Saturday, March 07, 2009

Bush Boasted about Tortured Captive

By Jason Leopold
March 8, 2009

About the time President George W. Bush was boasting of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri’s capture in late 2002, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing was undergoing waterboarding, according to top-secret documents released in a New York federal court case.

Read on.

Yoo Defends His Legal Memos

By Jason Leopold
March 7, 2009

Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo refuses to back down on his post-9/11 legal opinions that gave President George W. Bush virtually unchecked power, even though many of the memos have since been repudiated for overreaching and inferior scholarship.

Read on.

Friday, March 06, 2009

Neocons Wage War on a 'Realist'

By Robert Parry
March 6, 2009

In a normal world, people in Washington might welcome the hiring of a “realist” to oversee the production of U.S. intelligence analyses, with the hope that even if the truth doesn’t set you free, it at least might be the foundation for sound policies.

Read on.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

War Crimes and Double Standards

By Robert Parry
March 5, 2009

New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof – like many of his American colleagues – is applauding the International Criminal Court’s arrest order against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for his role in the Darfur conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Read on.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

House Strikes Deal for Rove Testimony

By Jason Leopold
March 4, 2009

The House Judiciary Committee cut a deal with representatives of ex-President George W. Bush that will result in aides Karl Rove and Harriet Miers testifying in Congress’s long-running investigation into the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006. But the testimony, at least for the time being, will not be public.

Read on.

Iran in the Crosshairs

By Gareth Porter and Ray McGovern
March 4, 2009

Last year, the Middle East dodged the danger of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and the inevitable spread of hostilities.

Read on.

How Close the Bush Bullet

By Robert Parry
March 4, 2009

Earlier this decade when some of us warned that George W. Bush was behaving more like an incipient dictator than the leader of a constitutional republic, we were dismissed as alarmists, left-wingers, traitors and a host of less printable epithets.

Read on.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Justice Memos Gave Bush Total Power

By Jason Leopold
March 3, 2009

Lawyers for George W. Bush’s Justice Department asserted that the President had unlimited powers to prosecute the “war on terror” on American soil and could ignore constitutional rights, including First Amendment freedoms of speech and the press and Fourth Amendment requirements for search warrants, according to nine secret memos just released.

Read on.

Monday, March 02, 2009

CIA Destroyed More Torture Videos

By Jason Leopold
March 2, 2009

The CIA destroyed 92 videotapes – far more than previously known – to prevent disclosure of evidence revealing how the agency’s interrogators subjected “war on terror” detainees to waterboarding and other brutal methods, according to court documents filed by the Justice Department.

Read on.

The American Media Misdiagnosis

By Robert Parry
March 2, 2009

It’s widely agreed that there are a number of factors dragging down American newspapers, including the economic recession and the impact of the Internet, but a reason rarely mentioned is that the national news media failed in its most important job – to serve as a watchdog for the people.

Read on.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Hockey Mom Takes on Radio Right

By Lynne Gillooly
March 1, 2009

My name is Lynne and I am a 52-year-old basketball-playing Hockey Mom. I own a small business and have four children. Until 1999, I was an Independent voter. I voted for R. Reagan and Bush 41, but not for Bush 43.

Read on.