Readers familiar with Nabokov’s Lectures on Literature, Lectures on Russian Literature, and Lectures on Don Quixote, know that Nabokov had a very vivid way of reading the texts that he…
One of the mysteries of the Obama Administration so far is why it is so protective of the crimes and secrets of the Bush era. Coming to office on pledges…
The president ran a vigorous counter-terrorism program. With super-secret clearances, he caused terrorists and their helpers to be “disappeared” and tortured for intelligence value. Several of them died in the…
Late on Friday, the Obama Justice Department filed an astonishing document with a San Francisco court. Seeking the dismissal of Jewel v. National Security Agency, a suit brought by persons…
From the Marathon Blog: The Weekly Standard sets a new standard for hypocrisy in this week’s Scrapbook column that attacks Eliot Spitzer for trying to rehab his image in the…
The Associated Press reports on the tongue-lashing administered by Judge Sullivan to the Justice Department prosecutors in his court this morning as he dismissed the case against former Alaska Senator…
The prosecutors, that is. More evidence of gross misconduct by Bush-era Justice Department prosecutors, and this time the federal judge handling the matter is openly talking about sending them—not their…
This morning both the Washington Post and the New York Times take a close look at the February 2007 Red Cross report (PDF) dealing with the CIA’s use of the…
From the Los Angeles Times Former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh says $2 billion that flowed from a British arms manufacturer to U.S. bank accounts controlled by Prince Bandar bin…
A few weeks ago, I reported here on a plan by Congressman John Murtha’s friends and campaign donors to obtain up to $1 billion for a controversial project to build…
A Frito-Lay spokeswoman, quoted in the Washington Post: For Frito-Lay, a focus on real ingredients is a new way to help consumers overcome their guilt about eating snack chips. Last…
An American cattleman. A 6.3 earthquake in the Abruzzo region of Italy damaged buildings in 26 towns, destroyed numerous historic monuments, left tens of thousands of people homeless, and killed…
The Red Cross apparently thinks that a number of senior Bush Administration figures belong in jail. Its report on “high-value detainees” from February 2007 has just been published by the…
“How one pines for a translation of Proust by the hand of Nabokov,” wrote Christopher Hitchens a few years ago in a review of Lydia Davis’s translation of Swann’s Way.…
The New York Times had a story over the weekend reporting that the feds are exploring links between Congressman Pete Visclosky of Indiana and the PMA lobby shop: Mr. Visclosky,…
From the Washington Times: The top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee operates a tax-exempt foundation that has raised donations from the industries his committee oversees, while giving…
The Guardian identifies the Civil Liberties Villain of the Week: a group of government lawyers that hides behind the face of anonymity as the “Department of Defense Privilege Review Team.”…
In an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross last week, Seymour Hersh stated that Vice President Dick Cheney had “salted” the military and national security apparatus with trusted associates who were…
Wir sind durch Not und Freude Gegangen Hand in Hand: Vom Wandern ruhen wir beide Nun überm stillen Land. [Read more…] Through trouble and joy we have walked hand in…
As I learned during a recent visit to Russia, it’s common to lay blame for every woe that Russians face—from the weather to the downturn of the economy—on the United…
We do not pretend to have given any sufficient account of Coleridge; but we hope we may have proved to some, not previously aware of it, that there is something…
This week, I’ve posted around the uncontroversial contention that literary criticism is nothing if it isn’t reading closely, quoting abundantly, and parsing carefully. In the course of commenting on such…
Senator Patrick Leahy rushes to say that he was misunderstood, and that he continues to push ahead seeking a commission to deal with the torture issue. “I am not interested…
Anthony Clark Arend and Stephen Bainbridge offer some interesting comments on the Audencia Nacional’s decision to take up a preliminary review of a complaint involving six Bush administration lawyers (reported…
This is an important story from Investors Business Daily: Accounting rule-makers on Thursday did all they could to make the nation’s credit nightmare go away — or at least go…
Sorry for the late notice, but I’ll be appearing on an investigative reporting panel today at Berkeley. Details below: Investigative Reporting Seminar with Professor Lowell Bergman When: April 3, 2009,…
From Politico: Even if Norm Coleman pulls off a long-shot legal victory in the extended Minnesota Senate race, Democrats are vowing to make him wish that he hadn’t. Separate and…
The guy is a yacht broker from Florida, which somehow comes as no surprise: Steven Michael Rubinstein, of Boca Raton, Fla., has been charged, via criminal complaint, with filing a…
Great story from ProPublica: Geithner, who maintained ties to senior bank executives and others in the financial world, had a particularly close relationship with former Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin,…