The Fed Gives JP Morgan Chase Another Multi-Billion Dollar Bailout
Remember that swipe fee measure that passed the Senate twice? It lowered the amount credit card companies can charge merchants to $.12 a transaction. It was a stunning victory that retailers (which admittedly includes WalMart but also includes…
Defending the Corporate "Freedom to Relocate"
I wasn't entirely fair when I quipped on Twitter that, if Obama asserts that "as a general proposition, companies need to have the freedom to relocate," then shouldn't people, too, be able to flout laws--like mortgage contract laws or immigration…
More Evil in One Wyoming House than Dick Cheney?
In Nicholas Shaxson's book, Treasure Islands, he traces out a network of offshore locations, like Cayman Islands, where corporations and crooks hide their cash. But he also noted that the incorporation laws in various US states allows those…
William Welch's Gimmick and the Harassment of James Risen
As Josh Gerstein reports, Leonie Brinkema has unsealed her November 2010 ruling quashing the government's subpoena of James Risen to testify before the grand jury. Gerstain describes several interesting details revealed in the ruling--including…
Max Baucus Finally Gets His Grand Bargain!
Usually, when Max Baucus tries to craft a grand bargain, oversized legislation starts by getting progressively worse, at which point the legislation finally dies.
But he has finally succeeded in getting a grand bargain, with a deal to extend…
Waxman Gives Obama Lessons in Negotiation, Again
Update: As Dday corrects me, both these lessons in negotiation describe the same confrontation that took place on June 2.
DDay linked to this story describing Henry Waxman confronting President Obama because he had given the Republicans the…
The Charlie-Savage-Used-to-Be-Richard-Lugar's-Intern SFRC Libya Hearing
Boy has Charlie Savage caused a headache for Barack Obama and Harold Koh.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had a hearing to grill Koh today, in part, because of Savage's report that Obama overrode OLC, DOJ, and DOD lawyers in deciding…
Jim Webb: We Are Endorsing Assassination of Leaders of Countries We Recognize
I'm watching the Senate Foreign Relation Committee's grilling of Harold Koh--either bmaz or I will post on that later.
But Jim Webb just made a really important point. He noted that we have suspended, but not severed, our relations with Libya.…
National Archives Spends 3 Days Declassifying 11 Words Declassified 40 Years Ago
The Pentagon Papers were declassified earlier this month. In advance of its formal declassification, the National Archives had announced that 11 words would remain classified. But ultimately, the entire document was released.
Kudos to Steven…
Obama Capitulates to GOP and Withdraws Labor Protection from Colombia Trade Deal
The website for the US Trade Representative still has a link to the inadequate--but nevertheless improved--labor protections that the US had demanded from Colombia to support a trade deal with the country.
But according to Sander Levin--who…
"SWIFT" Boating the Russian Mafia
Remember that GCHQ/MI6 agent, Gareth Williams, who was found dead in a duffel bag last year?
At first, the narrative around his death centered on rumors he had been killed in a weird gay sex game. Amid such sensational reporting, other articles…
NSA Managers Modified or Supressed Studies on ThinThread and Trailblazer
As bmaz reported while I was looking at flowers in Northern MI, POGO liberated via FOIA the Inspector General report central to the Thomas Drake case.
While much of the report is redacted (except for, perhaps unsurprisingly, a number of comments…
James Risen's Community of Interest
I'll probably have several things to say about the James Risen filings of the past week. But for the moment, I wanted to focus on his assertions about the government's access of his phone records.
Remember, these assertions are not new: Josh…
Trash Talk: Fox TV Sucks a Bag Of Big Honking Salted Dicks
Americans were denied the ability to watch the Grand Prix of Europe live and have no alternative but to watch it on tape delay long after the checkered flag dropped for Sebastian Vettel. This is just craven and malignant jackassery by Fox.
BoGlo Proclaims RomneyCare Successful at Transferring Wealth from Consumers to Big Health Care
Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself.
The central thesis of this Boston Globe article is not, in fact, that RomneyCare effected a wealth transfer from consumers to big health care.
Rather, the article proclaims that RomneyCare "achieved its…
Anonymous Sources Claim Polish President Didn't Know of Torture Site
Remember the Polish prosecutor who got fired as he was preparing to charge top members of the Democratic Left Alliance party for their complicity in America's torture site? The same newspaper that broke that story--Gazeta Wyborcza--just reported…
New York's Enlightenment & Some Thoughts On Perry Prop8 Case
New York gets it done on marriage equality, and it will have many profound, and positive, ramifications for the Perry Prop 8 case.
Thomas Drake Proved To Be Bloody Well Right
Thanks to POGO's FOIA release here, we now know that not only was the persecution of Tom Drake by the DOJ completely bogus and vindictive, Tom Drake was bloody well right about TRAILBLAZER versus THIN THREAD to start with. Who couldda predicted?
Russ Feingold Was Proved Fucking Right
A number of you have been asking for my intro of Russ Feingold last Thursday. Here it is. Now that I've had a chance to see it I realize I had a number of misstatements (and a number of places where I glossed necessary detail--I guess I…
Still Fishing
If you haven't already figured this out, after Netroots Nation I dragged bmaz up to northern Minnesota to count lakes, counting backwards from 10,000. We only got down to 9,976, but I understand there are actually far more than 10,000 lakes…