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The Scene In The House When It Happened

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

Huffington Post - By Ryan Grim - Nov. 08 (News) - The House floor erupted in one of the loudest cheers the chamber has heard in years when Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), an hour before midnight, cast the 218th and deciding vote on landmark health care reform.

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Coal ash from U.S. blamed for Dominican town's birth defects

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Frances Robles - Nov. 07 (News Report) - Villagers in the Dominican Republic claim children have been born without limbs and organs because of coal ash from a Virginia power company dumped nearby. Maximiliano Calcano is 2 and was born with no arms.

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We broke the law, admits CIA agent convicted of rendition

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

The Independent - By David Usborne - Nov. 06 (News Report) - In an interview earlier this year with an Italian newspaper, Mr Lady was candid about the seizure of the cleric. "Of course it was an illegal operation," the newspaper quoted him. "But that's our job. We're at war against terrorism".

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Gay-rights support stops at Cascades

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By Lornet Turnbull - Nov. 05 (News Report) - The lopsided results over expansion of the state's domestic-partnership law, which voters overall were approving, show the challenge supporters of gay rights face in winning over all Washingtonians as they seek full equality.

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UN Panel Criticizes Russia on Human Rights

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

sptimes.ru - Nov. 03 (News Report) - Russia fails to protect journalists, activists, prison inmates and others at odds with authorities from a wide range of abuses, including torture and murder, the UN Human Rights Committee said Friday.

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Judge OKs Challenge to Human Gene Patents

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

Wired - Nov. 03 (News Report) - A federal judge ruled Monday that a lawsuit can move forward against the Patent and Trademark Office and a research company awarded exclusive rights to human genes known to detect early signs of breast or ovarian cancer. The first-of-its-kind lawsuit

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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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Gestapo Knocks at Door of Northwestern University Journalism School

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Judge H. Lee Sarokin - Oct. 25 (Opinion) - I am always offended and annoyed with the labeling of some recent conduct or person with Nazism or Hitler or drawing analogies with the Holocaust...

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Dallas police chief: Dozens of tickets issued for not speaking English

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dallas Morning News - By Scott Goldstein - Oct. 23 (News Report) - Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle said this afternoon that his officers have written at least 39 citations to people over the past three years for not speaking English

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Northwestern Student Grades Subpoenaed by State for Anthony McKinney Murder Investigation

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

ABC News - By Emily Friedman - Oct. 20 (Special Report) - A group of Northwestern University journalism students who believe they found proof that exonerates a man held behind bars for 31 years are fighting requests from the Illinois state prosecutor's office that they turn over their grades and course materials as part of its investigation into the possible wrongful conviction, arguing that it would jeopardize future investigations.

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Judge Finds Abusive Gitmo Interrogations Yield False Confessions, Bad Info

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Christopher Flavelle - Oct. 15 (News Report) - A few weeks ago, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia released a declassified version of a judge’s ruling in the case of Al Rabiah, a Kuwaiti citizen who has been held at Guantanamo for seven years. The judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, found that the government could not credibly support its allegation that Al Rabiah was part of the Taliban or al-Qaida, and that the evidence against him wasn’t sufficient to justify his continued detention. She ordered the government to release Al Rabiah "forthwith."

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Jon Stewart Takes On 30 Republicans Who Voted Against Franken Rape Amendment (VIDEO)

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By The Huffington Post News Team - Oct. 15 (Comedy News) - In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers while working in Iraq and locked in a shipping container for over a day...

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Law change needed to cover climate exiles

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - By Olesya Dmitracova - Oct. 15 (Special Report) - International law is unfit to deal with the millions of people expected to flee their home countries to escape droughts and floods intensified by climate change, a group of lawyers said on Thursday.

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Spending Bill Includes Provision to Block Release of Abuse Photos

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By by: Jason Leopold, - Oct. 10 (News Report) - Conferees on the Senate and House Appropriations Committees released a Homeland Security spending bill summary, which includes a provision that would allow President Obama to authorize "the Secretary of Defense to bar the release of detainee photos," essentially exempting the images from Freedom of Information Act requests.

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Defunding The Real Criminal Enterprises

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

OurFuture.org - By Brian Dockstader - Oct. 09 (Opinion) - While conservatives ravenously pounced on the opportunity to defund the network of community organizations committed to helping and empowering low-income communities (most egregiously by trying to help them participate in their own democracy), they happily and predictably turned a blind eye to the mass levels of fraud, criminality and assorted malfeasance that have been committed by their dear corporate benefactors over the years.

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Why women might make better judges

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Stephen Choi, Mitu Gulati, Mirya Holman, Eric Posner - Oct. 05 (Opinion) - Justice Sonia Sotomayor's elevation to the Supreme Court brought to the surface a long-simmering controversy about the relationship between gender and judging. Are female nominees for judicial positions chosen based on affirmative action? If so, are women on the bench worse judges than men—or do they come with advantages that men lack? This controversy has legs. If Justice Ginsburg is forced to retire this term because of illness, reducing the number of female justices from two to one, there will be a great deal of pressure on President Obama to nominate another female jurist. Or if Justice John Paul Stevens retires, why not three women on the high court?

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Megrahi papers claim US paid key Lockerbie witness

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Matthew Weaver, Severin Carrell - Oct. 02 (News Report) - Claim refers to concerns raised about safety of Libyan?s conviction for Lockerbie bombing in 1988 The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing released evidence today claiming to show that a key witness at his trial received payments from the US after giving evidence. The claim is made in documents published online by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in support of his attempt to clear his name of involvement in the worst terrorist attack on British soil. It refers to concerns raised by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) about the safety of Megrahi?s conviction for killing 270 people in the Lockerbie bombing on 21 December 1988. The documents would have formed part of an appeal, which Megrahi, who is terminally ill, agreed to ...

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A Cold War Man, a Hot War and a Legal Gray Area

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/29/AR2009092903840.html?hpid=topnews - Sep. 30 (News Report) - The government of Sudan, eager to curry favor with a U.S. government that accused it of genocide, sought help last fall from an unlikely source: a former Reagan administration official known for his role in the Iran-contra scandal. The approach by Sudanese officials led to a $1.3 million contract for former national security adviser Robert "Bud" McFarlane, who went on to meet with two of the Obama administration's top policymakers on Sudan and its strife-torn Darfur region, according to documents and interviews.

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The Meaning of Freedom

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Sep. 29 (Editorial) - The question is far from academic, as illustrated poignantly by the case of brothers Bahtiyar Mahnut and Arkin Mahmud. As reported by The Post's Del Quentin Wilber, the brothers are Uighurs, Chinese Muslims who face oppression, intimidation and often

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Obama to Set Higher Bar For Keeping State Secrets

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

Washington Post - By Carrie Johnson - Sep. 23 (News Report) - The Obama administration will announce a new policy Wednesday making it much more difficult for the government to claim that it is protecting state secrets when it hides details of sensitive national security strategies such as rendition and warrantless eavesdropping, according to two senior Justice Department officials.

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Jeffrey Toobin

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Colbert Report - By Jeffrey Toobin - Sep. 21 (Interview) - Jeffrey Toobin, author of "The Nine," takes Stephen inside the world of the Supreme Court and reveals whether they have secret handshakes.

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Inquiry Into CIA Practices Narrows

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Carrie Johnson, Jerry Markon, Julie Tate - Sep. 19 (News Report) - On Friday, seven former CIA directors urged President Obama to end the inquiry, arguing that it would inhibit intelligence operations in the future and demoralize agency employees who believed they had been cleared by previous investigators. "Attorney

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We must stop the 'vulture funds' that feed on the world's poor

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Sep. 18 (Opinion) - Would you ever march up to a destitute African who is shivering with Aids and demand he "pay back" tens of thousands of pounds he didn't borrow – with interest? I only ask because this is in effect happening, here, in British and American courts, time after time. Some of the richest people in the world are making profit margins of 500 per cent by shaking money out of the poorest people in the world – for debt they did not incur.

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Are Obama's judges really liberals?

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Yorker - By Jeffrey Toobin - Sep. 16 (Special Report) - The Obama Administration wanted to send a message with the President’s first nomination to a federal court. “There was a real conscious decision to use that first appointment to say, ‘This is a new way of doing things. This is a post-partisan choice,’ ”

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US Court Dismisses Iraqi Contractor Torture Case

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - By James Vicini - Sep. 16 (News Report) - A federal appeals court on Friday dismissed a lawsuit against two U.S. defense contractors by Iraqi torture victims, saying the companies had immunity as government contractors. The lawsuit was filed in 2004 on behalf of Iraqi nationals who say they or their relatives had been tortured or mistreated while detained by the U.S. military at the Abu Ghraib prison.

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