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.
Everytime I do TV, there’s one line I immediately wish I had used as soon as the opportunity passes, and that’s the line I wish I had used to rebut Bob Franken’s inane argument that we ought to replace the Cash for Clunkers program with the Gravy for Guns program. “Consumers can’t save $750 a year driving a more efficient gun to work.” I also wish I had had about 20
Remember when the Obama Administration appealed to a “fundamental compact” between Congress and the Executive Branch when arguing the intelligence community didn’t need more oversight? (“Fundamental compact, my ass,” I thought was the best response.) Well, Leon Panetta’s out with a similar appeal to inflated, but bogus, language in an attempt to avoid increased Congressional oversight.
The House just put another $2 billion into the wildly popular Cash for Clunkers program; presumably, the Senate will follow suit before they leave today.
From the comments made during the House discussion on this, it sounds like the program was wildly more successful than even reported yesterday–largely because (in spite of an arguably crappy design) it is working to do what it’s supposed to: