Slate Magazine - Hot Document

Excerpts from Elizabeth Cheney's 1988 senior thesis.

Chris Wilson — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:28:37 EST

Last week, Slate published an analysis of Elizabeth Cheney's senior thesis from Colorado College, which author Zac Frank discovered in a bin of discarded books at the college's library. Frank found Cheney's 125-page treatise on presidential war powers to be eerily similar to the philosophy of the unitary executive that her father would expound years later as vice president.

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Excerpts from Elizabeth Cheney's 1988 senior thesis.

Mon, 2 Feb 2009 17:54:58 EST

Bernie Madoff and his accountant: an unlikely pair.

Bonnie Goldstein — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:34:56 EST

Bernie Madoff, a much-respected Wall Street investment adviser and former NASDAQ chairman, was arrested last week after he confessed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he'd committed securities fraud. Madoff told the FBI that his 50-year-old company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, had been running a "giant Ponzi scheme" for years and that there was "no innocent explanation." The company has been placed in receivership.

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Senators squabble over how soon to hold the confirmation hearing for Obama's attorney-general nominee.

Bonnie Goldstein — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:31:28 EST

Senate judiciary committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., scheduled a confirmation hearing for Eric Holder, President-elect Obama's choice for attorney general, on Jan. 8. The committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., says that's too soon. On Dec. 10, Specter urged that the hearing be put off until Jan. 26, citing a need to investigate Holder's role (while serving as President Clinton's deputy attorney general) in the 2001 pardon of Marc Rich and the "alleged—and I emphasize alleged—illegal fundraising by Vice President Albert Gore out of the White House" in 1996. Judging from this document request by Specter and other Republican committee members—see below and the following page—Specter would also like to grill Holder about Clinton-era foreign donations to the Democratic Party; the granting of clemency in 1999 to jailed Puerto Rican nationalists; the 2000 Border Patrol raid in which Elian Gonzales was seized from his Miami relatives so he could be returned to his father in Cuba; the 1993 confrontation in Waco, Texas, between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Branch Davidian sect; and the independent-counsel investigation of and subsequent impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.

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A PR guide to laying off employees.

Bonnie Goldstein — Mon, 8 Dec 2008 14:50:35 EST

Last month more than half a million American workers lost their jobs. How exactly do you tell an employee that his or her services are no longer needed? Institutional guidelines at two University of California campuses (see here and here) recommend "constant, open, and empathic communication." Somewhat less sentimentally, the Fairport, N.Y.-based H.R. Works Inc. advises: "Protect company assets," taking the precaution, for instance, to shut down the laid-off employee's computer and network access not after but "during the termination meeting." The state of Minnesota's instructions warn managers to be prepared for the worst: "If you are concerned that the employee may react to the news in a hostile or threatening manner, be sure to have a safety plan in place. This should include notice to Capitol Security." In the self-published Employee Termination Guidebook ($247.00 + shipping), "turnaround" consultant Kevin Muir urges managers to move quickly before the doomed employee starts "telling lies about you, turning others against you and destroying your reputation."

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