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.
Via Laura Rozen comes reference to a chilling piece by Sam Quinones in Foreign Policyon the drug smuggling violence that has escalated to a total state of war rivaling levels in Iraq. it is easy to forget what is going on just across the border. Easy, at least, until you take in Sam Quinones’ tale:
I have a busy morning here, but want to draw attention to an article this morning in the New York Times by Robert Pear on the ongoing discussions of healthcare reform for the United States:Since last fall, many of the leading figures in the nation’s long-running health care debate have been meeting secretly in a Senate hearing room. It is not not a great plan they appear to be cooking up.
At the end of December last year, Emptywheel reported that noted high powered Washington lobbyist Vicki Iseman had filed a defamation suit against the New York Times. What was at issue in the article behind the lawsuit was the appearance of an affair, not an affair itself, and the beliefs of McCain staffers about that appearance of an affair. That has been borne out by the complete dismissal of the lawsuit.
Well, you just knew that the GOP wouldn’t take the bonecrushing loss in last November’s elections to Rico Suave Obama and too cool for school Dems lightly. They were, like an octogenarian on Viagra, going to get hip. Or a hip replacement. Whatever. They started by electing the rootin tootin slick dick midnight mustache Michael Steele as DNC Chairman. Between Steele and Boner Boehner, what could go wrong?
You might remember a little kerfuffle over the preservation of White House emails that roiled during the Bush/Cheney Administration, consuming national discussion and court resources. Well, that was during the Bush/Cheney Administration, those fine Republican hypocrites, er watchdogs, in Congress are calling for change from the previous policy for the Obama Administration.
Ian has a great piece up at FDL on the financial sector’s problems, their genesis, and the Obama Administration’s conventional wisdom, status quo, manner of dealing with them. He describes the fallacy of viewing it as a “black swan” event. That is a very rare, random and unpredictable event. We should be similarly concerned about short sidedness with American industry and manufacturing, which are the real foundation of the American economy.
As you may know, President Obama came to Phoenix in order to roll out his $75 Billion Plan to Fight Home Foreclosures. This was exciting for me, because Obama spent last night at a resort, Montelucia, about 3/4 of a mile from my house. Here are the details of the plan he announced and photos from his visit.
The news last week that President Obama had bought into and signed off on the full boat of shameful state secrets assertion in the case of Binyan Mohamed v Jeppesen Dataplan set off a wave of criticism. Obama came to the criticism the old fashioned way, he earned it by breaking his campaign promise and continuing the wretched excess of unitary secrecy.