TPMMuckraker
Zachary Roth

Mass Of New Docs Support White House Reasons For Firing AmeriCorps IG

Zachary Roth | July 3, 2009, 1:42PM

As we noted yesterday, the Washington Post has published the documents turned over by the Corporation for National and Community Service to a Senate committee reviewing the White House's firing of AmeriCorps IG. Conservatives had charged that the IG, Gerald Walpin, was canned for going too hard after an Obama ally.

We've taken a look through the documents, and it's fair to say they offer a pretty clear picture of how and why the CNCS board lost confidence in Walpin. They jibe closely with what the White House and the board have already said -- to us, among others -- about the deterioration of the relationship between the IG and his agency. And they also make clear that this deterioration had begun long before the Obama administration existed.

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Topics: Barack Obama, Gerald Walpin

Gerald Walpin

WaPo Publishes Docs On AmeriCorps IG Firing

Zachary Roth | July 2, 2009, 6:17PM

Yesterday we told you about new documents which shed more light on the White House's decision to fire AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin.

And now, the Washington Post has published the complete set of documents, which were recently turned over by the Corporation for National and Community Service to a Senate committee reviewing the firing.

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Topics: Barack Obama, Gerald Walpin

Barack Obama

CIA Again Delays Release Of Key Torture Report

Zachary Roth | July 2, 2009, 5:49PM

The release of the long-awaited CIA inspector general report on torture has been postponed once again.

The ACLU, which is suing to have the report released, just announced that the government is asking for yet another postponement on the date of the report's release -- this time, until August 31. The CIA had earlier said it would release the report June 19. That was then pushed back to June 26, and then again to July 1.

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Topics: Barack Obama, CIA, Justice Department, Torture

Barack Obama

More Obama Secrecy -- This Time On Cheney's Plame Interview

Zachary Roth | July 2, 2009, 2:46PM

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at this point. But the latest example of the Obama administration mimicking the Bushies in opting for secrecy over openness feels like one of the most infuriating yet.

The Justice Department is declining to release Dick Cheney's interview with federal investigators looking into the Valerie Plame leak, arguing -- as it did under President Bush -- that doing so would discourage future high-level officials from cooperating with criminal investigations.

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Topics: Barack Obama, CIA, Detainees, Dick Cheney, Justice Department, Torture, Valerie Plame

AIPAC

AIPAC Spy Figure: "Zionist" Wanted Me Dead

Zachary Roth | July 2, 2009, 1:34PM

It looks like a jail sentence might not have been all that Larry Franklin, the former Pentagon official convicted of spying for Israel, had to fear in recent years.

Court documents filed last week suggest a Sopranos-like effort to get rid of Franklin, who had agreed to testify against two former AIPAC activists, CQ's Jeff Stein reports.

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Topics: AIPAC

Gerald Walpin

Fired IG's Office Produced Newsletter With Racial And Sexual Jokes

Zachary Roth | July 1, 2009, 11:55AM

We reported recently that, according to two board members for the Corporation for National and Community Service, the firing of the agency's inspector general was initiated by the board, which had developed serious concerns about the IG's performance. Conservatives had been accusing the White House of firing the IG, Gerald Walpin, for conducting an aggressive investigation into an Obama ally.

And today the Washington Post offers more detail about what caused the board to lose confidence in Walpin, based on documents turned over by CNCS to lawmakers reviewing the firing.

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Topics: Gerald Walpin

Global Warming

Climate Skeptic: "I Was Hoping People At EPA Would Pay Attention" To My Work

Zachary Roth | July 1, 2009, 8:43AM

Conservatives are jumping up and down over a report by an EPA analyst expressing skepticism about climate change, which, they claim, was suppressed by agency brass because it didn't conform to Obama administration orthodoxy on global warming. The story has sparked explosive claims, on Fox News and other right-wing outlets, that the EPA censored scientific data for political reasons. And Monday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) called for an outright criminal investigation into the matter.

But it's hard to blame EPA for not paying much attention to the study. And it's more than a little ironic that DC Republicans have chosen its author as their new standard-bearer in the defense of pure science against politics. Because the author, EPA veteran Al Carlin, is an economist, not a climate scientist. EPA says no one at the agency solicited the report. And Carlin appears to have taken up the global warming topic largely as a hobby on his own time. In fact, a NASA climatologist has called the report -- whose existence was first publicized last week by the industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) -- "a ragbag collection of un-peer reviewed web pages, an unhealthy dose of sunstroke, a dash of astrology and more cherries than you can poke a cocktail stick at."

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Topics: EPA, Global Warming, Right-wing extremism

John Conyers

UPDATED: What Did John Conyers Know About His Wife's Corruption?

Zachary Roth | June 29, 2009, 2:32PM

Ever since Monica Conyers, the president pro tem of the Detroit city council, pleaded guilty last week to bribery charges, our major interest here at TPMmuckraker has been in whether her husband, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, is implicated in his wife's confessed wrongdoing.

No evidence has emerged to suggest that he is -- but at a minimum, there's reason to take a close look.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (20) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)
Topics: House Judiciary, John Conyers

Karl Rove

Health-Care Market Characterized By Consolidation, Not Competition

Zachary Roth | June 29, 2009, 12:50PM

As Congress gets set to take up health-care reform, there's a crucial piece of data that hasn't received nearly the prominence in the debate that it deserves.

Defenders of the status quo on health care like to point out that a public option will destroy the system of robust free-market competition that currently exists.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), speaking earlier this month on Fox News, called President Obama's plan the "first step in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known." A public option, Shelby added, would "destroy the marketplace for health care."