emptywheel

We’re still kicking around the tires a bit, but if you’d like to help us kick those tires, the new home for emptywheel is at emptywheel.net. As I’m leaving what has been home for the last three and a half years, I wanted to, first of all, wish Kevin Gosztola and Jeff Kaye the best [...]

As Josh Gerstein reported, back in June, Jeffrey Sterling asked the government for details about which parts of James Risen’s account of Merlin are true and which are false. His lawyers argue that Sterling cannot be guilty of disseminating national defense information if what he disseminated–as the government claims–was actually not true. Now, at first [...]

Republicans are big fans of projection. When they’re neck-deep in conflicts of interest, they like to hide it by accusing Democrats of such conflicts. When they leak stuff, they accuse Democrats. When they mismanage stuff, they accuse Democrats. And yesterday, Darrell Issa got caught doing just that. A year ago, on July 27, 2010, Issa [...]

The ACLU has just FOIAed the CIA and Director of National Intelligence for any information on Juan Cole. It asks for, e-mails, letters, faxes, or other correspondence, memoranda, contemporaneous notes of meetings or phone calls, reports or any other material relating to the gathering, collecting, copying, collating, generating or other use of information and material [...]

In its statement of Administration policy on HR 2055–which funds military construction–the Administration expressed concern that the Senate had cut $100 million funding for two projects in Bahrain. The Administration is worried, you see, that such cuts would signal that we do not “stand by its allies.” The Administration is concerned about the reduction in [...]

Across the pond–in the investigation of British complicity with the torture of Binyam Mohamed and others–the Supreme Court has told the government it can’t present secret evidence. The supreme court has outlawed the use of secret evidence in court by the intelligence services to conceal allegations that detainees were tortured. The decision will be seen [...]

A detainee in what Jeremy Scahill describes as “a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabab members or of having links to the group are held”–one with key US involvement–describes his internment this way. I have been here for one year, seven months. [...]

It is with very mixed feelings that I announce emptywheel will be leaving Firedoglake at the end of this week. About six years ago, I started blogging on the abuse of power. At first it was the CIA Leak case. Then it was torture. And warrantless wiretapping. And now drones and Gitmo and corruption and [...]

So the WaPo did a 1200-word profile on Eric Cantor’s central role in debt ceiling negotiations. And somehow they never get around to mentioning that Cantor has a bet placed against US Treasuries. Eric Cantor, the Republican Whip in the House of Representatives, bought up to $15,000 in shares of ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year [...]

This is going to make it more difficult for us to declare victory and withdraw from Afghanistan. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Kandahar provincial council chief, was killed during a gathering, said provincial governor Tooryalai Wesa. He did not know a motive. While the governor initially said a friend killed Karzai, his spokesman later clarified that [...]