Entries by emptywheel

It Depends on What the Definition of “Agency” Is

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,”

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Judge Huvelle Was Not Amused

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

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Does Brit Hume Think NSA Spying Only Happens to Bad Guys?

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

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Henry Gets Impatient

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.

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Does the “Royalty Management Subcommittee” Sound Like Something We’d Find in Cheney’s DOI?

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.

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Some Questions

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.

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Well Then, We’ll Take Away Executive Privilege for Everyone Else

David Shuster (and to a lesser degree Chris Matthews) is the one person in the MSM who recognized Dick Cheney for what he was early on. Which is why Shuster’s interview of Cheney-hack Ron Christie is so good. Shuster uses the Libby case to expose the problems with Cheney’s method of working around other cabinet members and he smacks Christie down, just as I would have done, by pointing out that

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The Liz Cheney Presidency

desertwind was the first to point me to Sally Quinn’s column on a GOP Plan to Oust Cheney. And like desertwind, my first thoughts when I read Quinn’s prediction that Cheney would step down with heart trouble and Fred Thompson would replace him–if Quinn is right, this is really an attempt to install another figurehead president controlled by someone named Cheney.

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Loonies and BRICs

As most of you know, I live in SE Michigan, night clubs drive distance (if that’s your thing) from Canada. I didn’t go to my favorite Canadian ultimate tournament this year, so haven’t been in Canada for a while. So I was pretty darn shocked to hear this news:

The Canadian dollar breached 94 U.S.

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