According to a Senator who has been defending the administration’s deal for Bowe Bergdahl, the 5 Taliban prisoners would have been freed sometime soon anyway, making this our last chance to get something for them. Senator Angus King, an independent
Both Democrats and Republicans have rejected an excuse offered by the White House for why they were unable to inform Congress of the Bergdahl prisoner swap. The White House has offered several excuses for why it failed to notify Congress
There’s a kind of willful blindness at Vox that is almost poignant. How can a site purportedly devoted to avoiding the pitfalls of partisanship so often fail to acknowledge their own baked-in bias. From its inception Vox has linked itself
Kathy Gannon is the Associated Press’ intrepid senior correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan (Gannon was shot covering the Afghan election earlier this year). Last year, during an interview with a Taliban spokesman, she was the first to hear the outlines
During a briefing with Senators Wednesday the White House offered a new excuse for failing to notify them 30 days prior to the prisoner swap as required by law. The AP reports the Taliban threatened to kill Bowe Bergdahl if
Phillip Longman, the author of a book on the superiority of VA health care, returned to its defense Tuesday at his Washington Monthly blog. According to Longman, the problems aren’t systemic but only regional. Longman starts out by saying he
Staff Sgt. Justin Gerleve was Bowe Bergdahl’s squad leader in Afghanistan. In an interview today he says Bergdahl “deserted” and needs to be held accountable. CNN’s Jake Tapper spoke to Sgt. Gerleve today saying, “I believe that he totally deserted
The NY Times weighed in on the Bergdahl story Tuesday, questioning whether or not soldiers died searching for him in the summer of 2009. The Times says the answer is “murky,” but multiple soldiers who were there have all told
The use of heroin is up in California and around the country. Those who signed up for Medi-Cal, California’s expanded Medicaid program for the poor, are able to get free methadone treatment. California Health Report notes that the number of
Sgt. Evan Buetow was Bowe Bergdahl’s team leader in Afghanistan. Buetow says radio chatter shortly after Bergdahl deserted indicated he was seeking someone in the Taliban who could speak English. In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Buetow says shortly
There’s a breaking news story today which is set to completely change our understanding of the Bergdahl prisoner exchange. From Buzzfeed “A former Bush Administration official hired, then resigned, as Mitt Romney’s foreign policy spokesman played a key role in
The debate between French economist Thomas Piketty and the Financial Times continued to play out last week, though it was overshadowed by VA news and the resignation of two administration figures. Here’s what you may have missed. Last Wednesday, FT
Last week the California Assembly passed a bill that, if signed into law, would mandate space be set aside for breast pumping in California airports. California Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal introduced AB 1787. The bill cites existing law which requires employers
An audit of California’s books by the Bureau of State Audits has uncovered errors totaling $31 billion. CBS 13 reported the results of the audit Thursday. It found: $7.7 billion – Understated federal trust fund revenues and expenditures $653 million
When scandal breaks, President Obama usually claims he first read about it in the news. But in this case the President claims he missed news reports and more than a dozen GAO and OIG reports highlighting wait times as a
Uber not only benefits those who need a ride somewhere at a competitive price, it also benefits drivers who can earn several times more than drivers for traditional cab services. Uber has not released average wages for their drivers in
Former Congressman Joe Baca has picked up some opposition from liberal environmental and women’s groups as he tries to win the primary for the 31st congressional district. Baca is running against two other Democrats and three Republicans to represent California’s
Nothing about the current VA scandal is new. Not the wait times, not the abuse of scheduling procedures, not even the deaths of veterans waiting for appointments. All of this has been previously reported as far back as 2001 in
It wouldn’t make much sense to cite Enron’s annual reports after word broke that the books were being cooked. Similarly, it doesn’t make much sense to cite VA wait times when the veracity of that data is (and has been)
The First Lady’s plan to rejuvenate school lunches hasn’t been going very well, so naturally the solution is a column suggesting Republicans are child-hating extremists for wanting to fix it. In Tomasky’s columns (there really is only one, a Platonic
Today Venezuela announced an agreement under which they would begin to pay off some of the $4 billion they owe carriers. But dozens of other major corporations are also getting stung by Venezuelan inflation. The deal with air carriers comes
As I write this more than 131k people have shared Adam Gopnik’s story directly blaming the Santa Barbara murders on the NRA. Gopnik gives himself leeway to cast blame in this direct way because the father of one of the
In an email to Bloomberg News, French economist Thomas Piketty called the criticism of his work “just ridiculous.” Piketty had earlier offered a longer but somewhat nebulous response to Financial Times. The gist of it was that his argument was
In a piece published today, the Washington Post editorial board says the problem at the VA is the same problem experienced within other parts of the government: a stagnant bureaucracy protected by political favoritism. As the editorial board notes, the
About 60,000 immigrants, many facing deportation, worked at the nation’s system of 250 detention centers last year for $1 a day. The cheap labor, which the government says is legal, saves taxpayers millions of dollars every year. Private companies, which
