NewsTrust - Bush Administration - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

Army Suicides Hit Record and Will Likely Continue to Rise

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By Yana Kunichoff - Nov. 19 (News Report) - Suicides among veterans and soldiers have reached a record high this year and are set to continue rising, Pentagon officials said.

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The Republican War Against ACORN

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Jason Leopold - Sep. 27 (News Report) - In recent days, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other major news outlets have recounted the "troubled" history of the poor people's advocacy group ACORN, but left out the five-year anti-ACORN campaign led by White House adviser Karl Rove and other Republican operatives.

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Meet the Hazzards

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Nomi Prins, Christopher Hayes - Sep. 23 (Special Report) - As we mark the end of the first year of the financial bailout, the public seems to regard the government's actions with a toxic combination of rage and confusion. People are pissed off but too bewildered to know what to do with that anger. The confusion isn't an accident. The government hasn't exactly been forthcoming about how it's made buckets of money available to the banking sector. When it does disclose some information--such as in July's SIGTARP report from the Treasury or the Federal Reserve's weekly balance sheet--it's in the form of intimidating descriptions, accounting mumbo jumbo and technical reports that do little to illuminate just what the hell is going on. What's worse, banks and the establishment press have portrayed TARP as the sum of the banking industry's federal subsidies. An August 30 New York Times article, "As Banks Repay Bailout Money, U.S. Sees a Profit," gives the impression that taxpayers should be happy to have made $4 billion on the deal, as if our checks were in the mail. But when the government became Wall Street's bank, it wasn't just $700 billion of TARP money that flew north to Wall Street. TARP was but a small fraction (roughly 4 percent) of the full $17.5 trillion bailout and subsidization of the financial sector. [See image.] The details of this total bailout are complicated, but the basic mechanisms aren't beyond the average citizen's grasp. We're going to walk you through it.

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Obama formalizes Bush policy on digital searches and seizures

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

wsws.org - By Tom Eley - Sep. 01 (News) - The Obama administration disclosed on August 27 that it will carry on Bush administration policies that allowed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to seize and search international travelers' laptop computers, cellular phones, cameras, and other electronic devices, even in the absence of suspicion of criminal activity.

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Cheney Still Manipulating People -- Now In Public

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Dan Froomkin - Aug. 31 (News Analysis) - When he was vice president, Dick Cheney got his way by secretly wielding the instruments of power. Now that he's no longer in government, Cheney is still pulling levers and pushing buttons - he's just doing it in plain view. And it's the media that he's manipulating.

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Novak Without Tears

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Eric Alterman - Aug. 26 (Special Report) - Journalist and television personality Robert Novak died August 18. I think it's time to do him the honor of taking his life's work seriously. I got to know Novak a bit in the late 1980s while writing a magazine profile of him, and another of his then-colleague John McLaughlin while researching a book on the history of punditry. I found myself immune to Novak's charms--as he was to mine--but I don't begrudge the fact that many people in Washington did not. Novak was an extremely popular figure within the capital; and while I extend his close friends and family my sincere sympathy, as a historian of journalism I worry that his myriad personal connections may have the effect of obscuring the historical record with regard to his actions. With that in mind, here are a few aspects of Mr. Novak's career that have received short shrift during the past week:

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After 6+ Years at Guantanamo, Mohamed Jawad Returns Home

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS, Amy Goodman, Jonathan Landay - Aug. 25 (News Report) - A young Afghan prisoner has returned to Afghanistan following his release from Guantanamo Bay. Mohamed Jawad arrived in Kabul on Monday. He was ordered freed last month after more than six years at Guantanamo. He was as young as twelve at the time of his capture and was tortured and threatened into confessing to throwing a grenade at a US soldier.

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Eight Years After Orchestrating Massacre at Dasht-e-Leili, Afghan Warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum Returns to Afghanistan to Campaign for Karzai

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Sharif Abdel Kouddous - Aug. 18 (News Report) - One of Afghanistan’s most feared warlords has returned to Afghanistan just days before its presidential election. General Abdul Rashid Dostum is one of several warlords who have allied with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is seeking a new term. Karzai is hoping Dostum’s return will help attract ethnic Uzbek voters. Dostum’s return to prominence in Afghanistan comes despite his role overseeing a 2001 massacre at Dasht-e-Leili that left at least 2,000 Taliban POWs dead. He’s also had extensive ties with the US and was formerly on the CIA payroll.

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"All Roads Lead to Rove"

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, David Iglesias - Aug. 13 (News Analysis) - Documents released by Congress this week offer powerful new evidence that Karl Rove and other senior Bush administration figures took the lead in the firing of nine US attorneys in 2006. We speak to former New Mexico US attorney David Iglesias, who was fired after refusing Republican pressure to take on allegations of voter fraud and pursue cases against Democrats to help a Republican lawmaker’s re-election campaign.

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Rove Personally Pressed for Iglesias Firing

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Talking Points Memo - By Zachary Roth - Aug. 12 (News Analysis) - Karl Rove claimed recently that he and his staff acted merely as a conduit for passing on concerns about David Iglesias. But it's now clear that Rove's office pushed from 2005 for Iglesias to be canned, and was intimately involved in the decision.

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McGovern: 'Downing Street' (Part 2)

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Ray McGovern - Aug. 10 (News Report) - McGovern: 'Downing Street' (Part 2) By TheRealNews.com August 10, 2009 The leak of the Downing Street Minutes – written in July 2002 and disclosed three years later – was an “incredible” public service by a brave British truth-teller exposing how the Bush administration “fixed” the intelligence to justify invading Iraq, says former CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

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The Many Layers of Nahalat Shimon beg the question: Where's the money coming from?

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

arabisto.com - By Eileen Fleming - Aug. 09 (Special Report) - Last Sunday morning just before sunrise, Israeli forces evicted seventy more Palestinians from their homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, which is being taken over by the Nahalat Shimon settlers. "The events in Sheikh Jarrah garnered international censure from the European Union, the United Nations (UN) and from Britain, which said it was 'appalled' at the move. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday night called the Israeli evictions "deeply regrettable" and she urged "the government of Israel and municipal officials to refrain from such provocative actions."

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Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Jeremy Scahill - Aug. 04 (News) - Sworn statements filed in Federal Court allege that Blackwater founder Erik Prince launched a "crusade" to eliminate Muslims and Islam and that the company may have been involved in murders to suppress information from federal investigators.

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President Carter: Many Children Were Tortured Under Bush

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Ralph Lopez - Aug. 04 (News Analysis) - President Jimmy Carter wrote that the Red Cross, Amnesty International and the Pentagon "have gathered substantial testimony of torture of children, confirmed by soldiers who witnessed or participated in the abuse." In "Our Endangered Values" Carter said that the Red Cross found after visiting six U.S. prisons "107 detainees under eighteen, some as young as eight years old." And reporter Hersh, (who broke the Abu Ghraib torture scandal,) reported 800-900 Pakistani boys aged 13 to 15 in custody.

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TARP IG Reports Underscore Need for Better Transparency in Financial Bailout

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

ombwatch.org - Jul. 29 (Investigative Report) - Two recent reports by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), Neil Barofsky, provide useful information and stand in sharp contrast to the Treasury Department's attempt to provide comparable transparency for the program, also known as TARP. One report clearly presents existing TARP information, while the other supplies new data that Treasury should be providing. In both cases, the reports highlight changes Treasury should make to how it conducts and presents TARP data. To date, TARP, the most prominent element of the larger initiative colloquially known as "the bailout," has been a relatively secretive program.

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Court Rules that CIA Committed Fraud in State Secrets Case

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

ombwatch.org - Jul. 29 (News Report) - In 2008, however, the district court learned from the Department of Justice that Brown’s cover had been lifted in 2002. Despite this change in status, the CIA continued to claim that Brown was still covert. The discovery of this lie led to the district court's most recent decision. Judge Royce Lamberth wrote that it soon became “clear … that many of the issues [of the case] are unclassified.” The ruling referred one of the CIA attorneys for disciplinary action for perpetrating fraud against the court. Five others involved in the case – three CIA attorneys, as well as Brown and Tenet – were given one month to defend themselves prior to charges of contempt or other sanctions being levied upon them. Over two hundred documents related to the case were also unsealed.

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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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Feingold Writes Holder: Investigate Bush-Era CIA Policies

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Sam Stein - Jul. 14 (News) - Senator Russ Feingold, who has played a leading private and public role in pushing for an investigation into possible illegalities under President Bush, upped his efforts on Tuesday. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the Wisconsin Democrat urged the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into recent revelations about the CIA's Bush-era interrogation program.

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The Man Who Knew Cheney's Secret

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Daily Beast - By Benjamin Sarlin - Jul. 14 (News Analysis) - Asked about the officials quoted in the Times' report who claimed that Cheney's assassination ring never became operational, Hersh offered a skeptical response. "I said what I said, they can always say what they say," Hersh told The Daily Beast. "The last time they said the government doesn’t torture; this time it's the government doesn’t assassinate."

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Bush Spying Relied on Faulty Theories

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

Consortium News - By Jason Leopold - Jul. 12 (News) - 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.

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Honduran Coup Blamed on Militarism

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

Consortium News - By Sherwood Ross - Jul. 12 (Special Report) - 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.”

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Eager to Tap Iraq's Vast Oil Reserves, Industry Execs Suggested Invasion

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Jason Leopold - Jul. 09 (Special Report) - "Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments." The advisory committee that helped prepare the report included Luis Giusti, a Shell Corp. non-executive director; John Manzoni, regional president of British Petroleum; and David O'Reilly, chief executive of ChevronTexaco.

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Detainees Were Also Murdered at Bagram in Afghanistan

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Jason Leopold - Jun. 25 (News Report) - A new report documenting the torture of more than two-dozen former prisoners held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2008 comes several months after a bipartisan Congressional committee linked the murder of two detainees held at the same prison facility to policies enacted by George W. Bush and ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

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Bill Would Boost Congressional Oversight of Covert Spy Programs

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Greg Mille - Jun. 20 (News Report) - Criticized for failing to challenge the intelligence operations of the Bush administration, key lawmakers have endorsed a bill that would force the president to make fuller disclosure of covert spy programs.

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How a Former Prisoner Took Down a Big Shot from the Private Prison Industry (and Cheney Pal)

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Paul Wright - Jun. 09 (Special Report) - Puryear's judicial nomination did not go unnoticed; it drew the attention of a former CCA prisoner turned criminal justice advocate who opposes private prisons. By conducting extensive research, securing widespread media attention, contacting members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and recruiting organizational allies, he coordinated an opposition campaign that managed to stall -- and ultimately scuttle -- Puryear's nomination.

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