Feingold Backs Legalizing Same-Sex Marriages
by Dan Balz
Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a prospective 2008 presidential candidate, said yesterday that he thinks bans on same-sex marriages have no place in the nation's laws.Feingold said in an interview that he was motivated to state his position on one of the most divisive social issues in the country after being asked at a town hall meeting Sunday about a pending amendment to the Wisconsin state constitution to ban same-sex marriages. |
Homeland official arrested in online sex sting - Agency's deputy press secretary held for soliciting for a child on Internet
by AP
The deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was arrested Tuesday for using the Internet to seduce what he thought was a teenage girl, authorities said.Brian J. Doyle, 55, was arrested at his residence in Maryland on charges of use of a computer to seduce a child and transmission of harmful material to a minor. The charges were issued out of Polk County, Fla. |
Study claims ice, not water, kept Jesus afloat - University professor attempts to explain miracles with science
by Reuters
The New Testament says that Jesus walked on water, but a Florida university professor believes there could be a less miraculous explanation -- he walked on a floating piece of ice.Professor Doron Nof also theorized in the early 1990s that Moses's parting of the Red Sea had solid science behind it. |
Amnesty report claims CIA used private flights to hide terror rendition
by Rawstory.com
Amnesty International has released a report claiming that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used private aircraft operators and front companies to hide CIA rendition flights and "black site" detention facilities in foreign countries.The report includes a lengthy account drawn upon the only public testimony of detainees held at "black sites," that of three Yemeni nationals who "disappeared" in U.S. custody for more than eighteen months but were never charged with any terrorism-related offences. |
Harris names new advisors
by Larry Lipman
Rep. Katherine Harris announced Tuesday she was rebuilding her shattered campaign staff by hiring a half-dozen advisers with deep roots in conservative and religious causes.In a news release, Harris, a Republican from Longboat Key who is running against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, announced replacements for her campaign manager, communications director, fund-raising coordinator, field coordinator, and media consultant and senior advisor. She said she would announce a new pollster soon. |
Woman off hook over bumper sticker
by Chandler Brown & David Simpson
Bashing President Bush will not cost an Athens woman $100 after all.Denise Grier, who was cited in DeKalb County for her "I'm Tired of All the BUSH—" car decal, has had her case thrown out."We couldn't prosecute it," DeKalb Recorders Court Chief Judge R. Joy Walker said because Georgia's lewd decal law was ruled unconstitutional in 1990. Walker said a letter of dismissal was mailed to Grier's home last week. |
Oliver Stone: 'Media Slanders Politically-Minded Stars'
by Contactmusic.com
Movie-maker OLIVER STONE has blasted media groups who "slander" celebrities for their political comments - because intelligent stars have every right to question their leaders. The Vietnam veteran, who is a fierce opponent of the US leadership, is appalled every time a celebrity is rudely mocked for making his or her thoughts about PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH and the war in Iraq public, and he urges journalists to be more supportive. The NATURAL BORN KILLERS director says, "We're Hollywood wackos and all that stuff, left-wing... (It's) an easy and facile dismissal. "I'm still a citizen, I've served my country as a veteran, I've had many jobs before the film business. I know something of life, having lived to this age. "We have a right to speak and every time we speak: 'You're an actor, a showbusiness director,' we're making it up! "This is not a way of dealing with people. This is slander." |
Blix: Iran Years Away From Nuclear Bomb
by AP
Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Monday that Iran is a least five years away from developing a nuclear bomb, leaving time to peacefully negotiate a settlement.Blix, attending an energy conference in western Norway, said he doubted the U.S. would resort to invading Iran. |
For People and Planet
by Al Gore and David Blood
Capitalism and sustainability are deeply and increasingly interrelated. After all, our economic activity is based on the use of natural and human resources. Not until we more broadly "price in" the external costs of investment decisions across all sectors will we have a sustainable economy and society. |
When War Crimes Are Impossible
by Norman Solomon
Is President Bush guilty of war crimes?To even ask the question is to go far beyond the boundaries of mainstream U.S. media.A few weeks ago, when a class of seniors at Parsippany High School in New Jersey prepared for a mock trial to assess whether Bush has committed war crimes, a media tempest ensued. |
Returning to the Scene of the Crime: War Crimes in Iraq
by Noam Chomsky
This piece is adapted from Chapter 2 of Noam Chomsky's newest book, "Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy" (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006).In 2002, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales passed on to Bush a memorandum on torture by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). As noted by constitutional scholar Sanford Levinson: "According to the OLC, ‘acts must be of an extreme nature to rise to the level of torture… Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.'" Levinson goes on to say that in the view of Jay Bybee, then head of the OLC, "The infliction of anything less intense than such extreme pain would not, technically speaking, be torture at all. It would merely be inhuman and degrading treatment, a subject of little apparent concern to the Bush administration's lawyers." |
Forecasters predict busy hurricane season - U.S. team expects 9 Atlantic hurricanes, 5 of them major storms
by Reuters
The 2006 hurricane season will not be as ferocious as last year when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, but will still be unusually busy, a noted forecasting team said Tuesday.The Colorado State University team led by Dr. William Gray, a pioneer in forecasting storm probabilities, said it expected 17 named storms to form in the Atlantic basin during the six-month season starting in June. |
Suge Knight files for bankruptcy - Move seen as attempt to keep control of Death Row records
by Reuters
Rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight filed for bankruptcy Tuesday to avoid losing control of his Death Row Records label in a $107 million civil court judgment, his lawyers said.Knight co-founded Death Row in the early 1990s and helped launch the careers of such rap stars as Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur. |
'Don't think people ready for this,' says theater as it yanks 9/11's United 93 trailer
by AP
A New York City movie theater has pulled the trailer for ``United 93,'' which chronicles the hijacked United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11.The AMC Loews Lincoln Square 12 theater in Manhattan made the decision after viewers complained they found it too upsetting. |
So Pro-Israel That it Hurts
by Daniel Levy
A recent study entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" should serve as a wake- up call on both sides of the ocean. It is authored by two respected academics - John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government (it appeared first on the Kennedy's School's Web site, and was then published in the London Review of Books). |
McCain Lacks Votes for Guest-Worker Plan
by Suzanne Gamboa
Supporters of a guest worker program that would let illegal immigrants stay in the United States said Tuesday they don't have enough Senate votes to overcome objections from conservatives who oppose the measure on grounds it amounts to amnesty.As negotiators worked on a compromise to let those who have been here longest remain, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said a majority in the 100- member Senate support his and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's proposal to provide green cards to illegal immigrants after they've worked in the U.S. for six years. |
Global warming: What, me worry?
by Molly Ivins
On the premise that spring is too beautiful for a depressing topic like Iraq, I thought I'd take up a fun subject--global warming.Time magazine warns us to "Be Worried. Be Very Worried." On the other hand, my sister is on the Global Warming Committee of the Unitarian Church in Albuquerque, N.M. They go around replacing old light bulbs with more energy-efficient models. My money's on my sis. |
The fairy tale doctrine
by Eugene Robinson
"If only ... " used to be nothing more than the wish of a fairy tale protagonist who was out of options, as in "If only a handsome prince would arrive and save the day," or "If only a brave huntsman would happen by and perform some Abu Ghraib-style interrogation on this big, bad wolf that just ate Grandma." Now, thanks to George W. Bush and his court of wizards, "if only ... " is also a subtle yet comprehensive strategy for war-fighting, insurgency-quashing, nation-building and all the other urgent business they've bungled in Iraq. |
Where rich beget super-rich, material virtue is never a lock
by Pierre Tristam
Forbes' annual ranking of the world's billionaires -- the plutocracy's swimsuit issue -- is out along with its familiar bods: Bill Gates at the top with $50 billion, which is more than the total GDP of about 150 countries; Warren Buffet at $42 billion; Carlos Slim Helu, the Mexican-Lebanese financier, at $30 billion; the gang of five Waltons (Sam's heirs), each of whom clocks in at close to $16 billion for a sum-total of $79 billion; and so on. |
Doing battle for God easier than solving problem
by Greg Sagan
Last week U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay was mentioned prominently in another story that made the news.Last Tuesday Mr. DeLay spoke at "The War on Christians" conference during which he agreed with the central theme - that there is, indeed, a "war on Christians" in America today. He went on to say that America treats Christianity like a "second-rate superstition." |
California dreamin': How the Republicans plan to turn the Golden State red
by Ellen Terich
California may be a blue state for now, but not if the Republican Party has its way. On multiple fronts, the party of Bush and Cheney is fighting a battle to turn California red, and their tactics are just as nasty and brutish as they have been in every other battleground. |
Fitzgerald knew identity of leaker from start
by Jason Leopold
The special counsel appointed in late December 2003 to investigate the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson found out the identity of the Bush administration official who disclosed her undercover status to syndicated columnist Robert Novak just two months after the probe began. |
Feingold, John Dean: Bush scarier than Nixon
by Matthew Rothschild
Republicans made a bad mistake if they thought by holding a hearing on censure they could embarrass critics of the President.For when the Senate Judiciary Committee met on March 31 to explore Senator Feingold's censure bill, the Wisconsin Senator scored point after point. |
Lou Dobbs, now more than ever
by Susan J. Douglas
One of the Bush administration's overriding goals has been to discredit every institution that threatens the imperial presidency: Congress, the courts, the military, the electoral process, federal agencies and, last but hardly least, the press. Through its precision coordination of PR, spin, message saturation, fake news and demonization of any journalist who dared to ask questions as a terrorist-loving traitor, Team Bush enjoyed awe-inspiring success on this front for nearly two years, from 9/11 until the summer of 2003. Even though things started to fall apart then--no WMDs, no "Mission Accomplished," increasingly grisly news from Iraq--the administration persisted in its take-no-prisoners stance toward the press. |
Condi, war crimes & the press
by Robert Parry
During the three years of carnage in Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has shifted away from her now-discredited warning about a "mushroom cloud" to assert a strategic rationale for the invasion that puts her squarely in violation of the Nuremberg principle against aggressive war. |
Bush's paper trail grows
by John Prados
On March 27, The New York Times published an article based on access to the full British record of the Iraq policy conversation that President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair held on January 31, 2003, as recorded by Blair's then-national security adviser David Manning. British legal scholar Philippe Sands had already revealed this discussion in his book Lawless World, and the British television network Channel 4 had--two months ago--printed many of the same excerpts of Manning's memo, but the Times coverage focused new attention on the memo, previously ignored by the U.S. media. |
Judging the warmongers harshly
by Bill Gallagher
End the propaganda. The war in Iraq was contrived and is a horrible mistake. President George W. Bush's war minions, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, won't stop spinning even as the wretched truth overwhelms them. |
Down goes DeLay!
by Cenk Uygur
Down goes DeLay! Down goes DeLay! Down goes DeLay!The Hammer is down and out! It's a good day to be an American.If I sound festive, that's because I am. One of the cornerstones of Republican corruption and fundamentalism has been knocked out. Greed is not good. Justice does prevail. There is hope in the world. |
A nation approaching spiritual death
by Gary G. Kohls
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."Those were the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous speech on April 4, 1967, one year to the day of his1968 assassination in Memphis, Tenn. The people who heard that speech recognized it as one of the most powerful speeches ever given articulating the immorality of the Vietnam War. Some also saw that King was signing his own death warrant by exposing so forcefully the perpetrators of what Thomas Merton accurately characterized as "the overwhelming atrocity that was Vietnam." |
Woodward and Reality--UPDATED
by David Corn
After reading the below piece, Bob Woodward called to tell me that he thought that the article was "dishonest" and "unfair" and that I owed him an apology. During a calm but passionate conversation, I promised to print as long a reply as he would care to write. He said he would send something along soon. So watch this space.... |
The Devil Inside
by Bob Moser
Ralph Reed is going to own this room. Granted, it's only a standard-issue campus auditorium at Emory University, half filled at best for the annual Georgia College Republicans convention. But to the former boy wonder of evangelical politics, it looks like heavenly shelter on this drizzly February morning. The Christian Coalition co-founder's first campaign for public office--lieutenant governor of Georgia, a position Reed and his fans envision as a stepping stone to bigger things--has turned into a waking nightmare. Every week brings a new revelation about the millions in dirty money Reed earned by duping his fellow evangelicals into putting their political muscle behind "Casino Jack" Abramoff's gambling clients. Reed's huge leads in both popularity polls and fundraising have almost disappeared. Instead of making his triumphant debut as a politician, the man Time magazine called "The Right Hand of God" is fast becoming the new poster boy for Christian-right corruption. |
Hammered
by John Nichols
When he was making his name in American politics, as then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich's political enforcer, Tom DeLay was confronted by fellow Republicans who urged him to embrace a bipartisan budget compromise. Borrowing an expletive from Dick Cheney, DeLay growled, "F--k that, it's time for all-out war." |
A First: Scientists Rebuild Bladders
by AP
For the first time, scientists have rebuilt a complex human organ, the bladder, in seven young patients using live tissue grown in the lab — a breakthrough that could hold exciting promise for someday regenerating ailing hearts and other organs.Only simpler tissues — skin, bone, and cartilage — have been lab-grown in the past. This is the first time that a more intricate organ has been mostly replaced with tissue grown from the patient's own cells. |
Wife: Jesse Helms Has Dementia - 84-Year-Old Ex-Senator Has Moved Into Convalescent Center
by CBS
Former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, in increasingly poor health before and since he left office three years ago, has vascular dementia and has moved into a convalescent center near his home, his wife said."He has his good days and his bad days," Dot Helms, told The News & Observer for a story Sunday. "He still sees friends. Company is good for him. He is still signing books. But he is not able to conduct any business or make any speeches." |
America's pensions in peril — or gone
by Drew DeSilver
After flying Army helicopters in Vietnam and then piloting United Airlines jets for more than two decades, John Balkenhol of Marysville was looking forward to retiring to his Montana vacation spread.But when bankrupt United transferred its huge pension obligations to the federal government last summer, his maximum benefit was nearly halved. Now the 60-year-old Balkenhol is on the road looking for work. |
Armageddon
by John Steinberg
Major studios rarely take on Washington, and cynicism about the way the media manipulate public opinion is rarer still, but Wag the Dog told the story of a President using the invasion of another country to drown out a damaging scandal. Although the story's closest historical referent was Reagan's invasion of Grenada (which conveniently distracted Americans from the death of 241 American soldiers in a single Beirut suicide bombing), and the movie's substitution of a sex scandal for the Beirut tragedy made the story more Hollywood (and more Clinton). When life returned art's favor, and Clinton bombed an alleged chemical weapons plant in Sudan and heaved some cruise missiles into Afghanistan at a relatively unknown dissident Saudi named Osama-something, Republicans were quick to argue that Clinton's Monica troubles were the real reason for the attacks. |
U.S. Plan to Build Iraq Clinics Falters - Contractor Will Try to Finish 20 of 142 Sites
by Ellen Knickmeyer
A reconstruction contract for the building of 142 primary health centers across Iraq is running out of money, after two years and roughly $200 million, with no more than 20 clinics now expected to be completed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.The contract, awarded to U.S. construction giant Parsons Inc. in the flush, early days of reconstruction in Iraq, was expected to lay the foundation of a modern health care system for the country, putting quality medical care within reach of all Iraqis. |
Former House leader Tom DeLay to resign, succumbing to indictment and voter unrest
by AP
Succumbing to scandal, former Majority Leader Tom Delay intends to resign from Congress within weeks, closing out a career that blended unflinching conservatism with a bare-knuckled political style.Republican officials said Monday night they expect the Texan to quit his seat later this spring. He was first elected in 1984, and conceded he faced a difficult race for re-election. ``He has served our nation with integrity and honor,'' said Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who succeeded DeLay in his leadership post earlier this year. |
