Entries by emptywheel

The Lobbyist-In-Chief Invites His Friends Over

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I criticize Mikey Isikoff a lot, but I’m very grateful for this story, via Laura Rozen. Isikoff and Hoseball reveal that the telecom industry is launching a full court press to get Congress to give telecoms immunity for having broken the law in helping Bush spy on Americans.

The nation’s biggest telecommunications companies, working closely withthe White House, have mounted a secretive lobbying campaign to getCongress to quickly approve a measure wiping

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$1.40

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Atrios points out that the Euro has just pushed past $1.40.

Let’s see. In the last two days, the Fed has cut interest rates by half a point, making what is probably a futile attempt to staunch the subprime crisis. And yesterday, Henry Paulson asked Congress to raise the debt limit before we once again hit our debt limit on October 1–which will make the fifth time Bush has had to

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The 1% Leadership Solution

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scout prime catches Michael Chertoff looking like the self-important incompetent he is. She finds that:Michael Chertoff has a blog. Yes, that’s right folks. And his blog is called How to Kill a City. No wait. I’m sorry. It’s called Leadership Journal.Faced with yet another intractable crisis, the Bush Administration is doing what it always does.

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CBS Collaborates in Torture

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The most interesting thing about the Dan Rather complaint, IMO, is the description it gave of CBS and Administration attempts to spike the Abu Ghraib story.

In late April 2004, Mr. Rather, as Correspondant, and Mary Mapes, a veteran producer, broke a news story of national importance on 60 Minutes II–the abuse by American military personnel of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison.

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The Pre-Emptive Cave on Immunity

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Glenn Greenwald catches the Democrats preparing to cave to Administration demands for retroactive immunity for the telecoms.

Mr. McConnell argued on Tuesday that the expanded surveillancepowers granted under the temporary measure should be made permanent.

Healso pushed for a provision that would grant legal immunity to thetelecommunications companies that secretly cooperated with the N.S.A.on the warrantless program.

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No Input from DOJ

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The WaPo reveals that the White House pulled the Clement-Keisler headfake with no input from DOJ.

While Mukasey’s nomination is pending, the Justice Departmentwill be run by former civil division chief Peter D. Keisler, aconservative appointee who this week was a surprise replacement in thatrole for Solicitor General Paul D. Clement.Clement, who was publicly tagged last month as the temporaryreplacement for Gonzales, wound up officially taking the helm at 12:01a.m.

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House Rules

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The WaPo has more on the logic behind the refusal of the 13 Congressmen subpoenaed yesterday to testify.

As required by House rules, the subpoenas were read into theCongressional Record late Monday evening. John D. Filamor, assistantHouse counsel, wrote Geragos on Sept. 6 to object to the subpoenas,citing House rules that forbid members from testifying in judicialproceedings unless their testimony is “material and relevant.”

Filamor also cited the “speech or debate” clause of

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Mr. Sulzberger, Tear Down That Wall

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My buddy Pinch Sulzberger wrote me today. He said:

We are ending TimesSelect, effective today.

The Times’s Op-Edand news columns are now available free of charge, along with TimesFile and News Tracker. In addition, The New York Times online Archiveis now free back to 1987 for all of our readers.

Why the change?

Sincewe launched TimesSelect, the Web has evolved into an increasingly openenvironment.

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Diplomatic Convoys

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Two days ago Iraq said it was kicking Eric Prince and his mercenary thugs out of Iraq. Yesterday, Iraq said it would review all the mercenary thugs (and legitimate security entities) to see if they could stay in Iraq. And today, the US announces a curb on land-based civilian travel.

The United States on Tuesday suspended all land travel by U.S.

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Congressional Subpoenas Are the New Graymail

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The AP has the list of Congressmen whom Brent Wilkes has subpoenaed to appear at his trial. There are virtually no surprises on the list–all are either former or current Chairs of the Committees that knew of Wilkes’ behavior and/or noted earmarkers in their own right. Here’s why I think each person was subpoenaed.

Duncan Hunter, R-CA:

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