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.
The Democratic National Committee has been suing the DOJ in DC District Court to obtain some 68 pages of emails relaing to the US Attorney purge. There are two issues to be contemplated here. The first is the relative propriety of Huvelle’s decision, and foundation therefor, in the DNC case, and the second is what implications it may have for the greater mass of contentious email issues that are percolating in our midst.
Almost like it was a Friday evening news or document dump coming out of the Bush White House, news has just hit the wires that convict Brent Wilkes has been released from prison pending appeal.
A couple of days ago, we discussed what really happened, and what the longer term implications might be, in the Bear Stearns forced sale/bailout over the March 15-16 weekend. There have been several things that have come out since then that are right on point with what we were all chewing on. Consider this an open forum for all things economy related.
The Bush Administration and their never say die FISA/Immunity push are like cockroaches. You can’t kill em, and they never go away. Well, they’re back again. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has graduated from DC water carrier to full fledged traveling snake oil salesman for the Cheney/Bush Administration and their sordid attempts to cover their own criminal wrongdoing via retroactive immunity for telcos. We need to saddle up and get ready as well; because next week is time to get back to work on slaying the twin headed FISA/Immunity beast.
A fairly significant article just posted at Slate by Eric Lichtblau on the jaded history of the publication, and withholding of publication for well over a year, of his and Jim Risen’s seminal story on the criminal warrantless wiretapping by the Bush Administration. Some of it we knew, some of it we guessed and some of it is first impression. As a whole however, it is stunning to digest.
The House Judiciary Committee wants to see Don Siegelman. I have not yet seen anything additional as to details, such as who other witnesses would be, exactly what Conyers hopes to accomplish, etc. Perhaps we should help the Judiciary Committee out and come up with a game plan for them. Any suggestions?
As you may recall, there is a lot of spooky intrigue raising it’s ugly head lately in South America. The latest piece of this convoluted puzzle comes today with the announcement that the FARC uranium has been “found”.
What was the the Bear Stearns takeover/bailout about anyway? Who really benefitted in the present? What does it portend for the future? I don’t have these answers; but I have a lot of questions and the ground seems to be morphing so fast on this that not only are we not getting answers, the real questions are getting left behind in the wake. To paraphrase Wilson Pickett, we need to “slow this mustang down” and think about what has occurred and where it will lead us for the future.
Three days ago, Saturday March 22, we discussed the hard driving charge being mounted in DC District Court by the National Security Archive and CREW in relation to the destroyed missing White House emails. In that post, we dissected the Administration’s pleading and support documents. Today, we do the same in relation to the reply pleading and supporting affidavit just filed by NSA/CREW.