Sadly, the actions of politicians in Washington are often more about ripping off the public to benefit a handful of well-connected and extremely wealthy donors while having little to do with any form of actual ideology or governing philosophy. In fact, nearly identical schemes to enrich large corporations at the expense of the public are [...]

The Senate is run on precedent as much as it is governed by its official rules. Precedents will sometimes almost directly contradict the actual rules but the precedents actually govern the behavior of the chamber. In fact, using a ruling from the chair upheld by a simple majority, the Senate can set a precedent that [...]

FDL readers have been working collectively on a Citizen Journalism project to transcribe interviews relevant to Wikileaks, Adrian Lamo and Bradley Manning. The transcripts have been compiled on one page, which is available now:

Wikileaks-Manning-Lamo Interview Transcripts

Looking back on the year, I believe that the best victory for progressives was student loan reform, which was passed as part of the reconciliation measure. While not as large in scale as some of the bills passed by this Congress, it still was a substantial measure that ends over $60 billion in government waste. [...]

Now that the health care fight has been over for almost a year, it is important not to allow it to fall victim to revisionist history. From Ezra Klein: To choose one example, the president has been much more eloquent and emphatic in his anger at the left’s criticism of his inability to pass a [...]

On June 10, Adrian Lamo was interviewed by Patrick Gray of the Australian radio show Risky Business. He tells Gray that he sent the chat logs to Wikileaks and it was up to them whether or not they would be published. On June 19, BoingBoing published what Lamo told DailyTech was the version he sent to Wikileaks, and he accused Wikileaks of outing him as their source. DailyTech pointed to this interview to establish that Lamo had actually outed himself, and Wikileaks had merely confirmed that

When the new Congress begins on January 5, Democratic Senators Tom Udall (NM) and Jeff Merkley (OR) intend to push for a change in Senate rules. The two extreme outcomes are that there will be no reform at all or that the Senate will adopt rules making it effectively a majority chamber that is like almost [...]

On July 18, 2010, Adrian Lamo attended at the 8th annual HOPE conference and appeared on the panel Informants: Villains or Heroes?  The moderator was Emmanuel Goldstein, and Lamo’s fellow panelists were Kevin Mitnick, Phiber Optic, and Bernie S. Part 1 . Part 2 . Part 3 . Part 4 . Part 5 Transcribed by [...]

On July 18, 2010, Adrian Lamo attended at the 8th annual HOPE conference and appeared on the panel Informants: Villains or Heroes?  The moderator was Emmanuel Goldstein, and his fellow panelists were Kevin Mitnick, Phiber Optic, and Bernie S. Part 1 . Part 2 . Part 3 . Part 4 . Part 5 Transcribed by [...]

On July 18, 2010, Adrian Lamo appeared on the “Informants: Villains and Heroes” panel at the 8th annual HOPE convention. Part 4 of 5. Transcribed by Calamar.