When Overseers Become Talking Heads
The entire Benghazi pseudo-scandal can reportedly be traced back to House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger's request for talking points he could use to respond to journalists.
Three days after the lethal attack on the…
Whitlock, Costas Bravely Point to Role of Guns in Perkins, Belcher Tragedy
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1ijkccD9_8[/youtube]
In a disgusting demonstration that for the NFL, money dictates that "The Show Must Go On", the NFL never considered those who, like Dave Zirin, found it astounding that the NFL…
Spooks in Wolf's Clothing
We've known for some time that the military was rolling out its new-and-improved HUMINT function, the Defense Clandestine Service. But this article--laying out the ambitious goals of the program--is all the more interesting given several events…
Alabama's Song, SEC Dominance, NCAA Bullshit & BCS Fuckery
Yes, the conifer trees of Stanford beat the Oregon Ducks in a narrowly decided conference game. The deed was done with a lousy game by the far superior Ducks, but credit to the Tree, they won then and have now won the PAC-10.X Championship after…
The War on Drugs Other Countries' Ruthless Vicious Capitalists
This long Benjamin Wallace-Wells piece on the lost war on drugs is worth reading in any case. But I'd like to pose his description of the fizzling war between drug gangs against the US response to such fizzling violence.
First, Wallace-Wells…
Did DOJ Intervene in Yemen's Efforts to Try the Guy We Said They Wouldn't Try?
In my last post, I asked whether State's effort to lure Anwar al-Awlaki into the Embassy in Sanaa was an effort to check the box on DOJ's targeting rules asserting that the US could not capture Awlaki.
Did not come to Embassy in response to…
Is This What the Government Considers Inability to Capture Awlaki?
I'm going to have two posts on the Anwar al-Awlaki documents liberated by Judicial Watch.
On March 24, 2011, State sent the Embassy in Sanaa a cable (see pages 63-64) asking them to courier Awlaki a letter at a Sanaa address telling him there's…
Pinheads Dance on Nuclear Accusations Against Iran
I noted on Tuesday that Fredrik Dahl of Reuters dutifully transcribed accusations from anonymous "Western diplomats" to report that satellite images (which David Albright finally published yesterday--I'm so happy we get to see those dirt…
US Climate Inaction: Blame Dick Cheney
In one of my earliest blog posts ever--one I've lost somewhere--I grappled with why the Bush Administration would choose their Iraq adventure in the face of Peak Oil and climate change.
Why, at the time the US enjoyed its greatest relative…
Peshawar Jail Retaliates Against Afridi for Fox News Interview, Afridi Goes on Hunger Strike
The day before the fateful attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans and gave the Republicans Mitt's desired "Jimmy Carter moment", Fox News published an interview purported to be with Dr. Shakil Afridi, who helped the CIA in its quest to…
Clue: It Was the Drugs in the Solitary Confinement
Charlie Savage confirms what Jason Leopold had suggested earlier: Adnan Latif died from too much psychiatric drugs.
A Yemeni detainee who was found dead in September at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, died from an overdose of…
Good Thing John Brennan Didn't Have to Follow His "Rule Book" When He Killed Adnan al-Qadhi
The other day, I suggested that the "rule book" John Brennan reportedly rushed to finish in case Mitt won but apparently backed off since may have been an effort to refute Michael Hayden's criticisms of Obama's counterterrorism strategy. Hayden…
Right to Work Coming to Michigan
In all likelihood, Michigan will be a right to work state by this time next week.
There have been rumors of such a development for about a week ... and near certainty the GOP-dominated legislature would pass laws gutting unions (particularly…
Are Escaped Zoo Animals Autonomous?
Back when David Sanger revealed new details of how StuxNet broke free of Natanz, he used the metaphor of an escaped zoo animal actively unlocking its cage.
In the summer of 2010, shortly after a new variant of the worm had been sent into Natanz,…
AQ Khan Organizes Political Party: What Could Go Wrong?
Perhaps proving that the recent attempts to prepare JEB! Bush for another political run was not the only movement in the world intended to rehabilitate a name with a nuclear level of toxicity, Pakistan's "Father of the Bomb", AQ Khan, has registered…
What If the Insider Threat Memo Is about David Petraeus?
In a holiday document dump, President Obama transmitted Minimum Standards for Insider Threat Detection Programs. As mere citizens, we don't get to see those standards. We only get to see the memo accompanying them, which leaves us guessing what--if…
Where Are the Dirt Photos? We Must Have Dirt Photos!
As I have noted many times, there is a prescribed, choreographed sequence for getting reports of "cleanup" activities at Iran's Parchin site into the US news media. First, "diplomats" release information (arising from intelligence agencies or…
The Evidence Explaining Latif's Death? "Now Badly Decomposed"
On October 4, I asked with disgust whether the government planned to hold Adnan Latif's body until after the election.
Latif died on September 8–26 days ago, or 44% the period until the election. if the sole explanation for the delay is that…
Is the Drone "Rule Book" an Effort to Force Kill-Not-Capture?
After reading the response to Scott Shane's article on the drone rule book, I wanted to add a few thoughts.
First, much of the treatment of the article treated the description of the rule book itself as news. It's not. Greg Miller discussed…
White House Attempts Again To Do In Secret What Requires Transparency, Law
For the last year, the Administration has been grasping at ways to give its drone program the semblance of legal and moral justification. It started a year ago with a debate in the Situation Room over how to provide transparency on the drone…