By David V. Johnson on July 31, 2009
WhoWhatWhy commenter David pointed us to the following video of former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura discussing his brush with the Central Intelligence Agency as a newly elected state leader . . .
In the video, Ventura discusses material from his recent memoir Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me!. He repeats the following claims:
(1) Shortly after taking office in January 1999, Gov.… [Read the rest]
Posted in The Digest
| Tagged Associated Press, CIA, Jesse Ventura, Minnesota, New York Times, Washington Post
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By David V. Johnson on July 29, 2009
[Updates below – Ed.]
As the Obama administration attempts to overhaul the nation’s health care, energy, and financial sectors, it faces the growing leverage of the Blue Dog Coalition—the conservative, fifty-two-member faction of the House’s Democratic caucus—to moderate, or obstruct, its goals.
The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) recently published an investigation into the Blue Dogs and the money behind their rising… [Read the rest]
Posted in The Digest
| Tagged 60 Minutes, agriculture, Archer Daniels Midland, Barack Obama, Billy Tauzin, Blue Dog Coalition, Blue Dog Democrats, Blue Dogs, Center for Public Integrity, Colin O'Neil, Collin Peterson, Dan Burton, DCCC, Democratic Party, energy, EPA, ethanol, finance, Goldman Sachs, health care, lobbyists, Maxine Waters, Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, Mike Ross, PACs, pharmaceuticals, PhRMA, Rahm Emanuel, Renewable Fuels Association, Steve Kroft, Walter Jones, Washington Post
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By David V. Johnson on July 27, 2009
There was a time when the mere appearance of a conflict of interest was sufficient to rule out certain media practices. That time seems to have long passed.
Take, for example, the alleged pay-for-play scandal at the American Conservative Union. The organization offered FedEx lobbying support in a labor dispute for a $2–3 million fee, which would include, among other things,
Producing… [Read the rest]
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| Tagged American Conservative Union, Conflict of Interest, David Keene, Hugo Gurdon, National Labor Relations Act, Politico, The Hill
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By David V. Johnson on July 20, 2009
Stephen M. Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard University, recently wrote an interesting piece for Foreign Policy magazine about what topics are considered “taboo” among establishment foreign-policy wonks—a group that includes Walt himself as a member. The article is equally compelling for what it says as for what it implies about Walt, as an example of the class… [Read the rest]
Posted in The Digest
| Tagged Afghanistan, American primacy, Barack Obama, Brookings, Council on Foreign Relations, foreign intervention, Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy magazine, George W. Bush, Harvard University, Henry Kissinger, international law, Iraq War, militarism, Peter Beinart, State Department, Stephen M. Walt, think tanks, UN Charter
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By David V. Johnson on July 17, 2009
The American Conservative Union describes itself as “the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots conservative lobbying organization” devoted to, among other conservative ideals, “a market economy.” For the ACU, it seems, everything should be determined by market forces—including what policies it should support.
Politico’s Mike Allen has caught the organization in an embarrassing pay-for-play scandal:
The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a… [Read the rest]
Posted in The Digest
| Tagged American Conservative Union, Azerbaijan, David Keene, Elizabeth Jones, FedEx, free markets, Gary Bauer, Kay Bailey Hutchison, lobbyists, Malaysia, Mike Allen, National Labor Relations Act, op-eds, opinion selling, pay for play, Politico, The Hill, UPS, Washington Post, Worldwide Strategic Partners
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By David V. Johnson on July 15, 2009
[Update below – Ed.]
Over Independence Day weekend, Sergey Aleynikov, a former Goldman Sachs computer programmer, was arrested by the FBI for allegedly stealing the firm’s high-speed stock- and commodities-trading programming code and uploading it to an unidentified Web server in Germany.
At Aleynikov’s July 4 bail hearing, Joseph Facciponti, an assistant U.S. Attorney, told the federal magistrate judge:
The bank has raised… [Read the rest]
Posted in The Digest
| Tagged Bloomberg, front-running, Glenn Greenwald, Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, Goldman Sachs, Jonathan Weil, Joseph Facciponti, market manipulation, markets, Matthew Goldstein, Reuters, SEC, Sergey Aleynikov, TPM, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Working Group on Financial Markets, Zero Hedge
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By David V. Johnson on July 14, 2009
An official story is forming about the secret program that the C.I.A. hid from Congress: the agency planned to organize assassination squads to target Al Qaeda terrorists around the world, according to a lead article in today’s New York Times.
Although this account has gained widespread acceptance, there’s reason to be skeptical. As I noted recently in an update, the Washington… [Read the rest]
Posted in The Digest
| Tagged Al Qaeda, assassination, CIA, Congress, counterterrorism, covert action, Dick Cheney, domestic surveillance, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Intelligence, Joint Special Operations Command, New York Times, Swampland, Time, Washington Post
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By David V. Johnson on July 13, 2009
Have you heard that Iran built a mega-embassy in Nicaragua? Word of this development has passed the lips of many a conservative anxious about Tehran’s intentions. As the Washington Post reports:
It is not clear where the report of the embassy in Managua began. But in the past two years, it has made its way into congressional testimony, think tank reports,… [Read the rest]
Posted in The Digest
| Tagged American Enterprise Institute, Bayardo Arce Daniel Ortega, Center for Security Policy, Central America, Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, Hillary Clinton, Iran, mega-embassy, Michael Rubin, Nancy Menges, Nicaragua, Secretary of State, State Department, Todd Bensman, WMDs
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By David V. Johnson on July 9, 2009
[Update below—Ed.]
During last spring’s controversy over whether congressional leaders were briefed by the CIA over its use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” Russ called for an investigation into the congressional briefing process. It is now all the more clear that such an investigation is a must.
Yesterday, CQPolitics reported that CIA Director Leon Panetta admitted to the House Intelligence Committee that the… [Read the rest]
Posted in The Digest
| Tagged Anna Eshoo, Barack Obama, CIA, CQPolitics, data mining, enhanced interrogation techniques, executive power, executive secrecy, House Intelligence Committee, Intelligence, interrogations, Leon Panetta, New York Times, Rush Holt, Silvestre Reyes, Wall Street Journal, warrantless surveillance, Washington Post
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By David V. Johnson on July 7, 2009
The Miami Herald published a long investigative piece about how Sir Allen Stanford, whose Antigua-based banking empire has been shut down as a massive fraud, was able to open a Miami branch in 1998 free from regulatory oversight, with the approval of Florida banking regulators.
Stanford got his regulatory-free branch—one of his most lucrative franchises—despite the vehement objections of the state’s… [Read the rest]
Posted in The Digest
| Tagged Antigua, Art Simon, banking, banks, Conference of State Bank Supervisors, finance, Florida Division of Banking, fraud, Greenberg Traurig, Jack Abramoff, Miami Herald, R. Allen Stanford, Richard Donelan, Stanford Financial Group, William K. Black
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