Entries by emptywheel

Visa: WikiLeaks Guilty until Proven (Twice) Innocent

The AP reports that a Swedish company Visa Europe hired to study whether WikiLeaks was breaking the law or Visa’s own rules has “found no proof the group’s fundraising arm is breaking the law in its home base of Iceland.” But, the AP goes on, Visa will not accept WikiLeaks donations until it completes its […]

Share this entry

The Sun Belt Needs a Killer App

Fresh off Obama imploring the country to “win the [vaguely defined, and definitely not defined as preventing climate change] future,” Calculated Risk has a new chart, showing the decline in unemployment by state. It’s useful to show not just which states are unemployment clusterfucks (Michigan remains near the top, though CA and FL passed it […]

Share this entry

Did Manning Zerofill His Computers? Or Did the Military?

Wired has a post on MSNBC’s report that “there is apparently no evidence he passed the files directly to [Julian] Assange, or had any direct contact with the controversial WikiLeaks figure.” In it, Kim Zetter looks to the chat logs to try to explain why there is no such evidence. If it’s true that investigators […]

Share this entry

CNN: Military Investigating Why Brig Commander Put Bradley Manning on Suicide Watch [Update: Or Maybe Not]

CNN elaborates on something MSNBC reported last night. Not only did Quantico Brig Commander James Averhart improperly put Bradley Manning on suicide watch for two days last week, but the military is now investigating why he did so. The U.S. military is investigating why the commander of the military jail put Pfc. Bradley Manning, suspected […]

Share this entry

Rove and the (Escape) Hatch Act

When Michael Mukasey announced in 2008 no one would be charged for politicizing DOJ, I had this to say. Understand: Mukasey has turned into a terrible shill for the Administration. But it has been clear for over a year that the Administration would escape criminal charges for having committed massive violations of the Hatch Act. […]

Share this entry

Government Admits Brig Commander Improperly Put Bradley Manning on Suicide Watch

The government has admitted to MSNBC that the Brig Commander at Quantico improperly put Bradley Manning on suicide watch last week. The officials told NBC News, however, that a U.S. Marine commander did violate procedure when he placed Manning on “suicide watch” last week. Military officials said Brig Commander James Averhart did not have the […]

Share this entry

Did DOJ Subpoena Ex-Spook’s Lawyer to Discredit Any Whistleblower Motive?

Via Jeff Stein, the St. Louis Beacon reports that DOJ not only (unsuccessfully) subpoenaed James Risen in their pursuit of alleged MERLIN source Jeffrey Sterling, but they successfully subpoenaed Sterling’s one-time lawyer, Mark Zaid. Mark Zaid, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who handles national security cases, was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury to discuss […]

Share this entry

Peter King’s “Danger from Within”

As Adam Serwer notes, one of the most interesting things about this long story on how Peter King came to split with a Muslim community close to his district as he increasingly attacked Muslims in general after 9/11 is the description of the way a novel of his tied al Qaeda, Long Island Muslims, and […]

Share this entry

Is That Why We Bombed the Chinese Embassy?

As soon as I read the news that the new Chinese stealth fighter might have been reverse-engineered from an F-117 Nighthawk shot down during the NATO bombing of Serbia, I wondered the same thing implied (though not explicitly stated) in this Fox News piece: did we bomb the Chinese embassy because they were actively collecting […]

Share this entry