NewsTrust - All Rated Stories

Obama and the Left's Old Schism

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Oct. 18 (Opinion) - However, another branch of progressives – let’s call them the “pragmatists” – recognize the daunting challenges that a liberal politician faces in the United States because the Right has built such a powerful propaganda apparatus, dominating the message reaching the American people through newspapers, magazines, books, cable TV, talk radio and the Internet. When a liberal politician also has to deal with careerist mainstream journalists who bend to the right for self-protection – think CNN – “pragmatic” progressives agree that it is unrealistic to expect perfection from someone trying to advance a reformist agenda and maybe win the next election.

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Robert Novak Was a Liar

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Aug. 20 (Special Report) - Washington’s punditocracy is in mourning over the death of right-wing columnist Robert Novak, with many warm remembrances about his outsized personality and his supposed love of reporting. But Novak often served as a dishonest propagandist and would have been condemned in a healthy journalistic world.

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Cheney's New Gambit

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Ray McGovern - Aug. 16 (Opinion) - The stenographers of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) are missing the most obvious explanation for former Vice President Dick Cheney’s widely reported “disappointment” with former President George W. Bush on the issue of pardons -- self-interest.

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Ellsberg's Hiroshima Remembrance

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Daniel Ellsberg - Aug. 07 (Opinion) - I had a sense of dread, a feeling that something very ominous for humanity had just happened. A feeling, new to me as an American, at 14, that my country might have made a terrible mistake. I was glad when the war ended nine days later, but it didn’t make me think that my first reaction on Aug. 6 was wrong.

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Obama Lawyers Shield Cheney on Leak

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Jason Leopold - Jul. 22 (News Report) - The Obama administration asserted a legal argument that a federal judge called the Jon Stewart “Daily Show exemption,” as the Justice Department continued a court fight to protect ex-Vice President Dick Cheney from disclosures about his role in the leak of a CIA officer’s identity six years ago.

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Obama, They Want You to Fail

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Jun. 29 (Comment) - The pattern of belligerent Republicans and timid Democrats is now repeating itself on health-care reform. Democrats first excluded from the debate the one measure that probably could save significant money – a single-payer system – and they now appear poised to trade away Obama’s proposal for a “public option” to possibly garner a couple of Republican votes.

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The Disappointing Leon Panetta

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Melvin A. Goodman - Jun. 19 (Opinion) - CIA Director Leon Panetta is continuing the culture of cover-up that has plagued the Agency for the past three decades, ever since William Casey and Robert Gates collaborated in the 1980s to hide the crimes of Iran-Contra and to politicize sensitive intelligence.

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Ronald Reagan: Worst President Ever?

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Jun. 03 (Opinion) - there’s a growing realization that the starting point for many of the catastrophes confronting the United States today can be traced to Reagan’s presidency. There’s also a grudging reassessment that the “failed” presidents of the 1970s – Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter – may deserve more credit for trying to grapple with the problems that now beset the country.

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Will Obama End 'War on Drugs'?

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Sherwood Ross - May. 31 (Opinion) - Efforts by President Obama to put an end to the nation’s failed “War on Drugs” can’t come an hour too soon – if that’s his intent. From his actions, it’s hard to know.

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Colin Powell Skates Free on Torture

Mon, 25 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - May. 25 (Opinion) - For a Washington press corps that has been up in arms challenging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the CIA obscured key details of the harsh interrogations from congressional leaders, it was impressive to see how little skepticism was evinced by Powell’s claim of ignorance from his seat on Bush’s Principals Committee.

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The Risk of Letting Ukraine into NATO

Thu, 21 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Ivan Eland - May. 21 (Opinion) - the admission of Ukraine is not in the interests of Russia, the United States, or, surprisingly, even the Ukraine. Along with the U.S. grab for influence over Caspian Sea oil and gas pipelines and the proposed installation of missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic, the admission of the Ukraine would naturally make Russia feel encircled. Even for the United States, however, pledging to defend Ukraine under Article V of the NATO Treaty is a really bad idea.

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Obama's Warfare State

Thu, 21 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Sherwood Ross - May. 21 (News Analysis) - Although the United States is not in imminent danger of attack from any country, President Barack Obama’s first budget further expands the Pentagon’s already dominant global operations.

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Obama's Shaky Ground on Torture

Fri, 01 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - May. 01 (News Analysis) - Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, praises Obama for releasing four memos that laid out a detailed “manual” for abusing “war on terror” detainees, but says the President now has no real choice but to support prosecution for these openly acknowledged criminal acts.

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US News Media Fails America, Again

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Apr. 13 (Opinion) - Watching Glenn Beck of Fox News rant about “progressive fascism” – and muse about armed insurrection – or listening to mainstream pundits prattle on about Barack Obama as the “most polarizing President ever,” it is hard to escape the conclusion that today’s U.S. news media represents a danger to the Republic.

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Israeli Scholar Disputes Founding Myth

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Morgan Strong - Apr. 12 (Special Report) - In When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?, Dr. Sand, an expert on European history at the University of Tel Aviv, says the Diaspora was largely a myth – that the Jews were never exiled en masse from the Holy Land and that many European Jewish populations converted to the faith centuries later. Thus, Sand argues, many of today’s Israelis who emigrated from Europe after World War II have little or no genealogical connection to the land. According to Sand’s historical analysis, they are descendents of European converts, principally from the Kingdom of the Khazars in eastern Russia, who embraced Judaism in the Eighth Century, A.D.

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Conyers Again Seeks Bush Prosecutor

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Jason Leopold - Apr. 06 (News Report) - The new version of Conyers’s report adds more details about the alleged crimes of the Bush administration and cites international laws against torture that require the U.S. to immediately launch a wide-ranging probe to determine whether torture laws were broken “The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment (Torture Convention), ratified by the United States in 1994, appears to require the United States to investigate possible torture committed within its jurisdiction,” Conyers’s report says. “Moreover, the statement of Susan J. Crawford, the convening authority for military commissions, that: 'We tortured [Mohammed al-Qahtani],' along with other public materials that describe aspects of that interrogation, provide 'reasonable grounds' to believe that torture was committed there.”

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Leahy Faults GOP Partisanship on Bush

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Jason Leopold - Apr. 03 (News Report) - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said the refusal of Republicans to act in a non-partisan way has hobbled his plan for a “truth commission” that would examine alleged Bush administration abuses.

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WPost Is a Neocon Propaganda Sheet

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Mar. 15 (Special Report) - Rather than a newspaper committed to the truth and favoring a broad debate about important issues, the Washington Post has become an enforcement mechanism for a neocon-dominated Establishment, setting the parameters for permissible points of view and twisting facts for that purpose.

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The Neocons Strike Back

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Mar. 11 (Opinion) - What the successful neocon campaign against Freeman also showed was that there is little media power at the national level to defend a public figure who comes under sustained assault of this type. Several articles defending Freeman appeared on the Internet, and the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity published a supportive letter, but those efforts paled in comparison to the neocon barrage.

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Bush Boasted about Tortured Captive

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Jason Leopold - Mar. 08 (Special Report) - 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.

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War Crimes and Double Standards

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Mar. 06 (Opinion) - By all accounts, Kristof is a well-meaning journalist who travels to dangerous parts of the world, like Darfur, to report on human rights crimes. However, he also could be a case study of what’s wrong with American journalism. While Kristof writes movingly about atrocities that can be blamed on Third World despots like Bashir, he won’t hold U.S. officials to the same standards

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Justice Memos Gave Bush Total Power

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Jason Leopold - Mar. 03 (News Report) - 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.

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Can You Trust the Republicans?

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Feb. 28 (Opinion) - One of the most telling responses to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll was what people said in answering Question 44: “Do you think [Republicans] opposed [the stimulus bill] mostly because they thought it would be bad for the economy or mostly for political reasons?” Sixty-three percent of respondents cited “political reasons” and only 29 percent believed the “not good for the economy” explanation from the Republicans. This two-to-one margin suggests that the Republicans are suffering from a serious credibility gap.

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Leahy, Pelosi Differ on Bush Inquiry

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Jason Leopold - Feb. 28 (News Report) - In one week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy says he will begin establishing a “commission of inquiry” to investigate the Bush administration’s use of torture and other abuses of power, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is objecting to his plan of granting immunity to some witnesses.

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Obama's War with the Right (& Media)

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Feb. 28 (Opinion) - Look for example at the lead stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post on Saturday. Both describe the stomach-turning 6.2 percent drop in the gross domestic product during the last quarter of 2008. Though that was the last economic quarter of the Bush administration, the stories instead were framed around Obama’s failures.

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