"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
by Eric Martin The only surpsing part of this story is that the protagonist actually admitted that he lied: Well, it's official now: John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn't know what he was talking about. Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran of … Read more
By Lindsay Beyerstein This just gets better and better. Main Justice reports that one of the men arrested along with conservative activist/pimp impersonator James O'Keefe in connection with the attempted bugging of Sen. Mary Landrieu's office is the son of an acting U.S. Attorney: The son of acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of … Read more
James O'Keefe, the conservative filmmaker who dressed as a pimp to sting the activist group ACORN, has been arrested for allegedly assisting in the attempted wiretapping of the office of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu: The FBI, alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in downtown New Orleans, arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, … Read more
by Eric Martin Daniel Larison neatly summarizes the overriding goals of U.S. foreign policy – or at least, the permissible range of motion afforded the pursuit of those goals – over the past half century or so. Simply put, policymakers want their cake, and the ability to eat it too. Or, put differently, an interventionist … Read more
by Eric Martin Ah, to recall the pernicious confluence of incompetence and mendacity that was the Bush administration: When the Pentagon's internal think tank decided in 2004 it needed a better understanding of Al Qaeda, it turned to an unlikely source: the terrorism analyst Laurie Mylroie, who was known as the chief purveyor of the discredited idea … Read more
by Eric Martin Attention Greater Obsidian Wings Community: I've never asked you for anything on a personal level - no donations, no gifts, not wish lists. Nada. Today, I'm looking to cash in my entire pile of chits. One of our own, the recently out-of-sight Gary Farber, has hit a particularly rough patch and is need of some … Read more
by Slartibartfast By request of liberal japonicus, whose every suggestion I consider carefully (I mean, the guy wields a sword. Never piss off a guy with a sword, is my policy), has requested an open thread, and I comply. Even if it means coming out of the woodword, scrawling my name under a comment, and … Read more
by Eric Martin Mark Kleiman on some of the implications of the Citizens United decision (via K-Drum, star of stage and screen): One aspect of the ruling that hasn’t gathered much attention: as far as I can tell, the analysis doesn’t distinguish between domestic and foreign corporations….So the ruling allows Hugo Chavez to spend as … Read more
By Lindsay Beyerstein People are getting way too worked up about Nancy Pelosi's announcement that she doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate's health reform bill right now. "In every meeting that we have had, there would be nothing to give me any thought that that bill could pass right now the way that … Read more
by Eric Martin This could be promising (though I'm not starry-eyed, as optimism doesn't exactly have a stellar track record with respect to this conflict): Hamas has accepted Israel's right to exist and would be prepared to nullify its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, Aziz Dwaik, Hamas's most senior representative in the … Read more