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Archive: Jul 2009

Meet the Torturers

Joby Warrick and Peter Finn of the Washington Post recount in detail the internal discussions surrounding the torture of Abu Zubaida, a suspected terrorist held at a CIA black site…

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Newsweek on Air Looks at the Assassins

I discuss the current controversy surrounding a targeted killings program that involved former Vice President Dick Cheney with Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff and David Alpert on this week’s Newsweek on Air.…

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A Prisoner in Afghanistan

The Pentagon has identified the U.S. soldier recently seized by the Taliban and presented in a video as Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl, 23, from Ketchum, Idaho. In the video, Bergdahl says…

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Rückert/Mahler – Um Mitternacht

Um Mitternacht Hab’ ich gewacht Und aufgeblickt zum Himmel; Kein Stern vom Sterngewimmel Hat mir gelacht Um Mitternacht. Um Mitternacht Hab’ ich gedacht Hinaus in dunkle Schranken; Es hat kein…

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Administrative Note

Ken Silverstein is away until August 5. Washington Babylon will return then.

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Weber – ‘Official Secrets’ and Bureaucratic Warfare

Diese Überlegenheit des berufsmäßig Wissenden sucht jede Bürokratie noch durch das Mittel der Geheimhaltung ihrer Kentnisse und Absichten zu steigern. Bürokratische Verwaltung ist ihrer Tendenz nach stets Verwaltung mit Ausschluß…

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Links

We’ve known for years that the Bush administration ignored and broke the law repeatedly in the name of national security. It is now clear that many of those programs could…

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How Crazy is Glenn Beck?

Very, very crazy. The evidence is clear. And if you haven’t seen it, this is also fun.

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Collateral Damage in Afghanistan and the FCPA in Azerbaijan

Elsewhere on the web, I discuss the change in command in Afghanistan in terms of the concept of “collateral damage” for National Public Radio here. And I offer a review…

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Hypocris-C Street

Another day, another adulterous liaison involving a Republican congressional leader who lodged at the fundamentalist frat house on C Street that passes for tax purposes as a “church.” This time…

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Yoo Must Be Kidding

Last night I discuss John Yoo’s latest exercise in professional self-immolation with David Shuster on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann: Visit msnbc.com for…

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More on Sessions v. Sotomayor

From the indispensable Facing South, published by the Institute for Southern Studies: There’s more than a little irony in some of the questioning U.S. Sen. Jefferson Beauregard “Jeff” Sessions III…

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Democrats Weaken Key Bill Backed By Unions

I have a story in the current issue of the magazine about the corporate campaign to kill the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to…

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Sotomayor Hearings: Content-free

From Jonathan Turley: This week, the public is again witnessing the ritualistic exercise of the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee. Of course, the outcome of Sonia Sotomayor’s hearings is…

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Links

From Harper’s:Barry Graham on Sheriff Joe Arpaio From “Star of Justice: On the job with America’s toughest sheriff,” by Barry Graham, in the April 2001 Harper’s. You are a citizen…

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Six Questions for Jack Balkin on the Entrenchment of the National Surveillance State

Last Friday an unclassified version of a congressionally commissioned inspectors general report was released. The report looks into the surveillance programs of the Bush Administration and checks them against the…

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WaPo: Snuff Program Was Close to Activation

This morning the Washington Post’s Joby Warrick offers an account of the Cheney-linked covert CIA program drawing on “two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.” CIA officials were proposing to…

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Politico’s Parties

My piece earlier this week on Politico received some interesting commentary (and I’ll be discussing the article today with Glenn Greenwald, for his podcast at Salon). Columbia Journalism Review wrote…

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The Winger Media Shows Its Teeth

The saga of Mark Sanford and his “hike on the Appalachian Trail” may be just another story of a lovesick family-values Republican. But some of the developments on the periphery…

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Health Care Lobbyists: Awful people, even by the Hill’s standards

From CQ: Just as Congress moves into high gear on health overhaul legislation, insurance trade groups with a big stake in the outcome are packing the halls of the Capitol…

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Sotomayor and the Democrats

Great piece from James Ridgeway: Sonia Sotomayor’s all-but-certain conifirmation will be a notable victory for the Democrats, and a long-overdue victory for diversity on the nation’s highest court. Whether it…

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Senator Coburn, Sotomayor, and I Love Lucy

From Immigration Prof Blog: Is this a great country, or what? Even though Alabama’s Jeff Sessions was blocked from a federal judgeship because of kooky statements about the NAACP and…

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Inside the “Christian Mafia”

They proudly call themselves the “Christian Mafia.” With the political careers of two high-profile members, Mark Sanford and John Ensign, now in meltdown, a highly secretive Christianist group is now…

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Links

When an authoritarian regime approaches its final crisis, but before its actual collapse, a mysterious rupture often takes place. All of a sudden, people know the game is up: they…

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More on Cheney’s Pet CIA Project

Here’s some more choice discussion on the CIA program that isn’t a program, certainly never was implemented, that Congress knew all about through some process of telepathic communication, and that…

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Jeff Sessions’s Big Day

This week marked the beginning of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. But in the minds of many observers, Sotomayor was…

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The Ghosts of Dasht-i-Leili

Is the Obama Administration turning the corner on investigating the torture question? The evidence is still ambiguous. Obama’s two pit bulls, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, stand firmly in the…

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