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 Chief Judge in Boston just sent Michael Mukasey a letter suggesting DOJ’s process for investigating and responding to misconduct from government attorneys isn’t work.
The chief federal judge in Boston has urged the new US attorney general to crack down on prosecutors who commit misconduct and to force Justice Department lawyers to be truthful in court.
Chief Judge Mark L.
I think the pundits are still working from outdated conventional wisdom, which was overturned on two counts in Iowa. Obviously, Obama has dramatically altered the universe of voters whom Democrats are going to have to win over. But at the same time, I wonder whether the Republicans have lost a good many of their corporatists who have been disgusted by the rank incompetence of the Bush Administration. If so, it may mean that Huckabee wins big, but wins in what has become a minority party.
Poor John Yoo. Apparently now he’s trapped. Or, as his lawyer said, faced with “nothing more than a political rant disguised as a lawsuit.” I know you’re all crying for him.
I’m a little bit late to posting about the law suit, on the behalf of Jose Padilla and his mother, against the guy who rationalized his torture, John Yoo.
At long last, the playoffs are upon us. Well, the playoffs are upon us for the NFL anyway; there are still no playoffs for major college football, so we will once again have to settle for a BCS title game with arguably the wrong participants. I am thinking you folks may have some opinions on all this. Do tell.
After folks noted this footnote from Steven Aftergood’s request that the Office of Professional Responsibility look into the Pixie Dust* surrounding Executive Order 13292 and Dick Cheney’s claims to be a Fourth Branch…
2 A copy of the OLC letter is attached, and may also be found online here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/isoo/olc072007.pdf . The July 20, 2007 letter did not become public until December 11, 2007 when it was published by Marcy Wheeler on
I suggested last month that the Liberty City Seven indictment looks more and more like a made for TV event, particularly after a mistrial was declared on most charges and one of the Seven, Lyglenson Lemorin, was acquitted of all charges. Well, now Lemorin is suffering from his own little Orwellian hell.
On the day of his acquittal, the judge in the case immediately issued an oral gag order pertaining to the
Many of you no doubt disagree. But I’m not crying about an Obama victory (then again, I wouldn’t have been crying about an Edwards or Clinton win, either).
But here are the two details that I think are most important.
Crazy, record turnout–reportedly well over 200,000. And reportedly, perhaps two-to-one for Dems, compared to the Republicans.
Crazy, record turnout among youth.
Since I’ve been talking so much about Helgerson, and since we now have proof that Helgerson’s investigation was always central to discussions of the torture tape destruction, I would be remiss in ignoring this bit from the LAT (h/t Laura).
The CIA has completed a controversial in-house probe of its inspector general and plans to make a series of changes in the way the agency conducts internal investigations, according to U.S.