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A district court judge on Friday postponed issuing a ruling on former FBI Director James Comey’s effort to quash a GOP-issued subpoena. Judge Trevor McFadden gave the two sides the weekend to provide additional information about their arguments. The court will reconvene Monday at 10 a.m. for a ruling. Comey on Thursday sought to quash the subpoena for closed-door testimony, arguing that House Republicans would seek to “peddle a distorted, partisan political narrative about the Clinton and Russia investigations through selective leaks” if he was not interviewed in public. Comey’s attorneys Vincent Cohen and David Kelley argued in the motion...

  PerceptionA Mistake at the Heart of Objectivist Epistemology Is Objectivism a closed or open system? The entire controversy over this question, which generates a lot of heat, but not so much light, seems a bit silly to me. I personally regard Objectivism to be the specific contribution to philosophy made by Ayn Rand, nothing more, and nothing less.The argument that philosophy is not a closed field is certainly correct but with regard to Objectivism, is irrelevant. Objectivism is not philosophy, it is a philosophy, it is not even a complete philosophy, it is only a contribution to the field....

Of all the issues ripe for further investigation in the scandal over the leak of Democratic strategy memos from the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, the least relevant is whether GOP staffers "stole" the documents. That's the charge Democrats have so far successfully made to deflect attention from the memos' actual content. On this point alone, the Justice Department's decision this week to open a criminal investigation into the matter could turn out to be useful. David Kelley, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, and a Democrat, has been tapped to lead the probe. We doubt Mr. Kelley is going to...

 Brave New Objectivism It use to be a lot easier, and I confess, I was very comfortable with the simplicity that regarded Ojectivism as the philosophy Ayn Rand developed and named, and nothing more. Furthermore I confess I resisted changing, because I liked being able to say, "Objectivism says ...," or "Objectivism teaches ...," knowing everyone would understand that by Objectivism I meant, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. But that has all changed now, and even though it is more difficult and I resisted it, I am now resigned. I acquiesce to the facts of reality, there are now many...

 An Objectivist Divorce Yesterday, on her blog, NoodleFood, Diana Mertz Hsieh posted, "A Public Statement," announcing the end of her ten year association with The Objectivist Center (TOC). In her formal letter to David Kelley, Founder and Executive Director of TOC, she briefly outlines the main reasons for her decision. Some of the points are personal ones to which we cannot speak, but she goes on to criticize TOC's commentaries, articles, and op-eds as "uninteresting" and "superficial," making specific criticisms of four specific TOC staff offerings, concluding with this:"In order to ferret out any underlying philosophical causes of these systemic...

The Witless Battle Over General Boykin By David Kelley TOC Executive Director dskelley@objectivistcenter.org The crackle of small-arms fire you hear about General William Boykin is the sound of the latest skirmish in America’s culture wars. Boykin is the Pentagon’s head of intelligence in the war on terrorism. He is also an evangelical Christian who has told church groups that Muslim terrorists hate the United States because it is a “Christian nation,” that our real enemy is not Osama bin Laden but Satan, and that we will prevail only if “we come against them in the name of Jesus.” It gets...

The BBC says it has a tape recording of David Kelly voicing serious concerns over the role of Downing Street in the disputed Iraq dossier. The corporation is planning to submit the tape as evidence during the inquiry into the death of the weapons expert. Susan Watts, the science editor of Newsnight, recorded her conversations with Dr Kelly, parts of which were later broadcast anonymously as a "source", using the voice of an actor. The report, which was broadcast on 2 June, suggested Downing Street had been "desperate" to find information to justify its stance on a war against Iraq....

“Ally McBeal” is gone, cancelled, a half-decade memory of a soured relationship. Two funny seasons were followed by three not-so-funny ones. And Christina Ricci and Matthew Perry could not keep Monday’s episode from pulling in the show’s lowest 18-49 demo ever. Creator David E. Kelley hasn't yet penned the series finale, which airs May 20