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Archive: Jun 2007

The Unitary Executive

In the Framers’ Constitution, after Congress passes a law and sends it to the President for signature, the president has the right either to sign the bill into law, or…

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Weekly Review

An American cattleman. President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Palestinian unity government and declared a state of emergency after masked Hamas gunmen seized control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas looters broke…

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Media Alert–NPR’s Talk of the Nation

Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 19, 2007 at 3PM EST, I will appear on NPR’s Talk of the Nation to talk about the “dictator lobby” with a representative of the D.C. lobbying…

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Of Missing Emails and 18-Minute Gaps

The White House’s claims concerning the email-habits of Karl Rove and his key associates just get curiouser and curiouser. First we learned that Rove and Company used a large volume…

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Nino Scalia: Hollywood’s Justice

As the climate in Washington, D.C. descends into the torrid, who can blame Nino Scalia for accepting an invitation that involves travel far to the North? It seems the nation’s…

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The Firefighters and Rudy Giuliani

I’m puzzled sometimes about how the vacuous chattering class of commentators form their political views. Do they come prepackaged and delivered by K Street lobbyists? A good example might be…

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Garner Points to Disintegration in Iraq

The first U.S. proconsul in Iraq was, of course, not Jerry Bremer, but General Jay Garner. Today’s Guardian has an account of testimony and an interview he gave over the…

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The Painful Truth in Colombia

The big news down in South America for the last month has been the testimony of paramilitary leaders in Colombia. The country has been plagued for more than a decade…

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Fallout from Politicization of U.S. Attorneys in the Courts

The Los Angeles Times reports that in the wake of disclosures of the political manipulation of prosecutions around the country that underlies the U.S. attorneys scandal, defendants in many cases…

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Gonzales Plans to Plow Ahead With Politicization of U.S. Attorneys

Fifty-three senators have expressed no confidence in his ability to direct the Department of Justice. But the man has a mission. And that is to insure that the Department of…

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Pope on Partisan Strife

I agree with you in my sentiments of the state of our Nation since this change; I find myself just in the same situation of mind you describe as your…

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Six Questions for Mark Perry on the Conflict in Palestine

Mark Perry is a military, intelligence and foreign affairs analyst and the co-director of Conflicts Forum, a private group that calls for increased dialogue between Western countries and Islamic movements…

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U.S. Attorneys Scandal–Birmingham and Montgomery

There is a case south of the Mason-Dixon line that resembles the Thompson case in some respects, except that the prosecutorial misconduct appears if anything more serious and more pervasive.…

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U.S. Attorneys Scandal–Milwaukee

In the frenzied days of the 2006 midterm election, U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic, in hot water with Karl Rove for “not doing enough” to bolster the Republic election effort, brought…

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In Britain, a New Chapter in the Torture Scandal

Today’s Independent on Sunday is on the stands in Britain with high-profile coverage of a growing scandal relating to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners in and around Basra, with…

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Troubles in U.S. Dealings With Pakistan, and Cheney in Charge

There’s no keener observer of the situation in Pakistan than Lahore-based Ahmed Rashid. In a piece in the Sunday Washington Post, Rashid says that America’s arrangement with Musharraf has been…

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The War Inside: The Meltdown in the Military’s Mental Healthcare System

A few weeks ago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates addressed the graduating class of Naval midshipmen at Annapolis. He offered an extraordinary message: As officers, you will have a responsibility…

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The General Speaks

Seymour Hersh furthers his remarkable coverage of the Abu Ghraib story in next week’s New Yorker. He gives us a portrait of Major General Antonio Taguba, whose report on detainee…

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What Exactly Don’t the Republicans Like About McCain?

In watching the Republican debates, I have generally marveled over the performance of one participant: John McCain. Fact is, I disagree with McCain about a lot of things – too…

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The Rise of a New Mercenary Industry

Jacob Burckhardt, the great cultural historian of the late nineteenth century, tracked the evolution of the Italian city-state culture from the Late Middle Ages into the Renaissance. It was, he…

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Mr. Omertà Resigns

It’s Friday after the close for the evening news, just the time every week when we sit and wait for the latest carefully shelved piece of bad news from Bushland…

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Romero on Torture

For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty, and dignity are a heartfelt suffering. The church, entrusted with the Earth’s glory, believes that in each person is the…

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General Pace Acknowledges He Was Forced Out

Associated Press quotes Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace in his first remarks following Secretary Gates’s announcement of his pending replacement on June 8: Gen. Peter…

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Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them

I just finished reading the Jeff Gerth-Don Van Natta book on Hillary Clinton entitled Her Way and relived the tumultuous days of the Whitewater investigation through it. One thing that…

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About that CIA Rumor

It appears there’s some confusion about yesterday’s story, so let me clear things up: I don’t think that the CIA is bribing Iraqi parliamentarians to vote the U.S. out of…

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Travels with My Booshy

There is a subgenre of English travel literature that features a generally silent amanuensis recording the peregrinations of a Great One. This starts, I think, with Boswell’s wonderful Journal of…

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Defending Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

Before there were “enhanced interrogation techniques,” there was verschärfte Vernehmung, (which means “enhanced interrogation techniques”) developed by the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst in 1937 and subject to a series of…

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American Higher Education and Foreign Policy

America under George Bush embarked upon a remarkably assertive foreign policy placing heavy reliance on the use of force of arms and downplaying diplomacy. As a presidential candidate in 2000,…

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