Article I Aghast that Article III Insisted on Separation of Powers
It turns out Obama's DOJ has not discovered new respect for accused rights since holding Manssor Arbabsiar and Faisal Shahzad two weeks without seeing a judge or lawyer after all. Rather, the magistrate who signed the complaint Sunday night…
Even as He Joins Tribute to George W. Bush, Obama Capitulates to WMD Fearmongers
Congratulations to Shrub, who today gets his very own (as Jim calls it) Lie Bury.
How appropriate that even as the President who lied us into war with false WMD claims was speaking, the national security establishment was hyperventilating…
Cox on Rogers: "Like he was J. Edgar Hoover"
Since Carl Levin announced he would retire, I've been hoping to see Justin Amash take on Mike Rogers in a Republican primary. This National Journal article captures the dynamics of that possibility well (though may overestimate how much money…
John Galt Outsources Death to Bangladesh to Save Pennies on Fifty Dollar T-shirt
In a tale of unimaginable sorrow that is made all the worse by the unconscionable greed that brought it about, at least 194 are now known to be dead in the collapse of a building in Bangladesh. But this was not just any building that collapsed,…
Was There Even a BB Gun?
Over the weekend, we heard the story that when Tamerlan Tsarnaev rushed the small group of cops who were trying to arrest him, he was strapped with a suicide vest. In addition, we were told, the brothers had two handguns, an M-4 rifle, and a…
Tamerlan Tsarnaev Placed in Database Perceived as Weak, Even by DHS
As the blame game starts on the Boston Marathon bombing, someone (maybe a blabby Senator?) made it public that the CIA asked to have Tamerlan Tsarnaev added to the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) database last year.
The CIA…
The Intelligence Committee's "Secret" Briefings on the Boston Attack
There are 15 members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. By my count, at least 5 of them revealed some part of what they got briefed on the Boston attack yesterday afternoon to the press.
Saxby Chambliss says an agency may not have shared…
Are We Confusing CIA's Leader-Centered Collection and Debates about Its Paramilitary or Military Focus?
In his written testimony for yesterday's drone hearing, Peter Bergen noted that the CIA keeps failing to warn policy makers of important developments.
Has the increased emphasis at the CIA on targeted killings hampered the agency’s ability…
The "Conspiracy Theory" That Prompted Kevin Curtis' Earlier Letters to Politicians
Yesterday, charges against Paul Kevin Curtis that he sent letters testing positive for ricin to Senator Lowell Wicker and the White House were dropped. It is quite encouraging that the FBI would this time choose not to continue harassing Curtis…
Drone Strikes: Misunderstanding Asymmetry
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I guess the moment of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on drones when I got really frustrated was when Retired Colonel Martha McSally said we didn't need any special rules for drones (which she tried to…
Inspire, Hijacking, and the Second Car
Just wanted to put up a post addressing several questions on the Boston Marathon attack we've been discussing.
First, NBC reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told authorities they learned how to make a pressure cooker bomb by reading AQAP's Inspire…
For Nobel Peace Prize Winner Obama, Diplomacy Still Afterthought in Afghanistan
The central point argued in Vali Nasr's book "The Dispensable Nation" is that for the Obama administration, diplomacy took a back seat to the military as the administration took control of the war in Afghanistan from the Bush administration.…
John Brennan's Review of How He Killed an American Teenager
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Jeremy Scahill's book, Dirty Wars, comes out tomorrow. I'm sure I'll have more to say about it over the next few weeks.
But for now, he's got an adaptation at the Nation that describes a Senior Administration…
The Dzhokhar Complaint
As I noted in the last thread, the complaint against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been released.
The affidavit supporting the complaint was sworn yesterday evening at 6:47, not in Boston, but in Brookline.
It charges Dzhokhar with two counts:…
Dzhokhar Charged, Administration Confirms Civilian Prosecution
Two important updates on the Marathon Bomber.
First, according to WCVB, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged this morning in front of a magistrate judge in his hospital bed.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving accused Boston Marathon bomber, has been…
Two Years after Missing Abdulmutallab because of a Spelling Variance, Government Missed Tsarnaev because of a Spelling Variance
On the Sunday shows yesterday, House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers suggested that the government missed Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trip to Russia in 2012 because he used an alias. This morning, Lindsey Graham explained that the problem was slightly…
Outsourcing America's Bad Human Rights Reputation
Given all the attention to the Administration's decision, thus far, to neither Mirandize nor charge Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I wanted to point back to two things that happened last week.
First, in a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee,…
John Galt Is Everywhere and His Killing Spree Continues
On Thursday, I wrote about the central role that absolute free market libertarianism, as personified by the fictional John Galt, played in the horrific explosion in West, Texas that took the lives of fourteen people, most of whom were volunteer…
"Could Not Be Independently Confirmed"
There's a dispute brewing between the Tsarnaev brothers' mother, Zubeidat, and the FBI about whether or not they called Tamerlan Thursday morning and told him he was a suspect.
Their mother went so far on Sunday to claim that the FBI had contacted…
The Shut-Down Question
While I think it's a crucial question to debate going forward, at this point I am agnostic about whether the decision to shut down the entire city of Boston on Friday was the right one or not. Furthermore, thus far the question has been presented…