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.
The other day, I noted that Administration claims that they were helpless to affect what they now depict as loan servicers’ “sloppiness” but what really amounts to fraud ignores their decision to stop pushing for cramdown–and with it, leverage over the loan servicers. I think (though I’m less sure of this) they’re ignoring one other […]
When Ibrahim al-Qosi agreed to a plea deal with the government, the original deal was that he’d spend a secret two year sentence (rather than the 14 year sentence announced to the public) in communal quarters. At the last minute, the judge in the case learned there’s no way to do that at Gitmo, though […]
The Federal Housing Administration Commissioner, David Stevens, has joined David Axelrod in stating that the Administration sees no reason to halt all foreclosures. That’s not a surprise in itself–it was pretty clear that Axe’s statement reflected official Administration policy. But I’m particularly interested in how Stevens justified this position in an email sent to the […]
According to this story, the Administration (in the voice of David Axelrod) sees no need to halt foreclosures while the authorities sort out the mess caused by the fraud committed by loan servicers. “It is a serious problem,” said David Axelrod, who contended that the flawed paperwork is hurting the nation’s housing market as well […]
Oh sure, in this NYT op-ed, Greg Mankiw shamelessly fiddles with numbers to try to show that raising taxes on rich people like him will be bad for the economy. But you don’t even have to point out the obvious flaws in his math [Update: Kevin Drum shows some of those flaws here] to read […]
Remember cramdown? It was a proposed change to bankruptcy law that would have allowed judges to modify the mortgages on primary homes for people entering bankruptcy. Supporters of the change argued that cramdown would provide an important stick to force lenders into modifying loans–and in so doing help millions of people stay in their homes. […]
On the plane from Edinburgh to London the other day, I sat next to two guys who were heading to talk to some football team called Arsenal to teach them how to promote their brand worldwide like the NY Giants do. So forgive me if the following post betrays how far out of “touch” I […]
I spent a good part of a book beating up on George Bush for lying in an address to Congress in an effort to generate support for a policy that was being challenged on the merits. So while I’m not suggesting that protecting a secret deal with health insurance companies is as despicable as starting […]
Dafna Linzer has two important pieces on the habeas petition of Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman which should both be read in full. This one describes how the government’s case against Uthman, which alleges that he was one of Osama bin Laden’s guards, relies on the following testimony: A statement from Hakim Abd Al Karim Amin […]
Data octopus. That’s how one European Parliament official described the US’ continued grab for unfettered access to more and more European data. (h/t WM) “The Americans want to blackmail us,” said an agitated Alexander Alvaro, home affairs spokesman of the Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) in the European Parliament. The Americans have become “like a […]