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.
David Plouffe was at yesterday’s disappointing “Freedom Rally” at Johnson Controls. Aside from being amazed (as I often am when I see politicos in person) at how short he is, seeing him also made me newly cranky about Plouffe’s comments last month about people feeling better about their own economic situations. The average American does […]
The San Francisco Federal Reserve has a report showing that we don’t really import all that much from China (this, in spite of yesterday’s report that our trade deficit rose again last month). It manages to make the claim by tracking not the volume of all the stuff we use, but the percentage of the […]
There’s something really disturbing about Obama’s speech at Johnson Controls today: he barely claimed credit for the government’s involvement in it. Understand, I think the opening of factories like Johnson Controls the single biggest piece of good news in our economy today. It’s good news because we’re investing in new manufacturing jobs. It’s good news […]
I’ll have more to say about Obama’s speech at Johnson Controls later today when I get back to reliable Toobz. But here are my first impressions. First, here’s the order of emphasis in his speech: Freedom Debt and compromise The kinds of investments that make this factory possible That’s a problem. Republicans like Crazy Pete […]
It’s rather pathetic that this idea seems so remarkable. Rep. John Larson (Conn.), chairman of the Democratic Caucus, wants to amend the recently passed debt-limit package to establish a joint select committee on job creation to operate alongside the already mandated Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. In a “Dear Colleague” letter sent to House […]
The HuffPo looks at how the Panama trade deal will just make it easier for rich Americans to dodge taxes. Bank of America may be insolvent and stealing homes from people, but the police still obey them, rather than Community Organizers, even when the Organizers catch BoA being a deadbeat. More than three times as […]
I’m all in favor of creative ways to solve the foreclosure crisis. But I don’t think this is answer. The government is soliciting ideas for ways to unload lots–big lots–of foreclosed properties currently owned by Fannie, Freddie, or FHA. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), in consultation with the U.S. Department of the Treasury and […]
So Ron Bloom, Obama’s manufacturing czar and a key figure in the auto bailout, has announced he is leaving the White House to spend more time with his family. Today, the White House announced Ron Bloom will be stepping down from his position as the Assistant to the President for Manufacturing Policy at the end […]
This WSJ article–purporting to explain the difference between the 2008 crash from this crash (which is basically the extension of the earlier one)–is amusing for the way it avoids discussing the drop in real wages as the common cause for both crashes. For example, it doesn’t consider why people were using their home as an […]
Our Dying Economy Update: Reid just named his three picks for SuperCongress: Patty Murray, Max Baucus, and John Kerry. IMO, Kerry is actually a worse choice than Baucus (yeah, that’s me saying that), since Kerry was in favor of the 4T bargain but Baucus voted against the Catfood Commission recommendations. And frankly, we’re probably better […]