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.
I am very very grateful that Ryan Grim exposed Bush as a plagiarist on Thursday. When Crown Publishing inked a deal with George W. Bush for his memoirs, the publisher knew it wasn’t getting Faulkner. But the book, at least, promises “gripping, never-before-heard detail” about the former president’s key decisions, offering to bring readers “aboard […]
Let me make a rare statement: I agree with just about everything Richard Shelby said in his call for an investigation of mortgage servicers. The Federal Banking Regulators should immediately review the mortgage servicing and foreclosure activities of Ally Financial, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America. The regulators should determine exactly what occurred at […]
GQ has another of those articles describing Eric Holder’s failed efforts to restore DOJ’s independence and sustain rule of law as Attorney General. There are a few new details in there — such as details of what torture was described in the CIA IG Report but must be among the redactions (notably, strangling of one […]
There’s a lot to despise about David Axelrod’s announcement of Obama’s capitulation to the oligarchs on tax cuts, not least that he made this announcement on the same day Obama’s Catfood Commission Chairs started the process of stealing from seniors to “fix” our deficit. Let yesterday be marked as the day when a nominally Democratic […]
Remember the former JSOC guy in charge of Homeland Security for PA who hired an Israeli-connected private intelligence company to collect information on environmentalists and peace activists? Well, it will surprise none of you that they were comparing Rainforest Action Network to Al Qaeda and trying to set up their own network of people informing […]
I think it was the timing of the end of the torture investigation that hurts most of all. Just days ago, Harold Koh was boasting of the Durham investigation to the UN. Then Bush started his dog and pony show, including his proud admission to have ordered up torture. All of which made today’s announcement, […]
I’m working on a post on the news that DOJ will not charge Jose Rodriguez for destroying the torture tapes. But that’s going to take a while (read the NYT on the news in the meantime). In the meantime, though, I wanted to point to Adam Serwer’s summary of yesterday’s hearing on the Anwar al-Awlaki […]
If the Democratic Party wants to survive the next two years, it needs to find a new baby-sitter for Darrell Issa. After all, no one was more gleefully prepared after the shellacking last Tuesday to take over and cause trouble for Democrats that Issa. He’s been planning a series of witch hunts for months. And […]
Once upon a time in 2006, a dirty fucking hippie blogger had an opportunity to ask aspiring presidential candidate Mark Warner a few questions. Mark Warner had just dedicated part of a speech to talking about how Iran was the biggest WMD threat. So with her questions, the dirty fucking hippie blogger asked Mark Warner […]
Normally, I wouldn’t get into a shouting match between John Cole and his poster ED Kain. John started it when he objected to a revolt against a city council decision to contract with just one trash collector. Our entire nation has collectively lost its shit: A Valley community’s decision to change the way trash is […]