Of Tea Parties and Teleprompters
by David Michael Green
Is it possible that the regressive right has, given its electoral unraveling of late, decided to swap the whole politics thing for vaudeville?‘Cause if it hasn't, I'm really having a hell of a hard time explaining what's going on with these guys.I mean, I've seen circus acts that were less hilarious. So I'm assuming that the right has simply decided to become a sort of public service provider in this most depressing at times. Presumably, they got together and concluded that if they couldn't win elections, at least they could make themselves useful by treating the public to a hearty laugh. Or six. |
Correcting America's Dark Chapter of Torture
by Pierre Tristam
There's a bomb of a contradiction at the heart of what's passing for a debate on the torture regime of the past eight years. President Barack Obama calls those years of secret prisons and "enhanced interrogation techniques" a "dark and painful chapter in our history." That's not just a suggestion of something amiss. It's an admission and an indictment of wrongs, in terms that have been applied to atrocities like war crimes and slavery. The secret Bush administration memos Obama released -- the black book of those years, translating Soviet torture methods into "corrective" and "coercive techniques" like sleep deprivation, simulated drowning, beatings, starvation, hanging from hooks -- prove the point. |
US to declare public health emergency to help states deal with emerging swine flu
by Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. declared a public health emergency Sunday to deal with the emerging new swine flu, much like the government does to prepare for approaching hurricanes.Officials reported 20 U.S. cases of swine flu in five states so far, with the latest in Ohio and New York. Unlike in Mexico where the same strain appears to be killing dozens of people, cases in the United State have been mild — and U.S. health authorities can't yet explain why. |
100 Days Later, Nation Waits for FDA Overhaul
by Tom Costello
Agency is so understaffed, it inspects less than 1 percent of imported foodThe Food and Drug Administration may be the only federal agency that both political parties agree is in desperate need of an overhaul.President Barack Obama is promising action, though progress has been slow in the first 100 days. His choice to head the FDA - Dr. Margaret Hamburg - still has not been confirmed by congress. |
Torture? It Probably Killed More Americans than 9/11
by Patrick Coburn
A US major reveals the inside story of military interrogation in Iraq.The use of torture by the US has proved so counter-productive that it may have led to the death of as many US soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11, says the leader of a crack US interrogation team in Iraq. |
The Banality of Bush White House Evil
by Frank Rich
WE don’t like our evil to be banal. Ten years after Columbine, it only now may be sinking in that the psychopathic killers were not jock-hating dorks from a “Trench Coat Mafia,” or, as ABC News maintained at the time, “part of a dark, underground national phenomenon known as the Gothic movement.” In the new best seller “Columbine,” the journalist Dave Cullen reaffirms that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were instead ordinary American teenagers who worked at the local pizza joint, loved their parents and were popular among their classmates. |
Slouching Towards Oblivion
by Maureen Dowd
LOS ANGELES Maybe it’s because I’m staying at the Sunset Tower on Sunset Boulevard, but I keep thinking of newspapers as Norma Desmond.Papers are still big. It’s the screens that got small.Now that everybody can check their iPhones and laptops for news that personally interests them, now that they can Google, blog and tweet, as well as shop — and stalk — on Craigslist, old-school newspapers seem like aging silent film stars, stricken to find themselves outmoded by technology. |
Free John Walker Lindh!
by Dave Lindorff
Enough is enough. It's time to free John Walker Lindh, poster boy for George Bush's, Dick Cheney's and John Ashcroft's "War on Terror," and quite likely first victim of these men's secret campaign of torture.Lindh is in the seventh year of a 20-year sentence for "carrying a weapon" in Afghanistan and for "providing assistance" to an enemy of the United States. The first charge is ridiculously minor (after all, it's what almost everyone in Texas does everyday). The second is actually a violation of a law intended for use against US companies that trade with proscribed countries on a government "no trade" list like Cuba or North Korea. Ordinarily, violation results in a fine for the executives involved. |
Torture: Sketching the outlines of our own societal fall
by Dennis Rahkonen
Let's connect some dots relating to a current hot topic, and see what picture clearly emerges:1) Almost everyone in the world unequivocally understands that waterboarding and associated "enhanced interrogation methods" that the Bush administration authorized and widely practiced during its tenure were absolutely illegal. |
Madam Jane predicts: Get out of Afghanistan & get out now!
by Jane Stillwater
I seem to be feeling totally ambivolent and wishy-washy regarding the United States' current occupation of Afghanistan. On the one hand, I really like and respect the MARSOC Marines who are carrying on the mission there right now and really want them to succeed. But on the other hand, war is war. Sure, war creates the ultimate in disposable consumer goods and, sure, we must protect America at all costs. And then there's that strategic oil pipeline and the Great Game with Russia to consider. But on the other hand, war is always your basic zero on a human evolutionary scale of one to ten and should only be used as a LAST RESORT -- if at all. |
George Bush's Nightmare Comes True - For Someone Else
by Dennis Jett
April 22, 2009Commentary: Fujimori's conviction should give Bush nightmaresDennis Jett | Special to McClatchy NewspapersThere was a truly remarkable news item recently that received less notice than it deserved. A former president was tried, convicted and sentenced to a long jail term for crimes committed in his government's fight against terrorism. |
Mexico and drug lords - where is El Chapo Guzman ?
by Aimee Kligman
El Chapo Guzman made Forbes 2009 billionaire's list. According to a report in the Daily News, the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel has an an estimated net worth of $1 billion.Mexico's Attorney General was not amused that Forbes decided to include a criminal in his famous list. |
23 years after Chernobyl, nuclear power is still a threat
by Mary Shaw
I am writing this on April 26, 2009, the 23rd anniversary of the tragic and deadly explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The Chernobyl disaster is widely considered to be the biggest technological and industrial disaster the world has ever known. |
