For a dramatic presentation of what's wrong with the D.C. press corps, watch as In These Times reporter Mike Elk is silenced by Honeywell goons as he tries to ask a question about a poison gas leak–and his colleagues sit quietly by, except for one who encourages the goons because Mike doesn't have a credential from the Capitol Hill Press Club!
Jun
01
2012
Cyberwar Is War, White House Said—but NYT Didn't Notice
By 21 Comments
For the second time this week, the New York Times has published a revealing report on a secret, legally questionable Obama administration program, but failed to include independent legal analysis of the controversial program. Tuesday's Times report on the White House's drone assassination program included no critical analysis of the thorny legal issues raised by the program. Surely independent legal experts would have something to say about the program at large, but particularly about such details as the White House's bizarre definition that counts any military-aged male found in the vicinity of a bombing target as a combatant, and thus [...]
Jun
01
2012
MSNBC: No Time for Obama's Kill List?
By 32 Comments
The New York Times' lengthy report (5/29/12) on Barack Obama's drone "kill list" should provoke serious questions: Is such a program legal? How does it square with Obama's criticism of the Bush administration's "war on terror" policies? What does it tell us about how the administration identifies "militants" who are targeted for assassination? But those questions have been raised only in fits and starts–and are basically absent from the liberal cable news channel MSNBC. In fact, a far more interesting discussion of these questions can be heard on Fox News Channel. It's not all good on Fox, naturally. Host Bill [...]
Jun
01
2012
On Chris Hayes and Heroism
By 36 Comments
It is a very good thing that the Nation's Chris Hayes has a weekend show on MSNBC. The panelists are smart and the lively conversations dig deeper than virtually anything else on cable news. (The same can be said for MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry.) In other words, sounds like a recipe for trouble. And trouble arrived after a Memorial Day show that aired on May 27. Here's the clip that caused the controversy. To me, his words sound carefully measured, and I think you get a better sense of that tone from seeing the clip rather than from reading a transcript [...]
