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Archive: Mar 2009

AIG and Congress: Washington on $53,000 a Day

A few highlights on AIG’s Washington influence buying scheme, from Open Secrets: In the last 20 years American International Group (AIG) has contributed more than $9 million to federal candidates…

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Senator Grassley to AIG Execs: Consider suicide

From AP: Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley suggested that AIG executives should accept responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves. The Republican lawmaker’s harsh comments…

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The Heirs of Father Coughlin

One of the most important lessons of the Great Depression can be taken from the political, rather than the economic, response. As economic collapse shook the faith of populations a…

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Report: Israeli Appointee Barred from U.S. as “Intelligence Risk”

From the Washington Times: Uzi Arad, who is expected to serve as national security adviser in the next Israeli government, has been barred from entering the United States for nearly…

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Weekly Review

The Senate passed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that included more than 8,000 congressional earmarks, among them provisions for improving blueberry products in Georgia and controlling the spread of…

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The Forces of Conservatism and Obstruction

In a long letter from T.S. Eliot to John Quinn, dated July 9, 1919, one finds the following: I am sorry to say that I have found it uphill and…

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AIG’s Bonuses

AIG executives, we’re told, argue that they have to proceed with the nine figures in bonus payments because there are contractual commitments in place. From what I see, their analysis…

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The Indelible Stain of the Black Sites

It looked bad for Republicans in September 2006, not quite six weeks away from midterm elections. In the White House, President Bush stepped to the podium with a dramatic announcement.…

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Pork Gallery

From the Washington Post: Just because there’s still a Justice Department investigation rattling around you doesn’t mean lobbyists can’t contribute to buying a portrait for you to hang in your…

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Coming Soon: Colonel Qaddafi, Libya’s George Washington

From O’Dwyer’s: Libya paid more than $750K in fees since September to The Livingston Group for its work to improve ties with the U.S. That sum generated half of the…

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Sor Juana’s Rose

En que da moral censura a una rosa, y en ella a sus semejantes Rosa divina que en gentil cultura eres, con tu fragante sutileza, magisterio purpúreo en la belleza,…

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Enemy Combatant, Rest in Peace?

Among George W. Bush’s controversial legal maneuvers was a repackaging of the notion of “enemy combatant.” If the President determined a person was an “enemy combatant,” the Bush Justice lawyers…

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Cervantes – on Wealth

De todo lo dicho quiero que infirais, bobas mías, que es grande la confusion que hay entre los linages, y que solos aquellos parecen grandes y ilustres, que lo muestran…

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Weekend Read: “Whatever hole contains forever”

Zadie Smith certainly doesn’t need a great deal of critical subsidy. Her novels are bought and read in tremendous volume, and she is regularly looked to to hold forth critically…

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Standing Firm for Injustice

The Obama Justice Department yesterday again embraced a position of the Bush Administration that Senator Obama appeared to have criticized on the campaign trail. Daphne Eviatar reports in the Washington…

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Chas Freeman and Saudi Money

One of the most common charges hurled by the opponents of Charles Freeman Jr., who yesterday withdrew as chair of the Obama administration’s National Intelligence Council, was that he “headed…

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A Personal Bailout

From the New York Times: Top banking regulators were taken aback late last year when a California congresswoman helped set up a meeting in which the chief executive of a…

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The Freeman “Purge Trial”

From Jacob Heilbrunn in National Interest: Only now does Charles Freeman become truly interesting. Freeman, who has withdrawn from being named chairman of the National Intelligence Council, triggered an intense…

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Obama’s War

Milt Bearden, who ran the CIA’s covert assistance to the Afghans from Pakistan during the Soviet occupation, has a good piece in National Interest: There is an unrelenting insurgency—we call…

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He Said, She Said

From the Chicago Sun-Times, via Justin Rood: Inverness Police say former Cook County Republican Chairman Gary Skoien admitted having two prostitutes in his children’s playroom when his wife walked in…

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Did Cheney Run a Murder-on-demand Program?

Journalist Seymour Hersh sparked my interest in military law in May 1970 when I picked up a copy of Harper’s and read his article entitled “My Lai 4: A report…

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Does Fred Hiatt Read His Own Paper?

Fred Hiatt’s Washington Post editorial page, having misrepresented the scientific data on global warming, now takes one more step down the yellow brick road by taking on the Charles Freeman…

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The Post and Charles Freeman

An editorial in today’s Washington Post says that Charles W. Freeman Jr. “looked like a poor choice to chair the Obama administration’s National Intelligence Council” and criticized Freeman for suggesting…

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Hinged Mostly on Dedications

This sentence caught my eye in yesterday’s International Herald Tribune: Wells said that compared with the Cobbe portrait, the other representations now thought to be copies of it presented “an…

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More Prosecutorial Misconduct in the Al-Arian Case

The Associated Press reports: The Justice Department may have hoodwinked a defendant in a high-profile terrorism case into thinking his plea bargain would protect him from further prosecutions, a federal…

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A Freeman Post Mortem: This round to AIPAC?

As Ken Silverstein notes, Chas Freeman threw in the towel yesterday in the face of increasingly furious criticism that manipulated very few facts other than one which was well-documented: Freeman…

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Senator Vitter Turns Tail

From Roll Call, via TalkingPointsMemo: Among Members of Congress, there’s a long-standing, proud tradition of the Airport Freakout. Add to the list of those who’ve indulged in meltdowns and temper…

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