January 24, 2010
Following up on armand... ...if the Supreme Court just said, essentially, that corporations/unions have as much free speech as individuals (and thus they can spend money to buy political adds) then either: 1. Like individuals, they are limited to spending...
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January 18, 2010
I'll be interested to see how much coverage this story gets. I'm guessing not much....
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October 13, 2009
If you haven't seen the story about Texas (likely) executing an innocent man, you should really read it. What is becoming almost as interesting are the brazen attempts by Gov. Perry to bury the story. I think I'm OK with...
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September 22, 2009
Who knew that Fox News and vast majorities in Congress had it in for Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman?...
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May 15, 2009
That's what Lawrence Wilkerson says. I think Josh Marshall is right to have highlighted these remarks. If the US hasn't tortured anyone since 2004, and if most of those acts weren't aimed at preempting terrorist attacks, but at finding confirmation...
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April 20, 2009
RUMINT (Rumor Intelligence) is always fun, if not necessarily accurate. So, we can wait a day or so for the actual truth to emerge here. That doesn't mean we can't start speculating, however. Via TMP (just cut and pasted in...
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February 10, 2009
I'm someone who has usually been in the "we have to do something, even if we don't like the particulars of it" school when it comes to the financial crisis because 1) it is frighteningly bad and 2) the "if...
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December 12, 2008
Via WV Public Radio, we find out that our somewhat-local bank BB&T has given money to some local universities to fund a teaching position in capitalism. On of the requirements is that Rand' Atlas Shrugged must be read and discussed....
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December 09, 2008
Wow. Some politicians are incredibly dumb, on top of being hugely unpopular. Suddently Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn (D) becomes relevant. Who'd have expected that? And I'm betting this isn't going to help former Gov. George Ryan's (R) quest for...
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November 30, 2008
David Bartsow has an excellent piece in today's New York Times on Gen. McCaffrey, a well-known retired general, tv talking head, and former Drug Czar, detailing McCaffrey's tendency to advocate policies - to both the media and the military -...
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November 10, 2008
I realize that financial news has dropped off most people's radar screens these days, but the crisis continues to roll through our markets (and most everyones). Today's news comes via a discussion on naked capitalism on the (continuing) AIG bailout....
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October 28, 2008
50,000?...
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October 15, 2008
This wasn't really an enjoyable read. Says something bad about both students and the institutions of higher education. I don't think there is much of this in my classes (I think that my questions are too specific to the readings...
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October 11, 2008
Characteristics of the Palin administration, revealed in the Troopergate report....
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October 06, 2008
Nothing political here. Anyone interested in boning up on the massive problems (with, as best I can tell, more to come as Europe sorts its banks out) might like these primers. I'm not a econ-head, but these are reasonable enough...
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October 04, 2008
It sounds like the DOJ's Inspector General doubts that....
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October 01, 2008
It appears the White House did it - with of course the assistance of various people in DoJ. I strongly support further investigations into this....
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September 14, 2008
This is called "vetting" (here and here). You might want to try it out sometime. (This doesn't mean the stories are correct in their negative review of Palin's tenure as mayor and governor. However, if you vet people correctly, you...
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September 01, 2008
Via Kevin Drum, I see that the Bush Administration has won it's legal battle to prevent a private cattle producer from testing 100% of their cows for mad cow disease (short blurb). The company wanted to certify their beef as...
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July 28, 2008
The mind reels. That she held such a position of power is revolting. And I probably can't get my head around just how damaging her actions were to the US Department of Justice.UPDATE: Does the incompetence of it all make...
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July 19, 2008
Every so often Novakula reports something interesting. And this definitely qualifies. Evangelicals and their allies, dominating last weekend's Iowa Republican state convention, dumped their critic, Sen. Chuck Grassley, from the state's delegation to the national convention in St. Paul, Minn....
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July 12, 2008
In the larger scheme of things, Clear Channel Communications is only moderately evil. They don't actively kill people (Zimbabwe, Myanmar), don't actively impoverish them (Monsanto, Dow), nor do they violate anyones civil rights (Bush, Telecom companies). They just took over...
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June 27, 2008
I'm most of the way through Nixonland, and happened upon this paragraph: (Part of a section describing Nixon's non-public actions to help secure his re-election in 1972) "Meanwhile there were the broadcast networks to flay - four of them, now...
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June 19, 2008
Don't know if anyone else noticed this: the US Air Force is having a great deal of difficultly buying airplanes. The Air Force needs some new air-to-air tankers. These are the boring, unglamorous planes that are necessary. They are big...
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June 17, 2008
Shocking. Just shocking. Who'd have thought? Well, pretty much everyone with a pulse, but it's maddening nonetheless: The Army official who managed the Pentagon's largest contract in Iraq says he was ousted from his job when he refused to approve...
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June 06, 2008
I can't decide which of these two paragraphs is more troubling. A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials' activities after only a month, and the Defense Department's...
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May 05, 2008
Some of these are repeating from comments, but these are the relevant stories covering the WVU Faculty Senate vote that recommended that WVU President Garrison resign: The basic news blurb from our local AM talk radio station. Commentary from one...
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March 10, 2008
...bit it's close....
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February 25, 2008
Scott Horton reports on the follow-up to the 60 Minutes story last night. The AP is running a misleading (and in part flatly inaccurate) story (who'd have thought that from the organization that employs Nedra Pickler!), and an Alabama station...
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February 23, 2008
This cartoon on the FISA issue is really funny (in a most unfortunate way)....
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February 08, 2008
In a little-reported story yesterday, the Attorney General of the United States argued that if the Justice Department declares something to be legal, it cannot (later) be investigated to see if it is (in fact) legal or not: Testifying before...
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February 07, 2008
Somebody gets very pissed off here. (It doesn't say anything new, but it does say it very angrily.)...
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February 05, 2008
In more West Virginia news, the closed Republican Caucus (down in Charleston, 200 miles from here in Morgantown) decided to support Huckabee. The first round of voting gave Romney 41%, but convention rules say you have to win with 50%,...
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January 29, 2008
As of this time, several news sources are reporting that Guiliani will drop from the race tomorrow. At least the worst candidate for President won't win. That's gotta be worth something....
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As just about everyone who blogs on military issues has discovered, there is a fascinating Tom Ricks nugget in the Washington Post yesterday. The Air Force (our Air Force) notes that "the budget battle is zero sum - others gain...
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January 14, 2008
West Virginia produces lots of coal. Coal producers get lots of money from the coal they sell. Mining coal is destructive to the environment (mountaintop removal, valley fill, etc.) and people (black lung disease, etc.), so coal producers are always...
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December 07, 2007
That's what Gerald Posner is raising. And while I'm not often given to thinking there's much to "conspiracy theories" the deaths of those princes have always looked really peculiar....
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November 01, 2007
I'm just completely reprinting this entire George Packer post from his blog over at Vanity Fair. My level of frustration at our conduct in this war (both on this issue and others - how can America possibly be having a...
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October 18, 2007
I'm having trouble expressing my level of disdain for the Congressional Democrats in the English language. "Sniveling" might work, but doesn't have enough banal evilness in it. "Evil" gives them to much credit for actually doing something (takes effort to...
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October 05, 2007
I rarely link to other people's blog posts. I figure anyone on the net (who stumbles across this little corner of it) is likely reading most of the major blogs anyway, so I don't need to point out what others...
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October 03, 2007
Jack Goldsmith was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. Marty Lederman summarizes some of the extreme measures the Bush/Cheney White House took to keep the Department of Justice out of the loop here. Think about that for a second....
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September 30, 2007
It's a given that any administration has the right to use the executive branch in ways that benefit that party's supporters. That's the political "spoils system" bequeathed to us by Jackson something like 200 years ago. It's not necessarily pretty,...
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September 12, 2007
So Pam's got a rundown on that bizarre murder-suicide in Florida involving a prominent Republican staffer (sorry, couldn't resist). This story is so tawdry I can't believe the cable news networks aren't sniffing around it. But as they aren't (as...
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A Republican candidate for Attorney General of Louisiana really needs to learn 1) not to threaten people and demand money from them OR 2) not to do so over e-mail. I tend to be skeptical of money "scandals", because an...
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September 11, 2007
Ummm, who was so stupid as to write the last line below? And if it wasn't an attack of the stupids that led to this wording ... well that would be quite a Freudian slip, no? Jill Simpson, an Alabama...
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August 27, 2007
Yes, it looks like it was rushed. So why? Perhaps because of naughty business in the Civil Rights Division?...
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It was likely going to be the case anyway, but in light of today's press reports it seems close to a certainty that Trent Lott will be the last of the Singing Senators left in the Senate....
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August 25, 2007
We classify waaaaay too much information in this country - and sometimes for truly horrible reasons. The thing to take away from this post by Jacob Sullum is that the Bush administration's concession that it classifies information that presents no...
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August 19, 2007
Josh Marshall points out that it's legitimate to impeach Attorney General Gonzalez, and wonders why there are only 27 cosponsors on Rep. Jay Inslee's (D-WA) resolution to investigate impeaching him. It's a very good question, and I'm inclined to write...
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August 07, 2007
The president is shameless. It would be funny if it weren't so disturbing....
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You have got to be kidding me. Please, please, please be kidding me. Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling went to one of these Karl Rove briefings? And it's one week later when Harriet Miers gets the first draft of the...
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July 27, 2007
So the Subcommittee on National Security & Foreign Affairs of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been investigating charges that the workers building the new US Embassy in Iraq are being abused. Here's coverage from McClatchy and The...
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July 05, 2007
Soooo ... the press is spilling more ink writing about the son of a non-candidate and the hair of a candidate (still?!?) than stories like this? That's all too predictable. I think Hilzoy's got it right. Think about this for...
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July 02, 2007
While we get annoyed with the president's decision to commute Libby's sentence, we might want to keep in mind Libby's other bad deeds - so that we remember just what a corrupt piece of work this man (and the administration...
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You fargin sneaky bastage! W slips one in on a Monday evening when people are talking about Putin's fish....
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June 12, 2007
Keep in mind that this guy is running for president. Danger Room features a post on an investigation into one of Duncan Hunter's pet projects. In military-industrial circles, former House Armed Services Committee chairman (and long-shot Presidential candidate) Duncan Hunter...
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June 11, 2007
I suppose some new revelation about how low this administration has sunk shouldn't surprise anyone at this point. And, to be honest, I'm not really surprised by this. Still, what's one more scandal at the Justice Department at this point....
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June 06, 2007
I'm shocked, just shocked. BAE Systems made regular payments of hundreds of millions of pounds to Prince Bandar bin Sultan for more than a decade ... David Caruso, an investigator who worked for the American bank where the accounts were...
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April 25, 2007
I realize everyone's outrage meter has long since fallen off over this administration, but here's another one: Since George W. Bush became president, OSHA has issued the fewest significant standards in its history, public health experts say. It has imposed...
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March 23, 2007
Or their staff is, either way (emphasis mine): In the runup to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January, Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson lied to committee staff in order to convince them that...
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March 19, 2007
Emptywheel has an interesting post up on testimony by Knodell and Leonard before Rep. Waxman's committee. What stood out to me was that the White House believes the president has complete power to declassify information at a moment's notice in...
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March 15, 2007
The information coming to light on the attorney firings brings up questions raised during the Abramoff investigations, namely, was the Bush administration deliberately using non-government communications pathways to conduct shady business? (emphasis mine) One email, sent to Justice Department Chief...
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Via TPM, the National Journal is reporting that Gonzalez asked Bush to end an internal Justice Department probe that was focusing on his own actions: Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut...
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March 09, 2007
Via the Associated Press: WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI underreported how often it used the USA Patriot Act to force businesses to turn over customer information in suspected terrorism cases, according to a Justice Department audit. (snip) Justice Department Inspector...
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March 08, 2007
Gingrich Had Affair During Clinton Probe....
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March 02, 2007
Majikthise comments on the executive order which the Bush Administration has installed to exercise more control over regulatory interpretation: These new "regulatory policy officers" will have the final say about whether the recommendations of experts found their way into official...
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February 26, 2007
While we here at BloodlessCoup have covered the issue of the White House firing eight US Attorneys before, today's NYT Editorial brought it back to me again. In addition to looking clearly wrong (what good reason can there be for...
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February 19, 2007
Your kids get lead in their lunch....
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February 11, 2007
What the Democratic Congress has to look forward to as it starts the cleanup: Last summer, the Finance Committee was looking into the role of falsified clinical data in the FDA approval of a drug. After Grassley accused the Justice...
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February 04, 2007
Like music to the ears, no? Rep. Waxman has requested the testimony of three key witnesses regarding Iraq reconstruction efforts at an Oversight Committee hearing on waste, fraud, and abuse, to be held the week of February 6th. I hope...
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January 16, 2007
Armand mentioned the Lam case a couple of days ago, but I just saw via Balloon Juice that the number is possibly up to seven fired prosecutors. As Tim F. says, TPM is doing the work: Okay, so we already...
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January 05, 2007
The Bush administration has no shame. The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring records identifying visitors to the White House are not open to...
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December 12, 2006
Faith, family, then country. That's the way to approach national defense. Jesus fucking christ....
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November 05, 2006
Soldiers of Christ, a long and very detailed Harper's piece about the growth of the Colorado Springs evangelical flock, and the New Life Church. The author could have been over the top snarky - the opportunities are endless - but...
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October 04, 2006
...but why am I suspicious about Fox labeling Foley as a democrat? Fluffy something or others to the StealthBadger....
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October 02, 2006
After letting the fox guard the henhouse, now Hastert wants to shut the barn door now that the news horse already got out....
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September 17, 2006
We blew up a country, parked 130,000 of our own troops (and several tens of thousands of our allies) on it, declared we owned the place, and then hired politically loyal but supremely incompetant idiots to rebuild it: Many of...
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July 23, 2006
We create the conditions that allow the greedy and the power hungry to undermine democracy and enrich themselves on our dime. An independent investigation has found that imprisoned former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham took advantage of secrecy and badgered congressional...
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June 25, 2006
Still catching up on all the fun stuff I missed. Via The Cunning Realist, I read this (warning: pdf) cable/message from Khalilzad to the State Department Headquarters sent last week. It's depressing stuff: among the Iraqi employees of the embassy,...
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May 15, 2006
"We are a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws."...
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February 27, 2006
Tom Delay needs to be scraped off of the sole of our collective shoe: The Internal Revenue Service recently audited the books of a Texas nonprofit group that was critical of campaign spending by former House majority leader Tom DeLay...
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February 09, 2006
It's always nice when the news outlets in a Senator's home state use words like "rig bill for drug firms" in their headlines referring to said Senator. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert engineered a backroom...
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February 08, 2006
Remember this story about the NASA scientist being blocked? Looks like the little scamp who restricted his speech is also more than a little liar: George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to...
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February 01, 2006
I'm not so sure. Oh my.Fitzgerald, who is fighting Libby's request, said in a letter to Libby's lawyers that many e-mails from Cheney's office at the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted contrary to White House...
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January 31, 2006
Via the Stealthbadger, a extremely nice graphical representation of the so-called "bi-partisan" scandal. It shows that while both parties had been receiving "legal tribal money" what Abramoff did (the illegal part) was increase the Republicans' reception of money from those...
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January 27, 2006
The Bush adminstration has got it right here....
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January 26, 2006
They're just photos! In his press conference today, President Bush suggested that the existence of photographs of himself and Jack Abramoff are no big deal and generally pooh-poohed the press's focus on the story. But our reporting suggests that the...
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