Legal Commentary

Wednesday Reading and Open Thread

By Jeralyn

Some things I'm glad I read today:

• BeliefNet has a new interview with Barack Obama about his religion and multi-culturalism.

• Eric Boehlert at Media Matters on the blogosphere's role in the Tweety Effect. Jane Hamsher says, More Boehlert, Less Bai. And Atrios adds,

  "It is encouraging that occasionally "The Left" can make some noise and actually get a response. A few years ago it just felt like we were just screaming into the vacuum."

• Crooks and Liars and Gleen Greenwald on the new FISA shenanigans.

• Sunday Times of London columnist Matt Rudd criticizes travel to the United States:

  "Traveling to the US offers experiences like nowhere else on earth...Nowhere else can a visitor expect such a spirit-crushingly frosty reception. A preflight e-interrogation, epic queues at immigration, thin-lipped questioning from aggressive border guards, and an outside chance of a rubber-gloved rectal rummage are all part of the fun. So, if Chertoff & Co. want to tighten Fortress America further, it's time we considered other more welcoming holiday options. Such as Iran or North Korea."

• The New York Daily News reports 20 of Brooklyn's drug cops have been suspended for taking "sex, drugs and cash from junkies and dealers." More here.

More...

• News on the investigation into the firing of U.S. Attorneys and those missing White House e-mails in the context of Alberto Gonzales' 12 hour stall at the beginning of PlameGate.

Last week, the White House filled in some of the gaps to the official story related to this high-profile scandal. In a federal court filing, the White House said it routinely "recycled" backup tapes that housed administration emails between 2001 and October 2003, meaning it does not have a record of emails that may have been sent and received by some administration officials pertaining to the Wilson leak, the occupation of Iraq, and other historic events for a period of two years. The revelation came minutes before midnight on January 15, in response to a lawsuit filed by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 23, 2008 (boomark / email).