Bush's Spying Hits Americans Abroad

By Robert Parry
October 19, 2007

In August after the Democratic-controlled Congress caved in to George W. Bush’s demands for broader surveillance powers, I noted that the new authority went far beyond what was advertised and that the President could obtain year-long spying orders on Americans who ventured outside the United States.

My analysis, which was based on a reading of the law’s language, wasn’t shared by commentators in the major U.S. news media and even drew some reader criticism as alarmist for failing to take into account secret “minimization” provisions that supposedly would protect American citizens.

Read on.

On the Ground in Israel-Palestine

By Ray McGovern
October 19, 2007

I saw nothing that surprised me — but plenty that shocked me. Let me explain.

I had learned from books and newspapers about what happened in 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were removed from their land in historic Palestine; about the results of the Israel-Arab war in 1967, which years later former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin publicly admitted was started by Israel; and about the confiscation and settlement by Israelis of Palestinian lands in the territories that Israel has now occupied for over 40 years.

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Risky Jokes About Burma's Dictators

By Don North
October 19, 2007

On a makeshift stage in a slum dwelling on 39th Street in Mandalay, it is over 100 degrees Fahrenheit at 8 p.m. The Moustache Brothers, actually two brothers and a cousin, are checking the mikes and plugging in the electric generator.

In this neighborhood of jerry-built houses and open sewers, the electricity is out most of the time. Tonight, as they would do seven nights a week, the three comedians were preparing to regale the audience of a dozen foreign tourists with their “politically incorrect” humor.

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MSM Buries Military Dissent on Iraq

By Robert Parry
October 17, 2007

Last summer when two pro-Iraq War pundits returned from a Pentagon-guided tour of Iraq, the New York Times gave them prime op-ed space to re-invent themselves as harsh war critics who had been won over by George W. Bush’s “surge.”

The deceptively packaged op-ed by Brookings analysts Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack – which then was amplified by their many appearances on TV news shows – proved very influential in shaping the congressional war debate.

Read on.

Why Big Media Slimes Al Gore

By Robert Parry
October 16, 2007

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has a point when he describes the rabid reaction of right-wingers to Al Gore, with the latest foaming at the mouth over the former vice president winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming.

But the Right is not alone in its pathological demeaning of Gore. The major news media, including the Washington Post and the New York Times, have taken their share of unfair shots at Gore, ironically for reasons similar to those that Krugman attributes to the Right.

Read on.

NSA Spying: What Did Pelosi Know?

By Ray McGovern
October 15, 2007

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has admitted knowing for several years about the Bush administration’s eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant. She said she was briefed on it when she was ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. But was she told that the illegal surveillance began well before 9/11?

Referring to her briefing in an apologia-sans-apology Washington Post op-ed on Jan. 15, 2006, she wrote: “This is how I came to be informed of President Bush’s authorization for the NSA to conduct certain types of surveillance.”

Read on.