Today’s links to interesting news and analysis. If you find this useful, pass it to a friend or colleague.
- Scum at work: update on the workings of our military contractors: “Open the Shut Case. Why is KBR so afraid of letting Jamie Leigh Jones have her day in court?“, Dahlia Lithwick, Slate, 28 January 2010
- Question for the day: “Q & A How Skillful Are The Global Climate Models Given The Relatively Small Radiative Human-Caused Forcing?“, Roger Pielke Sr, 29 February 2010
- Obvious, but worth repeating: “Conservatives Don’t Care About the Deficit“, Matthew Yglesias, Think Progress, 29 January 2010
Weakest rebuttal of the year: “Suicide or Murder at Guantánamo? The shortcomings of a Harper’s magazine ‘exposé‘”, Jack Shafer, Slate, 28 January 2010 — A summary of Jack Carter’s articles (part 1 here), mostly an assertion that it could not have happened while ignoring most of the evidence Harper’s presents (he gives a bit more analysis in the comments). Of course, a weak rebuttal does not prove the accusations correct.
Today’s Features:
(A) A picture tells the story
(B) Update on the scandal of the ACORN-hoaxer James O’Keefe
(A) A picture tells the story
“Worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? By a long shot.“, Josh Bivens, 1 January 2010:
(B) Update on the scandal of the ACORN-hoaxer James O’Keefe
The stories proliferate as to what James O’Keefe as his team were attempting to accomplish.
(a) The bare facts: “Four Men Arrested for Entering Government Property Under False Pretenses for the Purpose of Committing a Felony“, FBI press release, 26 February 2010 — Esp note that they “next requested access to the telephone closet because they needed to perform work on the main telephone system.” Here is the FBI agent’s affadavit. What was their plan?
(b) “Why tamper with Landrieu’s phones?“, MSNBC, 27 January 2010 — A law enforcement official says the four men arrested for attempting to tamper with the phones in the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) were not trying to intercept or wiretap the calls … {they} wanted to see how her local office staff would respond if the phones were inoperative.” That’s a Federal Crime, 18 USC 1362, good for up to ten years in jail.
(c) A different story: “Statement from James O’Keefe“, Big Hollywood, 29 January 2010 — “The sole intent of our investigation was to determine whether or not Senator Landrieu was purposely trying to avoid constituents who were calling to register their views to her as their Senator.”
This may remain mysterious, with the key evidence hidden as it is in the ACORN “investigation”:
- “An Independent Governance Assessment of ACORN: The Path To Meaningful Reform“, Scott Harshbarger and Amy Crafts, 7 December 2009
- For a discussion of the review and its implications see “ACORN videos were propaganda“, Joe Conason, Salon, 11 December 2009 — “A report hammers the organization’s leadership but points out duplicity in the famous tapes.”
Afterword
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