Taliban Role Large in Green on Green Attacks
At least eleven Afghan soldiers were killed yesterday in two separate attacks. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for both attacks. In the Washington Post's coverage of the attacks, they take second billing to the attack on the NATO fuel…
Trained in America; Clothed in China
When ABC reported last week that the $1,400-$1,900+ uniforms Ralph Lauren won the contract to provide to Olympic athletes were made in China, Sherrod Brown not only pushed the US Olympic Committee to try to rectify the issue by the Winter 2014…
Will the Government Finally Use a Lawsuit as an Opportunity to Explain the Anwar al-Awlaki Killing?
When the ACLU and CCR represented Nasser al-Awlaki in a suit to prevent the government from killing Nasser's son Anwar unless the government could prove he was an imminent threat, Judge John Bates threw the case out on standing grounds. The…
Taliban Destroy 22 Supply Trucks in Afghanistan: No "Protection" Money on Northern Route?
When the flow of supply trucks through Pakistan into Afghanistan restarted earlier this month, I pointed out a report from the Express Tribune on the large amounts of cash paid to the Taliban as "protection" money. A detail in that report…
A 15-Month Fight for Subscriber Information
The WSJ today presents a Whodunnit behind an NSL submitted to a cell company in spring 2011.
Early last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a secret letter to a phone company demanding that it turn over customer records for an investigation.…
Scary Iran Plot: Bipolar Disorder and Other Reasons to Dismiss
As the NYT and TPM have reported, Manssor Arbabsiar--the accused plotter in the Scary Iran Plot--has moved to have his indictment dismissed because he is bipolar. His lawyers are basing that motion on the diagnoses of Clinical Neuropsychologist…
More Damage from Panetta's Vaccine Ruse: UN Doctor on Polio Vaccine Drive Shot; Hundreds of Thousands Denied Polio Vaccine
As one of only three countries in the world where polio is still endemic, Pakistan launched a three day vaccination drive yesterday with a target of vaccinating the 318,000 children in North and South Waziristan who have not received their vaccinations.…
No Banksters Were Harmed in the Production of This Anti-Crime Video
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The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has rolled out a campaign to raise awareness of Transnational Crime.
$870 billion dollars a year. Including $250 billion on counterfeit goods. $320 billion on…
Yesterday's Some-Sayers Have Become Today's Fact-Checkers
Paul Krugman makes a very good argument why the Bain attacks on Mitt Romney are necessary.
There is, predictably, a mini-backlash against the Obama campaign’s focus on Bain. Some of it is coming from the Very Serious People, who think that…
BREAKING! Importers Get Cost-Benefit Consideration, But You Don't
The Department of Homeland Security just blew off a deadline, last Thursday, to scan all US-bound shipping containers.
The Department of Homeland Security was given until this month to ensure that 100 percent of inbound shipping containers…
Do Republicans Wish They Retroactively Had Let Newt Sustain His Bain Attacks?
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Two soundbites from the Sunday shows have made a big stink: Mitt Romney's former Bain partner, Ed Conard, admitting that Mitt was legally CEO of Bain until 2002. And GOP fixer Ed Gillespie, distancing Mitt from…
The FDA Demonstrates What "Targeting" Does
"They think they can be the Gestapo and do anything they want." -- Chuck Grassley, on learning his staffer's emails had been surveilled by the FDA
It is utterly predictable that members of Congress only get concerned about heavy-handed surveillance…
Glenn Kessler Didn't USED to Treat SEC Filings as Boilerplate
As gobsmacked as I am that no one can seem to find the people running Bain Capital from 1999 to 2002, when Mitt Romney was officially listed as its CEO, Chairman, and President, I'm equally shocked by Glenn Kessler's claims that SEC documents…
Where Is this Killer Instinct in Governance?
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I confess I am thoroughly enjoying the Obama campaign's attack on Mitt Romey's Bain experience. Contrary to DC pundits' beliefs, the outsourcing story really really resonates in those parts of the country where…
"Killing Is a Part of War, and Torture Isn't"
I wasn't crazy about the way that Tom Junod framed his first piece on Obama's Lethal Presidency; but it's getting a lot of people to think about the issues, so while I didn't comment on it I was happy to have it.
But I am rather interested…
Lamar Smith's Futile Leak Investigation
Lamar Smtih has come up with a list of 7 national security personnel he wants to question in his own leak investigation. (h/t Kevin Gosztola)
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, told President Obama Thursday he’d like…
Is Ambassador Feierstein Drawing Up the Kill Lists in Yemen?
The question of why John Brennan seized control of drone targeting continues to gnaw on me. Which is why I find this attack piece on the US Ambassador to Yemen, Gerald Feierstein, to be so interesting.
You'll recall that one effect of the…
We Can't Afford Another "Complicated and Quirky" Presidency
You've no doubt heard about the BoGlo piece that describes 9 different legal documents on which Mitt Romney was listed as CEO of Bain after the time--in 1999--when he now claims to have left the company.
Romney has said he left Bain in 1999…
The House Judiciary Committee Preens in Full Ignorance at Leaks Hearing
The headline that has come out of yesterday's House Judiciary Committee hearing on leaks is that the Committee may subpoena people. As US News correctly reports, one push for subpoenas came from a John Conyers ploy trying to call Republican…
Obama Brings Bankster and Oil Curses to Burma
After I read Obama's Executive Order opening up trade with Burma, I joked,
Wait. We're exporting FINANCIAL SERVICES to Myanmar? This is considered a favor to them?
Seriously. Sending our financial services to another country is, these days,…
