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.
Did I mention that it was thunderstorming something fierce here in SE Michigan? Yes, raining and pouring, too.
This morning, when I read the famous Executive Order that Cheney claims to have exempted himself from, I noticed a key paragraph:
The Attorney General, upon request by the head of an agency or the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, shall render an interpretation of this order with respect to any question arising
It has been kind of wrath of god-y over here for the last hour. Just as I heard that OVP, NSC, DOJ, and WH have been subpoenaed, a big (much needed) thunderstorm took out my Toobz. Let’s hope the wrath of god thing continues for the bad guys, as this is the move that will either give Anthony Kennedy the opportunity to roll up our Constitution …
What a stark comparison. We’ve been treated to a four-day series unveiling the secrets of Cheney’s power. And in the same week, Eric Boehlert takes on the WaPo’s consistent attempt to belittle the Plame investigation, along with its absolute capitulation to the Libby Lobby.
Meanwhile, searching through the Nexisnews database going back more than 40 months, I cannot find a single outsidecontributor who was invited by the newspaper to write a piece
I get the feeling that someone in the White House told OVP that their claim to be a Fourth Branch of government carried some serious risk to the White House. After all, if Cheney now claims he’s not in the Executive Branch, then he’s got to hand over the Energy Task Force documents, right?
So now David Addington has revised his rationale, claiming that OVP is simply not an agency.
“Dear Senator Kerry,”
I get the feeling today’s installment of Cheney started out as a story about the Energy Task Force. It also tells the story of the Klamath fish kill and snowmobiles in Yellowstone. The big news, though, is Christine Todd Whitman’s side of several issues, where Cheney blindly put business issues ahead of environmental requirements.
I did some coverage of the cynical games Steve Griles played to try to get the 5 months prison time turned into a bunch of community service for his own fake non-profit. I suspected such games would not go over well with Judge Huvelle–who, after all, is the one who tacked 3 months on top of Bob Ney’s plea agreement because of his violation of the trust of public service.
So I’m
The Family Jewels are online now, and page 27 confirms something that should have been obvious. Under the Celotex II program, Brit Hume came under CIA surveillance during the time he worked for Jack Anderson, who was often under surveillance.
So who will be the first enterprising Fox guest to ask Hume whether he believes, along with all the wingnuts of the world, that only bad people come under illegal government surveillance?
Or
Here’s the best part of Waxman’s latest letter to Fred Fielding.
I respectfully request that the interviews that the Committee has beenseeking be scheduled without further delay. If this cannot beaccomplished, I will recommend to the Committee the issuance ofsubpoenas at our next business meeting, which is currently scheduledfor June 28. [my emphasis]
It’s a nice touch.
Because today, on the eve of the WaPo’s revelations about Cheney’s first-hand intervention in Department of Interior policies, such a Subcommittee met in secret (how else!!) for the first time. Who ever said these thugs don’t have a sense of irony?
The actual mandate is not–as it might seem, given the title–to fulfill Cheney’s every need.
Paul Kiel has an important post on vote caging that raises one big question for me.
Kiel’s post quotes the RNC spokesperson as connecting the vote caging activities in Florida with allegations about ACORN registration drives.
In response to Palast’s story, the Republican spokeswoman denied ina statement that the list had been generated in order to challengevoters.