Author Archive for: emptywheel
About emptywheel
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.
Entries by emptywheel
Mourning The Loss Of A Giant Recently Passed – Sunset Musings II
/69 Comments/in emptywheel, Free For All, Misc, Trash Talk/by emptywheelDespite the wall to wall coverage, not just on NBC and MSNBC, but all the networks, the hand wringing, the eulogizing, the lionization, the body lying in state at the Kennedy Center, and the funeral worthy of royalty, not enough has been said about the recent passing of a giant. Probably because all that bleating was about Saint Tim of Russert. I am talking about a different giant. A giant in my own family has passed. Granpa Pricky.
The Sun Always Rises
/134 Comments/in Misc, Trash Talk/by emptywheelIf power is based on principles, what principles are they based on? That’s my question for Mr. Obama. Because it would seem that the Congress is attempting to sell out the Bill of Rights to telcos and abusers of the law and our Constitution. It seems that it is, indeed, just “a piece of paper” that the President can ignore with almost complete impunity…as long as those abuses remain hidden from all but the few who get to benefit or suffer by those abuses. At some point, the abuses will grow, have grown, and they continue to this day because…little is done to punish those who have committed those abuses, either politically, and especially legally.
In fact, the abuse has gotten so bad that some loyal Americans and supporters of the U.S. Constitution are left with the helpless and crazy opinion that other countries will have to sort out our politics for us…and some of us, at this point, even advocate for that; for foreign countries to enforce their human rights, and other treaty and legal obligations against our own citizens so that justice and human dignity will be served well.
It is, indeed, a sad and dangerous time that has fallen upon us, the American people, because of the arrogance and power that has been wielded with little restrain, nor concern, for our own well-being. As long as Bush and his coterie are happy, what happens to us appears to be of little importance.