DHS is suspending a massive data-mining program because it has already started using live data without ever putting the program through a privacy review.

If you compare Bush's comments on Rove's resignation with his comments on Gonzales' resignation, it sure seems like Rove left on Bush's terms, whereas Gonzales left on his own terms. Here's how Bush announced the departure of the man who had made his entire political career. Karl Rove is moving on down the road.

Mr. emptywheel and I are headed to DC so McCaffrey the MilleniaLab can attend a very important Furrin' Policy Summit with Kobe, Katy, and Lucy (oh, and so we can go to a wedding or some such rot). The emptywheel pack is going to play around in the mud together for a couple of days on the way back.

In this post, I compare what Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell revealed yesterday about why Democratic bills amending FISA were unacceptable with the content of those bills. The comparison shows that DNI McConnell found it unacceptable to require the government to:List what the minimization procedures were that protect data collected from Americans Allow either a FISA judge or Congress to review its compliance with its own minimization procedures In short, the

Okay, that's not precisely the conclusion the new NIE in Iraq draws. But it is the logical outcome of the key judgments its gives. Here are some key points, taken totally out of the context of the report, but which are otherwise direct quotes:The IC assesses that the emergence of “bottom-up” security initiatives, principally among Sunni Arabs and focused on combating AQI, represent the best prospect for improved security over the

This is our Director of National Intelligence, talking about the threat of Al Qaeda growing stronger in an area nominally controlled by our ally Pakistan: After the 31st of May we were in extremis becausenow we have significantly less capability. And meantime, the community,before I came back, had been working on a National IntelligenceEstimate on terrorist threat to the homeland.

Ever since Ed Gillespie became Bush's replacement for Dan Bartlett (and after that, for Rove), I've been trying to track the clients of Quinn Gillespie--the firm that Gillespie co-founded. After all, Gillespie is a guy who, up until days before he took on one of the most powerful advisory roles at the White House, was a big-time lobbyist, with a broad clientele.

In this post I trace the tangled web in which Tom Davis is investigating Scott Bloch (head of the Office of Special Counsel) at the same time as Bloch may be investigating Tom Davis. The short logic goes like this:Tom Davis is investigating Scott Bloch (and collecting all Bloch emails that refer to any legislator)The WaPo story on Sunday looks like it was based primarily on leaks from OSCIt included details