Author Archive for: emptywheel
About emptywheel
Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
Entries by emptywheel
Senate Stimulus: Steal from the Poor to Give to the Affluent
/29 Comments/in Economics/by emptywheelProPublica has done a comparison of the House and Senate stimulus packages which shows in stark fashion the degree to which the Senate bill steals from the poor to give to the affluent. The Senate bill gives more in tax cuts to the upper middle class–in the form of the AMT patch and the house flipping subsidy–than they give in all the programs targeted to the poor.
Foul Balls: The Legal Fixation On Athletes
/43 Comments/in emptywheel/by emptywheelThe Washington DC juggernaut is at it again with the persecution/prosecution of athletes. Today it is announced that charges have been filed against Houston Astros, and former Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics, shortstop Miguel Tejada. Funny that they have time for this rinky-dink stuff, but not to go after Alberto Gonzales and other serious malfeasants.
Is Geithner Planning on a Public-Private Partnership with the Sovereign Wealth Funds?
/37 Comments/in Economics/by emptywheelTim Geithner used the gimmick of a public-private partnership to avoid nationalizing the banks today. But that gimmick may well depend on the continued investment from Sovereign Wealth Funds–the investment arms of nations like China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Kuwait, South Korea, and UAE. That seems to present many more potential problems down the road.
USAMRIID Can’t Keep Track of Its Microbes
/in emptywheel/by emptywheelNow, what do you make of the fact that USAMRIID, the lab at which Bruce Ivins was alleged to have made the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks, is having problems cataloging and tracking their high-risk microbes and biomaterials (h/t Danger Room)? The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) has suspended research […]