Charlie Savage:

In recent months, top lawyers for the State Department and the Defense Department have tried to square the idea that the CIA's drone program is lawful with the United States' efforts to prosecute Guantanamo Bay detainees accused of killing American soldiers in combat.

The Obama administration legal team confronted the issue as the Pentagon prepared to restart military commission trials at Guantanamo Bay. The commissions began with pretrial hearings in the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian detainee accused of killing an Army sergeant during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002, when Mr. Khadr was 15.

The Pentagon delayed issuing a 281-page manual laying out commission rules until the eve of the hearing. The reason is that government lawyers had been scrambling to rewrite a section about murder because it has implications for the CIA drone program.

An earlier version of the manual, issued in 2007 by the Bush administration, defined the charge of "murder in violation of the laws of war" as a killing by someone who did not meet "the requirements for lawful combatancy" -- like being part of a regular army or otherwise wearing a uniform. Similar language was incorporated into a draft of the new manual.

But as the Khadr hearing approached, Harold Koh, the State Department legal adviser, pointed out that such a definition could be construed as a concession by the United States that CIA drone operators were war criminals. Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department general counsel, and his staff ultimately agreed with that concern. They redrafted the manual so that murder by an unprivileged combatant would instead be treated like espionage -- an offense under domestic law not considered a war crime.

Kenneth R. Harney:

Don't feel guilty about it. Don't think you're doing something morally wrong.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells:

The best way to fight terrorists is to go at it not like G-men, with two-year assignments and query letters to the staff attorneys, but the way the terrorists do, with fury and the conviction that history will turn on the decisions you make -- as an obsession and as a life style.

John Givings:

Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.

Marcus Aurelius:

We're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands.

Stanley McChrystal:

You have to not lose confidence in what you are doing. You have to be able to go to the edge of the abyss without losing hope.

Cormac McCarthy:

We're going to be okay, aren't we Papa?
Yes. We are.
And nothing bad is going to happen to us.
That's right.
Because we're carrying the fire.
Yes. Because we're carrying the fire.

Declan McCullagh:

A federal judge has ruled that border agents cannot seize a traveler's laptop, keep it locked up for months, and examine it for contraband files without a warrant half a year later.

Judge Jeffrey White, of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling on case 09-946, USA v. Andrew Samuel Hanson:

Because the agents did not find contraband while the laptop was located at the border and, in light of the time and distance that elapsed before the search continued, the court concluded that the search should be analyzed as an extended border search. Given the passage of time between the January and February searches and the fact that the February search was not conduct(ed) at the border, or its functional equivalent, the court concludes that the February search should be analyzed under the extended border search doctrine and must be justified by reasonable suspicion.

Hanson was not arrested on January 27, 2009, and for that reason the court finds the government's reliance on the "search incident to a valid arrest" line of cases to be inapposite. Accordingly, because the court concludes that June search required a warrant, and because it is undisputed that the search was conducted without a warrant, Hanson's motion is GRANTED IN PART on this basis.

Rebecca Brock:

People say to me, "Whatever it takes."

I tell them, It's going to take everything.

Judge limits DHS laptop border searches

Paul Arden:

The problem with hoarding is that you end up living off of your reserves. Eventually you become stale.

Lee Unkrich:

Our goal is to screw up as fast as possible.

Edward Luce:

The question now is whether the firefighters can become architects.

Steve Bellovin:

Architecture matters a lot, and in subtle ways.

Marco Arment:

Making a product better often requires removing features. If I could never remove features, I'd never add any.

Tom Friedman:

For 60 years you could really say being in politics, being a political leader, was, on balance, about giving things away to people. That's what you did most of your time.

I think we're entering an era -- how long it will last, I dare not predict -- where being in politics is going to be more than anything else about taking things away from people. And that shift from leaders giving things away to leaders taking things away, I don't think we know what that looks like over time. It's going to be very, very interesting.

David Cotton:

It's not just spray paint, it's a new mindset.

Martin Wolf:

Will the austerity itself deliver the growth, as some hope? I doubt it. The hair shirt alone will wear badly.

Ratnesh Sharma et al:

Although the information technology and livestock industries may seem completely disjoint, they have complementary characteristics that we exploit for mutual benefit.

An exchange:

Charlie: Don't you think we've milked this for about as much as we can, Richard?

Richard: I hope not, Charlie. I hope not.

A banker:

Revolutionize your heart out. We'll still have this country by the balls.

Decius, 2010:

The Republicans are actively attacking the court, in particular because of Roe, but also because of the "unitary executive" idea and resistance to checks and balances that informs their perspective on the GWOT. What is the impact of Obama joining in?

On a direct level, it's a partisan attack on a political institution. It contributes to political divisiveness, and helps further undermine the system of checks and balances, which is the opposite of what Obama claims to be doing.

On an indirect level, it puts partisan conservatives in the odd position of defending the Supreme Court. Perhaps THAT was the intent?

Decius, 2004:

I was thinking this morning that I don't really like the changes that have taken place in order to reform campaign finance.

There is a lot of bad speech in our democracy.

But in my experience the answer to bad speech has always been more speech.

Decius, 2010:

The thing that sucks about freedom of speech is that rich people can afford more speech than you can.

Decius, 2003:

Your right to freedom of speech is an inalienable right. Even if you are rich. That's what an inalienable right is.

Decius, 2003:

The problem is that if the king has overwhelming force, you cannot question the king, lest you wind up dead. Eventually, the king always takes liberties with this power. THIS is the lesson of human history.

Rattle, 2005:

Remember ... It's a conspiracy. It's designed to have perceived inconsistencies. That's what makes it all so damn fun.

From just after the last Presidential election:

For those interested in high political theater, it will be a fascinating time.

It will not be easy.

It should be exciting.

"You have to laugh to keep from crying these days," she said as she wiped away tears.

In the long run we are all dead.

Citizens United and the Obama-Alito Exchange

Bob McDonnell:

Americans were shocked on Christmas Day to learn of the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit. This foreign terror suspect was given the same legal rights as a U.S. citizen, and immediately stopped providing critical intelligence.

As Senator-elect Scott Brown says, we should be spending taxpayer dollars to defeat terrorists, not to protect them.

I am frankly appalled that candidates and officials continue to score points with this rhetoric. Back in the heat of the 2008 campaign, Palin got cheers for making a quip of it, and Obama responded:

"The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It's because that's who we are. That's what we're protecting."

Here we are some 16 months later, and they've elevated this dangerous ignorance to their party platform statement following the State of the Union. And again it draws cheers. This time, though, the event was not just a local rally, but a nationally televised event "which cost about $30,000 and was paid for by the Republican Governors Association and the political action committees of McDonnell and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell." According to Ben Smith of Politico:

Scott Brown's aides believed this was a key wedge issue, and its inclusion here suggests that the campaign to keep terror suspects, even ones arrested in America, out of civilian courts, will be central to Republican campaigns this year.

As Decius wrote that same day in 2008:

If McCain's VP pick were just as boring as Obama's I might not care at all about this election, but Palin is an existential threat that demands an awakening from apathy. I don't know what's more fearsome, the fact that she was selected, or the fact that the American people have bought it and she has given McCain a huge boost in the polls.

I feel like I'm living in an insane asylum.

Whether it's the open attacks on ancient principles such as Habeas Corpus or the fact that we are in the midst of a nearly unprecedented economic cataclysm one cannot escape the conclusion that the people in charge have absolutely no idea what the fuck they are doing and that the people who do know what ought to be done have been totally marginalized by our corruption. Palin personifies all of this. She is the slick corporate VP who is all image and no substance, and they love that about her because they have convinced themselves that if they do away with substance it will free them from the problems that substantial people attempt to address.

This is the road to despotism. T... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

Bob McDonnell's Appalling GOP Response

The electoral college is a time-honored system that has only broken down three times in over 200 years. However, it's obvious that reforms are needed. The organization of the states should be altered.

This Electoral Reform Map redivides the territory of the United States into 50 bodies of equal size. The 2000 Census records a population of 281,421,906 for the United States. The states ranged in population from 493,782 to 33,871,648.

In this map, new states have formed, all with equal populations of roughly 5,617,000.

James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr.:

The "Gospel Temperance Railroad Map" is an example of an allegorical map.

Louis Kahn:

A good idea that doesn't happen is no idea at all.

electoral college reform

Philip Caputo:

Mexico is where facts, like people, simply disappear.

William T. Vollmann:

Across the border, the desert is the same but there are different secrets.

Fernando Diaz Santana:

In Mexico it is dangerous to speak the truth. It is even dangerous to know the truth.

As long as we don't get too deeply into a story, we are safe.

Clifford Geertz:

Having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, he asked, what did the turtle rest on?

Another turtle.

And that turtle?

"Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down."

Caputo:

What began as a war on drug trafficking has evolved into a low-intensity civil war with more than two sides and no white hats, only shades of black. The ordinary Mexican citizen -- never sure who is on what side, or who is fighting whom and for what reason -- retreats into a private world where he becomes willfully blind, deaf, and above all, dumb.

In seeking, much less speaking, the truth about what the Mexican army is up to, one often runs into the paradox of the Mexican reality: something dreadful happens and is then treated as if it hadn't happened. Facts, like people, simply disappear.

"Leonard Nimoy":

It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth?

The answer ... is No.

The Fall of Mexico

David Luhnow:

A senior Mexican official who has spent more than two decades helping fight the government's war on drugs summed up recently what he's learned from his long career: "This war is not winnable."

From a cop on "The Wire", on fighting drugs:

"You can't even call it a war. Wars end."

Luhnow:

If the war on drugs has failed, analysts say it is partly because it has been waged almost entirely as a law-and-order issue, without understanding of how cartels work as a business.

Maria Claudia Gomez, on Pablo Escobar's ranch:

"This place is really nice and tranquil."

Luhnow:

Unlike their rough-hewn parents and uncles, today's young traffickers wear Armani suits, carry BlackBerrys and hit the gym for exercise.

Frank Bruni:

Indica was fixated on my friend Ari. I asked her what kind of phone she had.

"A Sidekick," she said.

"Wow," I said. "That's the same kind Brianna has."

"Strippers' phone of choice," she said.

Luhnow:

Several US states like California and Oregon have decriminalized marijuana ... While this strategy may make sense domestically for the US, Mexican officials say it is the worst possible outcome for Mexico, because it guarantees demand for the drug by eliminating the risk that if you buy you go to jail. But it keeps the supply chain illegal, ensuring that organized crime will be the drug's supplier.

David Simon:

As a reporter, I was trying to explain how the drug war doesn't work. And I would write these very careful and very well-researched pieces. And they would go into the ether and be gone. And whatever editorial writer was coming behind me would then write, "Let's get tough on drugs." As if I hadn't said anything. Even my own newspaper. And I would think, "Man, it's just such an uphill struggle to do this with facts."

Viktor Chernomyrdin:

We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.

Saving Mexico

David Runciman:

The things Bill Clinton loves are politics, hard data and his family, in roughly that order. The thing he hates is the media, above all newspapers, on which he blames almost all his troubles. His love of politics is not a love of the sort of low-level politicking in which Stephanopoulos and his fellow staffers indulge. Rather, he has an unquenchable fondness for politicians themselves, with all their foibles and all their weaknesses -- it is, in other words, a kind of self-love.

Taylor Branch, from a conversation in 1997:

After a White House parley, Clinton had asked Senator Alan Simpson in confidence whether Republican strategists really believed the Clintons did something terrible in Whitewater, like theft or perjury. He mimicked the hearty response. 'Oh, hell no,' cried Simpson. 'But our goal is to make people think you did, so we can pay you Democrats back for Iran-Contra.' Clinton chuckled with appreciation. Politicians understood payback.

Kulam Dastagir, 28, a bird seller in Afghanistan:

I don't think the report is true, but these crises work for those who want to make fights between people.

Runciman:

Clinton liked politicians who played dirty because they made him feel better about his own peccadilloes.

Seth Kugel:

That's not grime you're seeing, it's historical charm!

Judith Hertog:

I find other people's errors very reassuring. It makes me feel better about my own deficiencies.

Runciman:

Clinton doesn't do introspection: his obsessive, almost prurient interest in other people is partly there to prevent him having to think too hard about himself.

Mark Bittman:

Who would say you don't need time to think, to reflect, to be successful and productive?

Louis Menand:

People are prurient, and they like to lap up the gossip. People also enjoy judging other people's lives. They enjoy it excessively.

Richard Sandomir:

In the nearly two weeks since Tiger Woods became tabloid fodder, his personal Web site has turned into a kind of town hall meeting on his reported extramarital behavior.

Charles McGrath:

Tiger Woods has had the misfortune to come of age at a time when the public appetite for details about the private lives of celebrities is apparently insatiable.

Neil Howe:

If you think that things couldn't get any worse, wait till the 2020s.

Decius:

It's important to understand that it isn't Congress that must change -- it is us.

I Could Fix That

Eliot A. Cohen:

In Afghanistan, we have a plan -- but that's not the same as a strategy.

The kind of specific knowledge needed does not lend itself to treatises, much less bestsellers. Making COIN work in real time requires the right kinds of practitioners, vast patience and local knowledge of a kind that is difficult to build up and easily perishable in large organizations. As Obama will discover, even setting the strategy seems easy by comparison.

David Kilcullen:

You've got to make a long-term commitment.

Stewart Brand:

In some cultures you're supposed to be responsible out to the seventh generation -- that's about 200 years. But it goes right against self-interest.

John Nagl:

I am starting to understand in the pit of my stomach how hard, how long, how slow counterinsurgency really is.

There is no prospect it's going to end anytime soon.

Obama's COIN toss