Entries by emptywheel

Good Question

Judge Vaughn Walker seems unwilling to abdicate his Article III function to give the telecoms immunity for breaking the law.

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Soft Power

David Sanger confirms our earlier suspicions: part of the logic behind Obama’s foreign policy team is to have people in place who can shift our security strategy to a greater emphasis on soft power.

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Acorns

Both Susie and Joe linked to this story saying there are no acorns this year.

As the story points out, though, that’s true for just some parts of the country.

Simmons has a theory about the wet and dry cycles. But many skeptics say oaks in other regions are producing plenty of acorns, and the acorn bust here is nothing more than the extreme of a natural boom-and-bust cycle.

We’ve got 5 mature oaks

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Fold The Holder Nomination

The meme that has been floated by Glenn Greenwald and several others that Eric Holder’s involvement in the Chiquita matter is just principled, zealous representation of his client akin to the heroic souls that have taken the mantle of defending Gitmo detainees. I admire Glenn Greenwald’s writing and respect his work immensely, but I take pretty big issue with this position. In fact, Eric Holder was closer to a mob consigliere than principled criminal defender.

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The Big 2.5 on Main Street

I’ve been talking about the bloat among the ranks of the American manufacturers’ car dealerships in just about every post I do on the auto crisis. My premise is two-fold. First, one of the big problems the Big Two and a Half have in restoring their brands to credibility–even though the quality of their cars now matches the Japanese–is that there are too many dealerships out there given the number of

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