Retired Air Force general Michael Hayden ran the National Security Agency from 1999-2005. Then he was the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for a year. And then he was CIA director, taking over after former CIA agent and former Congressman Porter Goss was ushered out the door under somewhat mysterious circumstances, from 2006 until . . . → Read More: Former Air Force/CIA/NSA/DNI guy shorts Iran futures on live TV
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Or pixels, anyway. Two stories from something called Examiner.com, both to do with illegal aliens. The first, reporting on an incident in Texas: In what could be deemed an act of war against the sovereign borders of the United States, Mexican drug cartels have seized control of at least two American ranches inside the . . . → Read More: Things you just don’t expect to see in print Bad news for Gulf coast residents attempting to wring restitution from BP. The same guy charged by the Obama administration to recover excessive pay from executives of financial institutions that benefited from taxpayer largesse in the bank bailout frenzy is now in charge of overseeing the yet-to-materialize $20 billion BP restitution fund. From the . . . → Read More: Obama’s pay “czar” bows to banks, promises same to Gulf residents What can you say? Some people overstay their welcomes, others check out too soon no matter how long they’ve been around. It’s painful watching Katie Couric and other lightweights delivering obituaries for Schorr. Offhand I can’t think of anyone really up for the job. I’m sure Keith Olberman will give or has given . . . → Read More: Daniel Schorr dies, Dick Cheney lives, sort of. Amid the excitement over Dana Priest’s remarkable and continuing exploration of US intelligence operations and the massive confusion surrounding and informing them, I am reminded of a story from Government Executive magazine back in 2002 when George W. Bush and a Congress still flailing about in the aftermath of 911 created the Department of . . . → Read More: Nobody could have predicted the disaster that is Homeland Security It turns out that high-stakes great-power diplomacy is a lot like middle school. And Brokeback Mountain too, although possibly that’s just a cheap hook. Yesterday a bunch of very important people stopped by Hamid Karzai’s place in Kabul, Afghanistan. Among them was Hilary Clinton. The subject of the conference was how to arrive . . . → Read More: Clinton to Karzai: “I wish I knew how to quit you, Hamid!” If you don’t know the story: A US agriculture department employee, Shirley Sherrod, was fired for allegedly making racist remarks during a speech to the NAACP. In fact, she was making a point about overcoming her prejudices to arrive at the point of realizing that the real issue she needed to deal with was . . . → Read More: Shirley Sherrod should have tortured someone As I’ve mentioned before, I like to peruse the AP’s Strange News stories because every now and then there’s something really strange. Usually it’s some element of the strange story that the AP reporter didn’t notice. Last time it was that some guy drew a life sentence in Alabama for theft. This time, the . . . → Read More: Things you would think one would be curious about, Part II The Associated Press and the Washington Post have not necessarily distinguished themselves in covering politics and power during the past decade or two, but both institutions have embarked upon important and large scale projects looking at issues that are central to the way the national security state operates these days (which is pretty much . . . → Read More: In which the press do what they’re supposed to do Obama’s strongest rank and file supporters come primarily in two flavors: The denialists, who are similar to George Bush’s most enthusiastic followers in that they’ll refuse to recognize any excess or failure while angrily heaping scorn upon the less faithful; and the ones who behave like abused spouses, who recognize bad behavior but always . . . → Read More: Relative liberals rejoice over cynical political maneuver from Obama |
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