Christy Hardin Smith

Outtake from Farenheit 9/11.No idea why, but this just makes me smile:The witnesses recently called by the special prosecutor, former government officials said, include the agency’s top officer in London and Porter J. Goss, who was C.I.A. director when the tapes were destroyed in November 2005. Destruction of evidence is not something you should just forgive and forget.

Impatience via mdezemery. Just got off a call with Sens. Dodd, Whitehouse and Brown on the HELP committee health care bill. They have finally released a full copy of the proposed bill along with the most recent CBO scoring of it:CBO’s new score of the bill - which would reduce health costs, allow Americans to keep the coverage they have if they want it, and make health insurance affordable to those

Muhammed Jawad's legal battles have stretched on for the last 7 years. For a boy who may have been as young as 12 when he was picked up on an Afghan battlefield, that must feel like an eternity in custody. He has grown up at Gitmo. ACLU had another day in court yesterday in the Jawad case, this time arguing that evidence in the case which was

Today, the less-heavily-redacted version of the CIA IG report on torture and interrogation techniques during the Bush Administration is due for release.  Unless, of course, there is yet another delay.

Last week, Reuters speculated on potential nominees for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a sort of successor to the famed Pecora Commission. The planted list of CW-approved possibilities was underwhelming: A short list of names has emerged for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that includes former Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson; former Democratic head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission Brooksley Born; and Alex Pollock, a fellow at the conservative

ACSBlog has a series of discussions about the Ricci case and underlying labor law and the changes that Kennedy's majority opinion brought to the mix which I thought might be of interest to readers. I especially found Sharon Ifill's essay helpful. For my money, the Ricci case takes aim square at Griggs v.

US Constitution via kjd. In a 5-4 decision, led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, SCOTUS reversed the Ricci case outright, preferring a full reversal to what was thought might be a middle ground compromise on liability versus Title VII grounds. The full order is available for download here (PDF). The key language from Kennedy:Fear of litigation alone cannot justify the City’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who

Last Friday's news dump included the disturbing rumor that the Obama Administration is considering an executive order for indefinite detention of detainees is US custody. Considering how opposed I was to this during the Bush years? It should be no shocker that I still think it's craptastically unconstitutional nincompoopery.

As I said earlier in the week, it's been quite frenzied at our house for months on end. And as I sit here, there isn't anything I'd undo -- but there are some things I might do better. The most crucial of which would be to have taken better care of myself as I was taking care of everyone around me.

In case anyone is wondering why I've been dogging the Dawn Johnsen OLC nomination for months and months on end? Why restoration of the rule of law and having real leadership in place at OLC rather than a temporary staffing limbo is so important to me? Wonder no more: NPR’s report this morning that the Brookings Institution’s Benjamin Wittes has proposed what’s expected to be a highly