Mitt's Election Would Just Mean Cofer Black Would Get His Kill List Back
Amidst all the partying and pandering, some actual journalism did take place in Charlotte. Gawker's John Cook asked the following people about whether Americans could trust Mitt Romney to decide which American citizens to assassinate with drones…
Clint Eastwood's Time Travel
The local paper in Carmel scored the interview with Clint Eastwood where he tries to describe his bizarre empty chair performance at the RNC. Some of it, including this line...
President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the…
Congress Finally Gets Around to Learning about Domestic Drones and Privacy
After Congress has spent the last several years telling DOD and FAA to speed up the roll out of drones in domestic airspace, and partly in response to efforts (by Rand Paul, among others) to protect all of our privacy and other efforts (by Shelley…
Express Tribune Reveals Remarkably Detailed Intelligence on TTP Threat to Attack Nuclear Facility
Despite a tumultuous relationship that has seen extreme swings over the last few years, the US remains engaged with Pakistan. One reason, of course, is the reliance on overland supply routes through the country for NATO war efforts in Afghanistan.…
Judge Lamberth Upholds Gitmo Detainees' Right to Counsel
I'm a bit cranky, so reading this scathing opinion from Royce Lamberth rejecting the government's effort to impose a new Memorandum of Understanding concerning Gitmo detainees' right to counsel was just the ticket. The operative ruling reads,
The…
Obama Looking for Structures to Ensure He Abides by Rule of Law
Noah Shachtman does a good job of fact checking Obama's claims about his drone program in a recent interview with Jessica Yellin.
But I'd like to push further on his comments about Obama's claims to give Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan (to…
What You Won't Hear at the DNC: Children Are Going Hungry in the Richest Country in the World
Here's what the Secretary of Agriculture--who is in charge of our nation's Food Stamp program--had to say about food and hunger at his DNC speech last night:
You know, rural Americans are a special people. Their labor puts food on our table…
DoD's Bungled Answers to Questions on Re-Vetting ANSF and Cultural Awareness
On Saturday, I noted that the move by US Special Operations forces to halt training of Afghan Local Police and Afghan special forces while those entire forces were re-screened for security threats meant that there would need to be an equivalent…
(Re)Productive Conventions
In one way, the DNC was almost the same as the RNC last week. Almost every woman who spoke self-identified as a mother. (This is a point Irin Carmon also made in this piece.) Lily Ledbetter was one exception; she didn't mention her daughters…
DOD Gets Awfully Sensitive When They're Cornered
Just about every outlet that reported on George Little's whine about Matt Bissonnette's book yesterday claimed that Little had said there was "classified" information in the book.[all emphasis in this post mine]
CNN: A Pentagon official said…
Afghanistan Begins Purge of Army While NATO Chief Promises "Cultural Awareness Training"
In a news conference this morning, Afghanistan's Defense Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi announced that "hundreds" of soldiers have been dismissed from the Army or detained in a probe that began six months ago and is aimed at removing…
With What Databases Has NCTC Cross-Referenced with FBI's 12 Million iDevice User IDs?
Update, 6/13/13: For those coming to this via my Twitter link, subverzo reminded me that this turned out to be a false claim. The data came from an Apple developer, not from FBI.
Sorry for the confusion.
As you may have heard, Anonymous…
Petraeus Tie to Afghan Local Police Program Hits NYTimes One Day After ALP Role in Revenge Killings Noted
On Saturday, we learned that US Special Operations forces have suspended training of Afghan Local Police while a re-screening of the backgrounds of those already in the force is carried out. I noted then that only Reuters dared to connect the…
The Imperial Overlords Giveth, the Imperial Overlords Taketh Away
In the US yesterday, the big press outlets were reporting on a big push to give Egypt "aid" to get its economy back on track. (WaPo, NYT) Though the NYT's URL (and original title, I think) used the word "aid," what we're really planning on doing…
Mess at DHS: The ICE Lady Goeth and Thoughts On The Real Story
As Marcy appropriately pointed out, there was a LOT of news dumped in the waning moments and bustling milieu of a Friday afternoon; not just pending a holiday weekend, but with a press corps still hung over from, and yammering about, the empty…
Remember, the Question Is "Are YOU Better Off?" Not "Is Your Boss Better Off?"
The Romney campaign has started asking the snitch, Ronald Reagan's question, "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?" And partly because Obama's advisors don't have a ready answer, and partly because Democrats are misconstruing who's…
Maybe Republicans Didn't Want Hologram Reagan Because They Didn't Want a Snitch at Their Convention?
Last week, before we learned Mitt's surprise speaker at the RNC was an actor speaking to an invisible President, there were rumors that the speaker would be a half-visible actor-President, hologram Reagan. But unlike Clint Eastwood's invisible…
Immunizing Crimes: Blankfein, Zirbel, and Arpaio, but Whither Corzine?
DOJ has been doing a lot of immunizing of late. There's Lloyd Blankfein, who not only ripped off his clients with "one shitty deal," he then lied to Congress about it. There's Matt Zirbel,* the CIA officer who had Gul Rahman doused with water…
Special Forces Suspend Training of Afghans in Program Petraeus Started
In the biggest fallout yet from the massive increase in green on blue deaths in Afghanistan, US Special Operations forces have suspended training of Afghan Local Police and Afghan special forces until all members of these forces have been…
Did Mitt Romney Make Clint Eastwood Lie Cry?
A number of outlets responded to Clint Eastwood's bizarre speech the other night by fact-checking the legend.
CNN:
"I haven't cried that hard since I found out that there are 23 million unemployed people in this country," Eastwood said.…
