Michael Brendan Dougherty Has Said It Well

Regarding Mike Huckabee’s have-it-both-ways answer to the question of whether Jesus would support the death penalty, MBD says, “Basically, he’d kill them but he’d cry about it afterwards.” When asked tonight — and earlier when asked at the Morgan State University debate in Baltimore — Huck said that he supports the death penalty but feel [...]

Allen Dulles’s Family Jewels

The New York Times has dedicated a blog to the many accounts of spying on Americans, wiretapping journalists, consorting with the mob, breaking and entering, plotting assassinations, and other varieties of skulduggery found in the CIA’s “family jewels” file. So far the family jewels–unsurprisingly–have revealed very little that wasn’t wasn’t already known. NYT reporter Tim [...]

An Evolving Line on Perjury

Justin Raimondo compares Rich Lowry’s view of perjury during the Clinton era to his take on Scooter Libby’s perjury today. Is perjury not a crime if there are no charges arising from what the perjuror lied abot? Lowry didn’t think so back then. Contrary to some libertarians, I think Libby would have earned himself slammer [...]

Nellyville is #1

First the Cards win the World Series and now St. Louis is ranked the most dangerous city in America. Detroit, once again, is #2.

Drug Poisoning, Another Form of Torture

Is using LSD and other psychoactive drugs on on accused (not convicted, let’s remember) terrorists a Bush administration policy? Justin Rood at TPMmuckraker investigates: Giving detainees drugs like LSD and PCP seems stupid to the point of absurdity. So I was surprised to discover that in 2002, Justice Department lawyers carefully considered the issue and [...]

Bravo for Walter Jones, Goodbye Republic

Not only has the North Carolina congressman come to see the Iraq War as folly, he was one of only a handful of Republicans to oppose the torture bill. The honor roll also includes Roscoe Bartlett, Wayne Gilchrest, Steven LaTourette, James Leach, Jerry Moran, and of course Ron Paul. Along with most of the Democratic [...]

Been Caught Stealing Once When I Was 34

First there's Claude Allen's retail fraud. Now David Ignatius writes about another Bushie's (allegedly) sticky fingers: When Goss and Murray arrived at the CIA in the fall of 2004, their first choice for the agency's No. 3 job of executive director was a former CIA officer named Michael Kostiw, who had many friends in conservative [...]

The Claude Allen Story

What made Claude Allen, domestic policy advisor to President Bush and former deputy-sub-something-or-other at the Department of Health and Human Services (one of those departments that conservatives used to want to abolish), turn into a crook? A lengthy piece in the Washington Post yesterday ponders whether Allen snapped "after decades of operating outside the African [...]