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.
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.
Anonymous Liberal found the Wainstein testimony I said I was going to go look for. I’ll come back to his summary of the extra goodies the Administration is requesting (the short version: they want to make it impossible for any case relating to wiretapping to go through normal courts, and they want to expand the universe of people who can make FISA certifications to include Monica Goodling non-Senate approved people the
Argentine meltdown, here we come. The Saudis are showing signs of disinterest in going down the economic tubes with their friend George.
Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates in lockstep with the USFederal Reserve for the first time, signalling that the oil-rich Gulfkingdom is preparing to break the dollar currency peg in a move thatrisks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the Middle East.”This is a very
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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