Month: May 2006

Embezzle for Freedom.

“Unbeknownst to almost all of Washington and the financial world, Bush and every other President since Jimmy Carter have had the authority to exempt companies working on certain top-secret defense projects from portions of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. Administration officials told BusinessWeek that they believe this is the first time a President has ever delegated the authority to someone outside the Oval Office”. In related news (and as seen at Ed Rants), Dubya has apparently, on the sly, “bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations.”

Revisionist History.

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” A personal note: At the kind invitation of Ralph Luker at Cliopatria, I’ve joined up as one of the founding bloggers of Revise and Dissent, a recently launched group effort by younger historians and historians-to-be over at the History News Network. I haven’t gotten around to posting there yet (and I expect I’ll be cross-posting quite often with GitM), but it’s now up-and-running and my new blog-colleagues are already posting, so check it out!

Jefferson, I think we’re lost.

It’s getting mighty strange in Washington of late, as GOP congressional leaders rise in outraged defense of pretty clearly corrupt (and stubborn) Democrat William Jefferson, claiming that an FBI search of his office violated the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution. (Constitutional scholars seem to consider it a toss-up: “‘It’s really a matter of etiquette,’ said Akhil Reed Amar, a professor of constitutional law at Yale University. ‘I don’t see any constitutional principle here.’“) Funny how we can illegally spy on, indefinitely detain, and/or brutally torture people, and Congress barely bats an eye. But someone searches a congressional office and all Hell breaks loose. I wonder why…

Denny’s Grand Slam?

Oh, that’s why. In related news, ABC News is reporting that Casino Jack’s #1 guy, GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert, is a target in the widening Abramoff investigations. And, what’s more, ABC is sticking by its story even after a DOJ denial. “‘You guys wrote the story very carefully but they are not reading it very carefully,’ a senior official said.“

Rider on the Storm.

Son, you’ve got a flamin’ panty on your head…The new teaser for Ghost Rider, starring Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze (along with Sam Elliot, Eva Mendes, Donal Logue, and Wes Bentley), is now online. Never been a fan of the comic — it’s always screamed Blue Oyster Cult to me — so I highly doubt I was going to catch this anyway. Still, this trailer didn’t help matters.

Hard Times.

“‘Having been blacklisted from working in television during the McCarthy era, I know the harm of government using private corporations to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans. When government uses the telephone companies to create massive databases of all our phone calls it has gone too far.‘” Author, oral historian, and American institution Studs Terkel is one of six plaintiffs to file a lawsuit against AT&T for their complicity in the NSA master phone database.

ADA or SDS?

As seen on Medley’s Furl, Columbia PhD, Rutgers professor, and Slate “History Lesson” columnist David Greenberg reexamines the current divide between liberal internationalists and anti-imperialists among the Dems — and seems to think more of Peter Beinart’s recent “Cold War Liberal” argument and the protective camouflage DLC-types than I do — in the Boston Globe.

Casino Jack and White House Dave.

“Mr. Safavian’s lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, said the government’s case was based on ‘guilt by association.’ The Justice Department, she said, ‘is trying to take Jack Abramoff’s state of mind and say that everybody who dealt with him had that same state of mind.’” Casino Jack flunky and former top White House procurement official David Safavian prepares for his day in court, later this week. Speaking of guilt by association, “Ms. Van Gelder said in a telephone interview that the defense case had been complicated in recent days by the refusal of some defense witnesses to testify, citing their constitutional rights against self-incrimination.” Update: It has begun.