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.
Reading through the Kyl-Lieberman amendment (hat tip Laura Rozen), you’d think that the Ryan-Crocker dog and pony show was designed to justify war on Iran. And you might be right. The amendment cites four Petraeus statements about Iranian influence in Iraq and four Crocker statements. And intersperses those with cherry-picked citations to create the illusion that Iran is the only outside force causing trouble in Iran.
Via TP, Howie Kurtz reveals that the networks don’t want Condi anymore.
The secretary of state has always been considered a prize catch for the Sunday talk shows. But when the White House offered Condoleezza Rice for appearances eight days ago, after a week focused on Iraq, two programs took the unusual step of turning her down.
Executivesat CBS and NBC say Rice no longer seems to be a key player on the
My state’s a mess: we still have no budget, and today the UAW launched its biggest strike in 30 years. (At least the football world is back to normal, with UM beating JoePa and the Lions losing badly).
A lot of people bitch and moan about bad American cars and use that as an excuse to bitch about UAW.
There’s a fascinating detail in Novak’s self-hagiography about his break-up with his BFF Karl Rove during the CIA Leak investigation. In the middle of a longish description of their relationship, Novak describes missing Rove’s company–as well as his leaks–during the three years when he and Rove didn’t talk.
Indeed, in fourty-four years as a Washington reporter, I never had better access to a White House as I did to start the George
That’s not exactly what this article says–but it’s close. The NSA–our nation’s most effective spy agency–is going to adopt major new duties in policing our public internets.
In a major shift, the National Security Agency is drawing up plans fora new domestic assignment: helping protect government and privatecommunications networks from cyberattacks and infiltration byterrorists and hackers, according to current and former intelligenceofficials.
[snip]
The plan calls for the NSA to work with the Department
Every time I see mention of the Jena 6, I can’t help but think of Clarence Thomas’ single most positive contribution of his tenure on SCOTUS, as brought to you by Dahlia Lithwick.
Out of nowhere booms the great, surprising “Luke-I-am-your-father”voice of He Who Never Speaks. Justice Clarence Thomas suddenly asks aquestion and everyone’s head pops up and starts looking madly around,like the Muppets on Veterinarian Hospital.
Kudos to Spencer Ackerman for FOIAing the rationale behind General Petraeus’ Magic September numbers out of the military. Generally, Ackerman explains that the numbers for sectarian violence don’t count attacks on same sect people or on the Iraqi government.
Interestingly, attacks against “same-sect civilians,” U.S. forces, theIraqi government or Iraqi security forces “are excluded and not definedas sectarian attacks.” So even though Sunni insurgent groups loathe theShiite-controlled government, insurgent attacks on it
Glenn Kessler and Robin Wright have the most comprehensive story, to date, on the mysterious bombing run Israel did in Syria on September 6. They confirm the story that had been floating around–that Israel’s target was a suspected nuclear site, supplied by North Korea. The story is interesting mostly for the exchange of intelligence it portrays.
I joked earlier that the Administration had requested FISA be expanded so that Monica Goodling could make FISA certifications.
I’ll come back to his summary of the extra goodies the Administrationis requesting (the short version: they want to make it impossible forany case relating to wiretapping to go through normal courts, and theywant to expand the universe of people who can make FISA certificationsto include Monica Goodling non-Senate approved people the President
Hey! Howie Kurtz has decided to do some reporting!!
He has two pieces on the Dan Rather lawsuit today. In a piece based on an interview of Rather, he notes that Moonves and Heyward demanded Rather resign the day after Bush was re-[s]elected.
Rather insisted to reporters on Nov. 23, 2004, that his decision tostep down as anchor the following spring was entirely voluntary.