Monday, July 20, 2009

GOP & KAL007: 'The Key Is to Lie First'

By Robert Parry
July 20, 2009 (Originally posted in 1998)

It's not entirely clear when the Republican Party made disinformation a political weapon of choice.

Read on.

To Save the Republic, Tax the Rich?

By Robert Parry
July 20, 2009

For all the laid-off “Joe the Plumbers” who share the Right’s fury about the “class warfare” of imposing higher taxes on millionaires, there is this hard truth: the rich don’t need as many of you as they once did – and taxing the rich may be the only way to make the economic system work for you.

Read on.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Cronkite's Unintended Legacy

By Robert Parry
July 19, 2009

With his measured calm and seriousness of purpose, Walter Cronkite set a high standard for television journalism that has rarely been met since his retirement in 1981. But the legendary CBS anchorman who died Friday also may have unintentionally contributed to the American Left’s dangerous complacency about media.

Read on.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Cronkite and the Tet Turning Point

By Don North
July 18, 2009

At midnight, heading into the fateful day of Jan. 31, 1968, 15 Vietcong gathered at a greasy car repair garage at 59 Phan Thanh Gian Street in Saigon.

Read on.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Oysters (or Profits) for Health Care

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
July 17, 2009

This is a story of health care and two Americans; a tale of two citizens, if you will.

Read on.

WPost's Ignatius Defends CIA Crimes

By Melvin A. Goodman
July 17, 2009

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius has become the mainstream media’s apologist for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Read on.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The Wedding (From the Archives)

By Robert Parry
July 15, 2009 (Originally posted Oct. 3, 2007)

The light from the setting sun streamed through the windows of the East Room after the first White House wedding in more than two decades. Guests were picking desserts from a buffet table and conversing, some gesturing with crystal champagne flutes in hand.

Read on.

Bush's Hit Teams

By Robert Parry
July 15, 2009

Despite the new controversy over whether a global CIA “hit team” ever went operational, there has been public evidence for years that the Bush administration approved “rules of engagement” that permitted executions and targeted killings of suspected insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read on.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Cheney Sweats Out the Summer

By Ray McGovern
July 14, 2009

So far the summer has been mild in the Washington, D.C., area. But for former Vice President Dick Cheney the temperature is well over 100 degrees. He is sweating profusely, and it is becoming increasingly clear why.

Read on.

The CIA's Ghosts of Tegucigalpa

By Jerry Meldon
July 14, 2009

Billy Joya, security adviser to Honduras’s post-coup-d’etat President Roberto Micheletti, offered the following explanation for the armed forces’ June 28 insurrection ousting democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya:

Read on.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Bush Spying Relied on Faulty Theories

By Jason Leopold
July 12, 2009

George W. Bush justified his warrantless wiretapping by relying on Justice Department attorney John Yoo’s theories of unlimited presidential wartime powers, and started the spying operation even before Yoo issued a formal opinion, a government investigation discovered.

Read on.

Honduran Coup Blamed on Militarism

By Sherwood Ross
July 12, 2009

Oscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica and the man who will serve as mediator of the crisis in Honduras, wrote in a July 10 op-ed in the Miami Herald, “This coup demonstrates, once more, that the combination of powerful militaries and fragile democracies creates a terrible risk.”

Read on.

WPost's 'Select Few' Dine on Health Bill

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
July 11, 2009

If you want to know what really matters in Washington, don't go to Capitol Hill for one of those hearings, or pay attention to those staged White House "town meetings." They're just for show.

Read on.

Friday, July 10, 2009

CIA's History of Lying to Congress

By Lisa Pease
July 10, 2009

On TV this week, with a measure of disbelief in their voices, the pundits ask, did the CIA lie to or deliberately mislead Congress? How is that not a rhetorical question?

Read on.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Ancient Israeli Myths Deter Peace

By Robert Parry
July 9, 2009

The rationale for formally designating Israel a Jewish state – as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now demands – rests on three religious-political pillars: God’s purported covenant with Moses instructing the ancient Israelites to conquer the land, the injustice of the Roman-era Diaspora that supposedly removed them centuries later, and the brutal persecution of European Jews in the Holocaust.

Read on.

Confronting a Torture Judge

By Cynthia Papermaster and Susan Harman
July 8, 2009

It's a problem that Jay Bybee is a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. How can he serve as a judge when he seriously violated the laws against inhumane treatment of detainees and gave legal approval to interrogation techniques that amount to torture.

Read on.

Inviting George Bush to Talk Torture

By Ray McGovern
July 8, 2009 (Letter was sent July 2, 2009)

Dear President Bush,

With this note I hope to make sure you know that I have been invited by the Dallas Peace Center to lecture next Thursday evening, July 9, at a dinner at FunAsia in Richardson. You and Mrs. Bush are cordially invited.

Read on.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Is Texas Harboring Torture Decider?

By Ray McGovern
July 7, 2009

Seldom does a crime scene have so clear a smoking gun. A two-page presidential memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002, leaves no room for uncertainty regarding the “decider” on torture. His broad-stroke signature made torture official policy.

Read on.

Obama's Iran Peace Talk Dilemma

By Robert Parry
July 7, 2009

Before the disputed June 12 election, Iran’s senior leadership – speaking through backchannel intermediaries – outlined a possible framework for Middle East peace that foresaw a significant role for Russia and that raised hopes within the Obama administration.

Read on.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Iraq Still Facing the Abyss

By Ivan Eland
July 7, 2009

The Iraq War has been long forgotten and treated as a “mission abolished” after the new President pledged to withdraw U.S. forces and the American media, public and Congress turned their attention back to a war even liberals could love (or at least support) — Afghanistan.

Read on.