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from govexec

Analysis: Is It Too Hard to Fire Misbehaving Feds?

May 23, 2013 Under the headline, "Yes, heads should roll at the IRS," Ezra Klein points out that, at the very least, "A number of IRS employees developed criteria that was politically biased both in appearance and in effect. They were reined in once by their superiors, and then they changed the criteria ...

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Analysis: The Audacity of Eric Holder Admitting Team Obama Killed 4 Americans

May 23, 2013 Attorney General Eric Holder has just sent a truly incredible letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. In it, he acknowledges that the U.S. has killed four of its own citizens in drone strikes. Casual news consumers may find that confusing. Hasn't there already been an extremely public debate about the ...

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How to Prevent the IRS From Abusing Its Power Again

May 17, 2013 Almost everyone agrees that the IRS behaved badly when it singled out conservative activist groups for extra scrutiny. As Ezra Klein put it, "because the Internal Revenue Service holds so much private data, and because it can make people's lives absolutely miserable, it is of paramount importance in our political ...

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How Can We Understand Benghazi Without Probing the CIA's Role?

May 13, 2013 After catching up on coverage of the Benghazi attack over the weekend, there's something that has me very confused: why are so many journalists ignoring the fact that the Americans there were mostly CIA? Here's how The New York Times began a Benghazi story published online Sunday: "A House committee ...

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Analysis: The CIA Shouldn't Get to Vet the Torture Report

May 8, 2013 Remember the report on Bush-era torture that Senate staffers spent so much time researching and writing? The one that would give Americans their best yet opportunity to be informed about and assess the morality and effectiveness of interrogation techniques employed in our names? "The CIA is assembling what former officials ...

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Analysis: Should We Trust Government?

May 8, 2013 In President Obama's address at Ohio State University on Sunday, he began byexhorting the graduates to be conscientious, active citizens throughout their lives. Then he pivoted. "You've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all ...

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Analysis: Remember the Charges Before You Reassess W.'s Legacy

April 26, 2013 With the Bush Administration's legacy being revisited, it's worth taking another look at a story that surfaced a couple of years ago and was, for reasons I don't understand, immediately forgotten. Retired Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who served the Bush Administration as a senior official in the State Department with ...

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Analysis: Calling Out President Obama on Guantanamo Bay

April 16, 2013 There is a 35-year-old man who has been held prisoner by the United States for 11 years. The charge filed against him? None. He has never been charged. His defense at trial? He was never tried either. The threat he poses to the United States? He isn't thought to pose ...

In a Secret Drone War, Immoral Kill Deals Will Always Tempt Us

April 9, 2013 Critics of America's drone war have long insisted that the secrecy surrounding it all but guarantees abuses. How could it be otherwise? CIA agents are permitted to operate as international assassins, killing without any transparent standards, their actions kept secret even after the fact. The Obama Administration has taken pains ...

Commentary: Let's Make Drone Strikes Safe, Legal, and Rare

March 27, 2013 Plenty of pundits on the left and right still support targeted killing, as do voters, military brass, think-tank fellows, and Congressional majorities. It is nevertheless worth giving the issue another look, because the Obama Administration's apologists seldom acknowledge the strongest arguments against our particular drone policy. Their rhetoric, however effective, ...