Since Tuesday the Medical Examiner Has Known How Many Orlando Victims Were Killed by Cops
As I noted in another post, on Monday, Orlando's police chief said that it was possible that some law enforcement officers -- that might include the four who initially responded to Omar Mateen or the nine SWAT team members who later did --…
Friday: How It Begins
I was half way through a post yesterday when a friend in the UK told me a member of Parliament had been killed by a fascist.
An assassination, I thought at that moment, unable to write another word for my post. How many times has an assassination…
Why Doesn't Dianne Feinstein Want to Prevent Murders Like those Robert Dear Committed?
In response to Chris Murphy's 15 hour filibuster, Democrats will get a vote on several gun amendments to an appropriations bill, one mandating background checks for all gun purchases, another doing some kind of check to ensure the purchaser…
N. Gregory Mankiw Tries to Discredit Piketty
In this paper, titled Yes, r > g. So What?. N. Gregory Mankiw tries to show that Thomas Piketty is wrong that if r > g wealth will accumulate in the hands of a tiny number of rich people. It’s short and easy on the math, perhaps because…
Why Was Omar Mateen Researching Specific Law Enforcement Offices before His Attack?
Yesterday, I pointed out that the two informants the FBI apparently used against the Orlando killer, Omar Mateen, had not succeeded in getting him to do something they could arrest him for. Later yesterday, Olivier Knox asked Ranking Member…
Now Can We Ditch the Saudis?
Mohammed bin Salman, the third ranking royal Saudi, is in the US -- ostensibly to visit John Kerry, Ash Carter, and Barack Obama.
But as FP reports, the latter hasn't happened, and may not.
It was billed by Riyadh’s state media as a trip…
At Same Time as DNC Hack Released, Funny Alleged Hacks in the Middle East
You've probably heard that hackers, probably Russian, hacked the DNC and released a bunch of information, including a really crappy oppo research report on Donald Trump. See this post for some of the materials and this analysis of the materials…
Wednesday: Hills Have Eyes
Hills have eyes, the hills have eyes
Who are you to judge, who are you to judge?
Hide your lies, girl, hide your lies
Only you to trust, only you
-- excerpt, The Hills by The Weeknd
That tune's NSFW, by the way, as is much of The Weeknd's…
Why Did FBI's Multiple Informants Fail to Catch Omar Mateen in a Sting?
One detail of the FBI's 2013 investigation into Omar Mateen that seems to be getting inadequate attention is that they used multiple informants with him, per Jim Comey's press conference on Monday:
Our investigation involved introducing confidential…
John Cornyn Wants to Pass Law Letting FBI Collect Information on Omar Mateen It Already Collected
The bodies from Sunday's Orlando massacre are not yet buried, but that hasn't stopped John Cornyn from trying to use their deaths to expand surveillance that would not have stopped the attack.
Cornyn told reporters yesterday he will use the…
Tuesday: Going Alone
I've been so damned angry I've had difficulty wrapping words around what I want to say. It's still Tuesday somewhere, so I'll grit this out.
Assault weapons should be banned for sale to civilians.
Spare me the crap about hunters and taking…
CIA Lied about Leaking to Screw David Passaro and Protect Bush and Tenet
In the SSCI Torture Report, it has two references to how press people were leaking details of the the torture program to the press even while lawyers were claiming that the program was top secret. In this document, someone notes "our Glomar…
CIA Finally Declassifies "Gloves Come Off" Memorandum of Notification Reference
Back in 2012, I wrote a series of posts on the Obama Administration's extraordinary efforts to censor this title. (post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5, post 6, post 7, post 8)
The title was part of some smart CYA on the part of George…
What Did FBI Do with Evidence that Mateen Was a Closeted Gay Man?
By my count there are at least five data points that indicate Omar Mateen, the guy who killed 49 mostly gay (and mostly Latino) men on Sunday morning, was himself gay:
He used to hang out with a friend from high school, who is a drag queen,…
AQ to CIA: You Are the Empire, and We Are Luke and Han
I loathed Star Wars, The Force Awakens. Loathed it.
I hated it so much I made myself go back and watch 1 through 6 again, to try to understand what even Jar Jar Binks (in my admittedly lonely opinion, though I urge you to go back and…
Monday: Bueller? Bueller?
It's Monday in more than one way. Monday has become synonymous with the weekly return to the rat race of school and work, the bruising grind of life. It's the blues after a relaxing weekend, but even worse after a horrific weekend like the…
As FBI Was Rolling Up Ibragim Todashev and Friends in Orlando, Omar Mateen Claimed a Tie
Spencer Ackerman has new details on what it was that got the Orlando killer, Omar Mateen, on the FBI radar in 2013: He claimed to have a tie to the Tsarnaev brothers.
Omar Mateen, whose rampage early Sunday at the LGBT nightclub Pulse left…
Orlando Pulse Open Thread
I've been out for hours as the news from Orlando came in. There's not much to say (as always, it always pays to withhold instantaneous conclusions), besides expressing profound grief both about yet another senseless mass killing but about this…
Friday: Ball and Chain
This end-of-the-work-week observation is a little different. I've posted some not-jazz jazz for your listening pleasure. This piece called Ball and Chain is performed by a loosely joined group of people who worked on development of a subgenre…
How Did Booz Employee Analyst-Trainee Edward Snowden Get the Verizon 215 Order?
One thing I've been pondering as I've been going through the Snowden emails liberated by Jason Leopold is the transition Snowden made just before he left. They show that in August 2012, Snowden was (as we've heard) a Dell contractor serving…