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The Logic of the 9/11 Trials, the Madness of the Military Commissions

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

TruthOut - By Andy Worthington - Nov. 19 (Opinion) - the very existence of a two-tier judicial system should be enough to set alarm bells ringing, as it suggests - quite correctly, I believe - that the government is hedging its bets when it comes to justice, proceeding with federal court trials when it believes that it will secure successful prosecutions, and reserving the commissions for other cases in which it fears that it may fail, because the evidence is not only contaminated by the use of torture, but is also weak.

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Second Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Arar

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

Harper's - By Scott Horton - Nov. 03 (Editorial) - The majority, Calabresi charges, “engaged in extraordinary judicial activism.” Its activism was aimed at extricating political actors from a precarious predicament and keeping the door firmly shut on what may well be the darkest chapter in the entire history of the Justice Department.

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Obama administration seeks to block wiretap suit

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Devlin Barrett - Oct. 31 (News Report) - The Justice Department invoked the state secrets privilege Friday to try to stop a lawsuit over Bush-era wiretapping -- the first time the Obama administration has done so under its new policy on such cases. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision in a California lawsuit challenging the warrantless wiretapping program begun after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

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ACORN and Accountability

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

The Nation - By Christopher Hayes - Sep. 23 (News Analysis) - With the notable exception of handing over $700 billion to Wall Street last year, the United States Congress is not known for quick, decisive action. But recently, in a resounding bipartisan vote, members of both houses voted to deny federal dollars to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Over the past fifteen years, ACORN and its affiliates have received on average about $3.5 million a year from the government, or approximately one-millionth of this year's budget. The votes came just a few days after the release of a series of (now infamous) videos in which young right-wing activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles pose as a pimp and a prostitute. They take a hidden camera to a number of ACORN tax preparation offices around the country seeking tax and business advice. (Why a pimp and prostitute? Who the hell knows. Neither answered my request for an interview.) The undercover duo provoked responses from ACORN staff that ranged from the unconscionable (an employee in Baltimore reacting to O'Keefe's plan to bring in thirteen Salvadoran girls as prostitutes with the suggestion he claim some as dependents) to the obviously sketchy (a Brooklyn tax adviser suggesting the couple put their cash profits in a can and bury it in the backyard) to the praiseworthy (the ACORN offices in Philadelphia called the cops and filed a police report)--O'Keefe and Giles haven't seen fit to post that tape. Mostly, though, the tapes are a testament to what might be called the Borat Effect: human beings' intense socialization to be helpful and not rock the boat, even when confronted with someone doing something objectionable, outrageous or preposterous.

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Sam Stein Discusses Cheney 2012, Condoleeza Rice's Afghanistan Comments On Rachel Maddow Show (VIDEO)

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

Huffington Post - By Huff TV - Sep. 23 (News Analysis) - Huffington Post political reporter Sam Stein weighed in on Condoleeza Rice's comments on Afghanistan during his appearance Tuesday evening on The Rachel Maddow Show.

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Flushing Blackwater

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

The Nation - By Jeremy Scahill - Aug. 26 (Investigative Report) - Blackwater, the private mercenary company owned by Erik Prince, has been thrust back into the spotlight by a series of stunning revelations about its role in covert US programs. Since at least 2002, Blackwater has worked for the CIA in Afghanistan and Pakistan on "black" contracts. On August 19, the New York Times revealed that the company was, in fact, a central part of a secret CIA assassination program that Dick Cheney allegedly ordered concealed from Congress. The paper then reported that Blackwater remains a key player in the widening air war in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where it arms drone aircraft. These disclosures follow allegations--made under oath by former Blackwater employees--that Prince murdered or facilitated the murder of potential government informants and that he "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe."

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Bill Moyers Journal . CRITICAL CONDITION

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Bill Moyers Journal - Aug. 21 (Review) - THE JOURNAL presents CRITICAL CONDITION, a documentary in which ordinary hard-working Americans tell their stories of battling critical illnesses without health insurance. They discover that being uninsured can cost them their jobs, health, homes, savings, and even their lives. The country spends more than $2 trillion a year — over $6,000 per person — on health care, yet is the only major industrial nation without universal coverage. Between 45 and 47 million Americans live without health insurance, and 80 percent of them are from working families who either cannot afford insurance premiums or lose their insurance exactly when they need it most: when they fall ill and can no longer work. America ranks 24th in life expectancy, 28th in preventing infant mortality and 19th in halting preventable deaths.

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"The Dark Sahara: America's War on Terror in Africa"

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Jeremy Keenan, Amy Goodman - Aug. 06 (Interview) - He traces AFRICOM, the US military command in Africa, to a 2003 kidnapping of European tourists. The hostage taking was widely blamed on Islamic militants thought to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, but Keenan argues that the Bush administration and the Algerian government were the ones responsible.

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Bush's Conspiracy to Riot

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Aug. 05 (Opinion) - As the American Right celebrates its success in disrupting “town hall” meetings where congressional Democrats try to discuss health-care reform with constituents, the ugly precedent for these hooligan tactics is the Republican-organized riot in Miami that stopped a recount in Election 2000.

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t r u t h o u t | Supreme Court Opens Door to Possibility of Corporate Political Spending

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Reid Wilson - Jun. 30 (News Analysis) - Campaign finance watchdogs are concerned that a little-seen order issued on the Supreme Court's final day could lead to tens of millions of corporate dollars being spent on television advertising - an ad blitz candidates would have difficulty countering.

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Bush's Shocking Biblical Prophecy Emerges: God Wants to "Erase" Mid-East Enemies "Before a New Age Begins"

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

AlterNet - By Clive Hamilton - May. 25 (News Analysis) - The revelation this month in GQ Magazine that Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary embellished top-secret wartime memos with quotations from the Bible prompts a question. Why did he believe he could influence President Bush by that means? The answer may lie in an alarming story about George Bush's Christian millenarian beliefs that has yet to come to light.

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Coleman A "Hypocrite," I Would Waterboard Cheney (VIDEO)

Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - May. 12 (Opinion) - Claiming that he was water-boarded as part of Navy Seal training he received during the Vietnam War era, Ventura says: [Water-boarding] is torture... It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you -- I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

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In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Their Past Use

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

New York Times - By Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti - Apr. 22 (Special Report) - The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

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Obama's Transparency Promise: We're Still Waiting | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

eff.org - By David L. Sobel - Apr. 19 (Special Report) - When President Obama – in one of his first official acts – committed his new administration to an "unprecedented" level of transparency, EFF applauded the change in policy. Likewise, when Attorney General Holder, at the President's direction, issued new guidelines liberalizing agency implementation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), we welcomed it as a "particularly promising development." But we also noted that it remained to be seen whether reality would match the rhetoric as the new policy was applied, particularly in the context of pending lawsuits – several of which EFF is pursuing – that challenge Bush-era decisions to withhold requested information. Unfortunately, the early indicators are not encouraging. Last week, the Justice Department told a federal judge (PDF) in Washington that the FBI – despite the new Holder FOIA guidelines – will not be altering its previous decision to withhold a substantial amount of information concerning its massive Investigative Data Warehouse (IDW), which the Bureau describes as "the FBI’s single largest repository of operational and intelligence information." The database contains hundreds of millions of records and has been characterized as an "uber-Google."

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Bush's Hypocrisy on War Crimes

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Jason Leopold - Apr. 16 (Opinion) - Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the BBC, “The Geneva Convention is very clear on the rules for treating prisoners. They're not supposed to be tortured or abused, they're not supposed to be intimidated, they're not supposed to be made public displays of humiliation or insult, and we're going to be in a position to hold those Iraqi officials who are mistreating our prisoners accountable, and they've got to stop.” On March 25, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld added, “In recent days, the world has witnessed further evidence of their [Iraqi] brutality and their disregard for the laws of war. Their treatment of coalition POWs is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.”

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Anatomy of Bush's Torture 'Paradigm'

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

Consortium News - By Ray McGovern - Apr. 14 (Opinion) - The prose of the recently leaked report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on torture seems colorless. It is at the same time obscene — almost pornographic.

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Obama Administration Embraces Bush Position on Warrantless Wiretapping and Secrecy | Electronic Frontier Foundation

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

eff.org - Apr. 06 (Press Release) - The Obama administration formally adopted the Bush administration's position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency's (NSA's) warrantless wiretapping program, filing a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA late Friday. In Jewel v. NSA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is challenging the agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans. The Obama Justice Department claims in its motion that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets." These are essentially the same arguments made by the Bush administration three years ago in Hepting v. AT&T, EFF's lawsuit against one of the telecom giants complicit in the NSA spying. "President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a 'secret' that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again."

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AIG Exec Whines About Public Anger, and Now We're Supposed to Pity Him? Yeah, Right

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Smirking Chimp - By Matt Taibbi - Mar. 27 (Opinion) - Like a lot of people, I read Wednesday's New York Times editorial by former AIG Financial Products employee Jake DeSantis, whose resignation letter basically asks us all to reconsider our anger toward the poor overworked employees of his unit. DeSantis has a few major points. They include: 1) I had nothing to do with my boss Joe Cassano's toxic credit default swaps portfolio, and only a handful of people in our unit did; 2) I didn't even know anything about them; 3) I could have left AIG for a better job several times last year; 4) but I didn't, staying out of a sense of duty to my poor, beleaguered firm, only to find out in the end that; 5) I would be betrayed by AIG senior management, who promised we would be rewarded for staying, but then went back on their word when they folded in highly cowardly fashion in the face of an angry and stupid populist mob. I have a few responses to those points. They are 1) Bullshit; 2) bullshit; 3) bullshit, plus of course; 4) bullshit. Lastly, there is 5) Boo-Fucking-Hoo. You dog. AIGFP only had 377 employees. Those 400-odd folks received almost $3.5 billion in compensation in the last seven years, a very large part of that money coming from the sale of credit default protection. Doing the math, that averages out to over $9 million of compensation per person.

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Bush Adm. Weighed Restricting 1st Amendment

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Newsweek - By Michael Isikoff - Mar. 04 (News Report) - In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday.

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Once You See What Truly Happened in Gaza, it Will Change You Forever

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

AlterNet - By Media Benjamin - Feb. 19 (Advocacy) - For those of you who want to get a better sense of the Israeli occupation of Gaza... PLEASE read Media Benjamin's personal experience. I completely identified with it. When one finally sees or witnesses how Palestinians are treated, it really does changes your perceptions forever. CAUTION: GRAPHIC PICTURES INCLUDED.

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Bipartisanship Is All but Dead

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Newsweek - By Jonathan Alter - Feb. 18 (News Analysis) - Say sayonara to "kumbaya." Bipartisanship is all but dead in Washington. President Obama cut a deal to win passage of his necessary—if not sufficient—stimulus bill with the last three moderate Republicans in Congress. But his effort to put a true conservative, Judd Gregg, in his cabinet turned out to be a bridge too far. While Obama wins points for coming across as a gracious and accommodating leader, his dream of a less polarized politics has been deferred—at least until he builds a new mass movement of independent voters with the help of the Terminator. Before I explain what California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has to do with the detoxification of Washington, let's briefly review how the purple dream went bust. After the economy tanked last fall, every sentient economist, including the top economic advisers to Ronald Reagan and John McCain, knew that we needed a large stimulus to avoid a depression. It looked like the new president would get at least a handful of GOP members of the House and as many as 20 Senate Republicans.

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Don't miss a credit card payment, or the APR could soar - Los Angeles Times

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By David Lazarus - Feb. 18 (Investigative Report) - Even in the best of times, carrying a balance on your credit card is a risky -- and costly -- proposition. These days, it can be downright foolish, at least if there's a chance you might miss a payment or two. Millions of cardholders have recently received letters from the likes of Citibank, Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and American Express Co. notifying them that their interest rates are going up, in some cases to 30% if a single payment is missed. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the nation's largest issuer of plastic, has begun charging hundreds of thousands of cardholders a $10 monthly fee for having carried large balances for more than a couple years. Why? In part it's because default rates are rising and banks are dealing with additional risk. But lawmakers and consumer advocates say the higher rates also reflect banks' massive losses from betting wrong on the housing boom, and they're basically sticking credit card customers

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Iraq sells its uranium to Canadian company

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Agence France-Presse - By Staff Report - Feb. 17 (News Report) - Iraq has sold its 550 tonnes of uranium concentrate or "yellow cake", built up by former dictator Saddam Hussein, to Cameco of Canada for 90 million dollars, the government said on Tuesday.

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The $4.7 trillion pyramid

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Harper's - By Michael Hudson - Feb. 13 (Special Report) - Social Security, formerly the “third rail” of American politics, has now been trod upon, in rather dramatic fashion, by George W. Bush. Given that the maneuver is both stupid and unnecessary, one must ask why. After all, the program's alleged deficiencies, if there are any, will not manifest themselves until at least 2018. This is not quite the same as worrying about the sun's eventual collapse into a black hole, but for most politicians a problem that lies thirteen years in the future is nearly the same thing. Clearly all is not what it seems. Bush himself offers two reasons for the present boldness. The first—that Social Security is “in crisis”—is easily dismissed. Government actuaries, backed by economists from across the political spectrum, insist there is no funding problem. The Social Security Administration will take in more money than it pays out for the next thirteen years; it has built up a reserve of $1.8 trillion in interest-bearing Treasury bonds for the years after that; and any later shortfall can be covered easily by even a partial rollback of the recent tax cuts for the rich. Bush's second argument sounds more promising. If the American people will simply follow his plan, he says, they too will become rich.

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How to Save Capitalism: Fundamental fixes for a collapsing system (Harper's Magazine)

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Harper's - By Michael Hudson - Feb. 13 (Special Report) - If the financial debacles of the past decade—the enormous bubbles, the credit collapse and its trillion-dollar consequences—have taught us anything about the American economy, it is that capitalists have done a remarkably poor job of safeguarding the future of capitalism. Our system became so dominated by finance, insurance, and real estate, and by the complex derivative securities these industries engendered, that the most eminent financiers (and their unsleeping computers) were unable to protect us from economic shocks. For a number of years, farsighted commentators—including in this magazine—warned of the looming credit collapse, and yet the masters of our economy took no action until the crisis was already upon us. Now we must not only repair our tenuous financial system but shore it up to withstand two great, gathering storms: dwindling energy supplies and accelerating climate change. To this end, Harper’s Magazine asked a group of leading economic thinkers to offer sweeping but concrete proposals for the rescue of capitalism, and capitalists, from doom.

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