Daily Intelligencer -- New York News -- New York Magazine

5/22/13 at 5:18 PM
Drone Wars
Comment

Obama Administration Admits to Killing Americans in Drone Strikes Everyone Already Knows About

U.S. President Barack Obama holds a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House April 30, 2013 in Washington, DC. The president took questions on a variety of subjects including immigration reform, the ongoing civil war in Syria and the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings.

The U.S. government is now prepared to officially announce that it killed four American citizens abroad, including Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, in three 2011 drone strikes. Ahead of a big speech by President Obama on national security, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. informed congressional leaders that it killed al-Awlaki in Yemen on purpose, but said the three others "were not specifically targeted by the United States." They include al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son; Samir Khan, who was killed in the same strike as the elder al-Awlaki; and Jude Mohammed, a man from North Carolina who was indicted in 2009 and killed in Pakistan two years later. Mohammed's FBI wanted page is still active, although probably not for much longer.

5/22/13 at 4:43 PM
Comment

The Boston Bombing’s ‘Saudi Suspect’ Wasn’t Sure Exactly Which Prejudice Was Being Used Against Him

"All the police officers and the FBI … and all the nurses and all the doctors were staring at me … I was looking [at] them like, is it because of the color of my skin or is it because of the name of my country?” —Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi, the Saudi national who was injured in the Boston Marathon bombing and briefly became a potential suspect.

5/22/13 at 4:18 PM
Scary Things
Comment

Man With Bloody Cleaver Gives Interview After Brutal Woolwich Murder

By Joe Coscarelli

A man thought to be a British soldier was killed today in what the country's home secretary called a "sickening and barbaric attack" near a military barracks in the Woolwich district of South East London. "A number of weapons were reportedly being used in the attack, and this included reports of a firearm," a police commander said, according to the New York Times. "Two men, who we believe from early reports to have been carrying weapons, were shot by police. They were taken to separate London hospitals; they are receiving treatment for their injuries."

But one of the suspects appears to have given a video interview first, his bloodied hands holding a cleaver. "We swear by almighty Allah," he exclaims, "we will never stop fighting you."

5/22/13 at 3:49 PM
Cicada Plague
Comment

Q&A With a Brood II Cicada

By Dan Amira

A cicada alights on a plant in Fairfax Station, Virginia, U.S., on Saturday, May 18, 2013. After 17 years of living underground, millions of cicadas are emerging on the U.S. East Coast. Members of brood 2 have not been seen in the region since 1996 and will be omnipresent for a few weeks - just long enough to breed and die.

As the cicada invasion of New York — and, indeed, the entire eastern seaboard — continues, Daily Intelligencer caught up with one of the critters for an exclusive one-on-one interview.

Hey, welcome to New York
Thanks. Can we make this kind of quick? I only have three more weeks or so to live and, no offense, talking to reporters isn't high on my bucket list.

No offense taken. Even people who aren't facing imminent death don't really like talking to report—
Seriously, get on with the questions.

5/22/13 at 2:40 PM
On Language
Comment

President Obama’s Campaign Tech Team Insists That GIF Is Pronounced With a Hard G

By Darla Murray

Steve Wilhite and David Karp speak onstage at the 17th Annual Webby Awards at Cipriani Wall Street on May 21, 2013 in New York City.

The debate over the proper pronunciation of GIF, always a hot topic in the world of Internet nerds, was front and center at last night's 17th Annual Webby Awards at Cipriani Wall Street. Taking home a lifetime achievement award was none other than the inventor of the GIF himself, Steve Wilhite, who, earlier in the day, reiterated to the Times that, despite all common sense, GIF should be pronounced with a soft G. Wilhite hammered home this decree once more in an acceptance speech last night.

5/22/13 at 1:33 PM
The National Interest
Comment

The Climate-Change Wars Begin This Summer

By Jonathan Chait

Power towers are seen as the sun sets July 24, 2006 in San Rafael, California. The California Independent System Operator declared a stage two power alert for all of California today after available power had fallen to below five percent as high temperatures scorched the state for eight days straight prompting Californians to use a record 50,270 megawatts of power. Temperatures are expected to cool slightly over the next few days but strain on the power grid will continue. A Stage 2 alert means that remaining available power has fallen to below five percent and some businesses will begin to voluntarily shut down some of their operations in exchange for discounted rates. Californians hope to avoid a Stage 3 alert, which would involve rolling blackouts, as calls go out to cut back on power usage until the heat subsides this evening.

The biggest piece of President Obama’s second-term agenda is his widely expected plan for the Environmental Protection Agency to issue new carbon regulations for power plants, a move that could bring the United States in line with the greenhouse-gas-reduction goals it agreed to in Copenhagen and open the way for an international treaty to control climate change. If the administration unveils such a plan, conservatives will undoubtedly challenge its legality. The legal challenge won’t take place for two years, but the two sides are preparing for war already. The field of battle will be the Federal Appeals Court in Washington, D.C.

5/22/13 at 1:26 PM
Irs Scandal
Comment

Expert: Lois Lerner Didn’t Waive Her Right to Plead the Fifth

By Dan Amira

Internal Revenue Service Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner (L) makes a statement during a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee with Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin May 22, 2013 in Washington, DC. The committee is investigating allegations that the IRS targeted conservative non-profit organizations with the words "tea party" and "constitution" in their names for additional scrutiny. Lerner, who headed the division that oversees exempt organizations, exercised her constitutional right not to answer questions.

IRS official Lois Lerner warned Congress yesterday that, if made to appear before the House Oversight Committee this morning, she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refuse to answer questions. Lerner was forced to appear anyway, and after reading an opening statement, in which she insisted that she had done nothing wrong, she informed Chairman Darrell Issa that, as promised, she would plead the Fifth.

It was at this point (4:28 in the video below) that Issa suggested that, because Lerner had given an opening statement, she had "effectively waived" her Fifth Amendment rights. South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy could not agree more (5:09 in the video).

5/22/13 at 12:48 PM
Media
Comment

Is Obama Really As Bad As Nixon When It Comes to Targeting the Press?

By Joe Coscarelli

U.S. President Barack Obama makes a statement on the situation regarding the Internal Revenue Service May 15, 2013 in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. Obama had a meeting with Senior Treasury Officials, including Treasury Secretary Jack Lew via telephone, on the situation regarding the Internal Revenue Service.

James Goodale knows a thing or two about whistleblowers. As a First Amendment lawyer, he represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case against the Nixon administration and recently wrote about his experience and its implications today in Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles. But what was once an esoteric issue has suddenly inserted itself into the national conversation with the news that the Obama administration secretly seized phone records from the Associated Press and tracked the communication of at least one other reporter while in pursuit of national security leakers.

"The search warrant filed to investigate the Fox News reporter James Rosen proved as many had suspected: President Obama wants to make it a crime for a reporter to talk to a leaker," Goodale wrote today in the Times. "It is a further example of how President Obama will surely pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom." In an interview with Daily Intelligencer this morning, we asked Goodale to back up his bold claim and if most of America will ever really care.

5/22/13 at 10:56 AM
Transportation
Comment

New York Post Takes Credit for Removal of Eight Bike-Rack Spots

By Joe Coscarelli

In this Wednesday, May 1, 2013 photo, docks for a new bike share program stand empty on MacDougal Street in New York. This month, New York will join the ranks of Paris, London, Madrid and Washington by enacting its first-ever bike share program.

The NIMBYism inspired by the installation of the city's empty bike-share racks has already led to lawsuits and a few small victories: 8 of 31 slots were reportedly removed from "a bike-share rack blocking the front of a West Village co-op — just hours after The Post called the Department of Transportation over complaints that an ambulance crew had trouble getting to a 92-year-old resident in distress." (DoT said the EMTs had "no trouble.") Elsewhere in the West Village, a station was moved across the street after neighbors complained "it looked like Times Square" because of the racks. "I still don't like the color of the bikes," one local griped, even after winning. "It doesn't fit the neighborhood, but we have to pick our battles." Noble causes only.

5/22/13 at 10:44 AM
The National Interest
Comment

Biden Praises Jews, Goes Too Far, Accidentally Thrills Anti-Semites

By Jonathan Chait

US Vice President Joseph Biden and his wife Dr. Jill Biden (unseen) walk in the cemetery on Mt. Herzel in Jerusalem on March 9, 2010.

Joe Biden spoke last night in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month. Biden has long, deep ties to the Jewish community — Obama actually picked him in 2008 in part to reassure skittish Jewish Democrats. Biden indeed offered fulsome, heartfelt praise in his remarks, before wandering into highly uncomfortable terrain and delivering a speech that is likely to be quoted by anti-Semites for years and decades to come. (It’s already the subject of excited discussion among the white supremacist community.)

Biden’s remarks were not anti-Semitic. They were very, very philo-Semitic. The thrust of his largely unscripted monologue is that Jews have contributed enormously to the United States. That’s obviously a standard spiel for praising any ethnic group, but Biden took care to emphasize that Jews have not just contributed their share to the United States, but far more:

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