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.
I’m posting this just to make sure I don’t forget about it.
John Ashcroft, the U.S. attorney general during President Bush’s first term — and noted singer of “Let the Eagle Soar” (YouTube clip here) — is spreading his wings. Today Ashcroft (pictured, right) announced that his law and consulting firm, The Ashcroft Group, is opening four new offices across the country, each to be led by Bush-appointed U.S.
Small potatoes, as far as Ponzi schemse goes. But by making claims you’re investing in TARP funds? That’s gets you on the Ponzi nation list for sure.
Federal authorities this morning announced that Gordon B. Grigg of Franklin has agreed to plead guilty to four counts of mail fraud and four counts of wire fraud, after operating a Ponzi scheme that dated back to 1996.
Joining U.S.
I beat the NYT to actual close reading over the weekend and it made a stink.
But Lambert documents his superior canine instincts from five years ago.
Je repete. 2004-05-09, Corrente:
Maybe there is a smoking gun. … Somebody’s got to authorize the dogs, the kennels, the handlers, and the purpose.
Last night, as I was beginning my catalog of the interrogation reports used in the 9/11 Report, the former Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission was on Rachel Maddow, elaborating on his Foreign Policy article where he revealed how the Bush Administration destroyed his objections to the May 2005 Bradbury Memos.
Anonymous Liberal had a very good take on Zelikow’s story (which basically matches what bmaz said to me via email).
The SSCI just released a narrative–originally requested by Jello Jay–of the general history of torture under the Bush Administration, including, purportedly, all the OLC memos that support torture (though it doesn’t include the 2003 one Michael Hayden referenced the other day).
I’ll have a few more details in a bit.
The torture apologists are out in force, insisting that torture produces useful information. Cheney’s even promising to release information from CIA cataloging all the useful information that came from torture. But we don’t have to wait for Cheney. We already have a way to assess how much intelligence we got directly from torturing Abu Zubaydah: the 9/11 Report. And the 9/11 Report tells us AZ only provided 10 useful piece of intelligence during his interrogations.
The ACLU is reporting something that I’ve suspected.
According to the CIA public affairs office, Rizzo is still Acting General Counsel.
John Rizzo, the man who worked with both Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury to pre-authorize torture, is still being paid by you and me to make sure that the CIA follows the law.
The Senate Armed Services Committee just released its report on torture.
Spencer has a post on it here.
Remember, as you’re reading it, that not only did they repurpose SERE. But we know they went far beyond SERE in its application.
I’ll be reading it as I fall asleep and should have more detailed comments tomorrow morning.