The House Armed Services Committee is having a hearing on Law of War Detention. Much of it has focused on Jeh Johnson affirming that military commissions line up with American values. (In other words, it is fairly depressing.) But an interesting exchange happened when Hank Johnson had his turn. He set up his question by [...]

When I first posted on Hank Johnson’s letter demanding an investigation into Hunton & Williams’ appropriation of counterterrorist techniques to attack citizen speech, I was a bit skeptical. Without a way to get some coverage of the demand, such a letter risks being yet one more angry letter into the void. But I will say [...]

Hmmm. “Tactics developed for use on terrorists may have been unleashed against citizens.” That sounds like something I would have written about the HB Gary scandal. Twice. It’s nice to see some members of Congress understand what the entire problem with this scandal is about. In a letter to be released Tuesday, Rep. Hank Johnson [...]

I confess to being underwhelmed with the work HJC did with Scott McClellan’s appearance before HJC today. I’ll do a post later (once I’ve recovered from a terrible day for Democracy) on what I think was missed. But I’ll start with the positive–what I consider the highlights of the hearing.

Conyers started the hearing right, IMO, by introducing the meat-grinder note, showing that as Cheney was pressuring Bush to have Libby exonerated,