The Clinton Bubble
by Robert Scheer
Has Timothy Geithner ever had lunch with a non-megamillionaire who has lost his job or home because of the banking meltdown? I ask that question after reading the list of the treasury secretary's luncheon dates when he was head of the New York Federal Reserve, a list that the government was forced to provide in response to a lawsuit. |
The Progressive Caucus and Obama
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) met with President Obama for one hour in the East Room of the White House yesterday.CPC Co-Chair, Congressman Raúl Grijalva, said that 50 of the 77 Caucus members attended, and they honed in on two major issues: their commitment to only supporting a healthcare reform bill that includes a public plan option that is "more than a gesture"; and the $83 billion war supplemental. |
Gay marriage bill passed by Senate
by Tom Fahey
Concord – A bill legalizing same-sex marriage in New Hampshire passed the Senate today on a 13-11 vote.The bill, amended on the Senate floor, draws a distinction between civil and religious marriage, and says that any two individuals have a right to join together in a civil marriage. |
Pulitzer winner: Bush was ‘just kidding’ about punishing torturers
by David Edwards and Muriel Kane
MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann was impressed on Tuesday by the apparent sincerity of former President George W. Bush’s belief that war crimes need to be promptly investigated and prosecuted.In 2003, Bush made it clear that, at least when it came to Saddam Hussein’s government, “war crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished, and it will be no defense to say, ‘I was just following orders.’” |
WHO raises pandemic alert to second-highest level
by CNN
GENEVA, Switzerland (CNN) -- The World Health Organization on Wednesday raised its pandemic alert to 5, its second-highest level, warning of widespread human infection from the swine flu outbreak that originated in Mexico.Dr. Margaret Chan, the U.N. agency's director-general, said the decision to raise the alert on the 6-point scale indicated that all countries should "immediately" activate pandemic preparedness plans. |
Conservatives order rewrite of 'insipid' citizenship guidebook
by Bruce Cheadle
OTTAWA - The current guidebook for Canadian newcomers includes two pages on environmental stewardship and barely a mention of the Canadian military - and that has Jason Kenney hopping mad.Kenney, the Conservative minister of Citizenship and Immigration, has ordered an overhaul of the 12-year-old citizenship test and accompanying educational material. |
Earliest case of swine flu tucked away in Mexico, officials say
by CNN
LA GLORIA, Mexico (CNN) -- Tucked away in this small mountain village, off a dusty road flanked by pig farms, is where the earliest case of swine flu -- a virus spreading globally -- was confirmed.Meet the child known as "patient zero" by his doctors -- 5-year-old Edgar Hernandez, who survived the earliest documented case of swine flu in an outbreak that, officials say, has now spread across four continents. |
Vice’s Secret Vices
by Maureen Dowd
In a closed-door session on Tuesday, Dick Cheney testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating the “enhanced” interrogation techniques of “high value” detainees.This columnist gained exclusive “access” to the classified testimony of the “deeply missed” former vice president. |
Washington state signs onto ‘popular vote’ compact
by Stephen C. Webster
Washington state has passed a law requiring it’s electoral college votes to be cast in favor of the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote nation-wide.“Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the bill Tuesday, but it doesn’t take effect until enough states sign on to account for 270 electoral votes - the number it takes to win the White House. Washington has 11 electoral votes,” reported the Associated Press. |
Swine Flu Crisis Lays Bare the Meat Industry's Monstrous Power
by Mike Davis
The Mexico swine flu outbreak should alert us to a highly globalised industry with global political cloutThe Mexican swine flu, a genetic chimera probably conceived in the faecal mire of an industrial pigsty, suddenly threatens to give the whole world a fever. The initial outbreaks across North America reveal an infection already travelling at higher velocity than did the last official pandemic strain, the 1968 Hong Kong flu. |
A Liberal Democrat Returns to the Fold
by John Nichols
Arlen Specter started his political life as a liberal Democrat.And now the senior senator from Pennsylvania is returning to the fold.Specter, who has served five terms in the Senate as the last of the old-school Rockefeller Republicans, has finally given up on his long, fruitless effort to maintain a moderate base within what has become a hard-right party. |
Climate Change Hitting Entire Arctic Ecosystem, Says Report
by John Vidal
Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme study tells of profound changes to sea ice and permafrost, among othersExtensive climate change is now affecting every form of life in the Arctic, according to a major new assessment by international polar scientists. |
Court Rebuffs Feds, Reinstates Torture Suit
by Bob Egelko
SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court rebuffed the Obama administration's assertion of secrecy today and reinstated a lawsuit by five men who say a Bay Area subsidiary of Boeing Co. helped the CIA fly them to foreign countries to be tortured.A lawyer from President Obama's Justice Department argued to the court in February that the issues surrounding the "extraordinary rendition," program, including government-sanctioned interrogation methods and the company's alleged connection to the CIA, were so sensitive that the very existence of the suit threatened national security. |
The GOP's 'Specter' of failure
by Doug Thompson
In the end, longtime Republican Senator Arlen Specter had no choice.If he wanted to keep his Senate seat, he had to return to the Democratic Party he left early in his political career.If he wanted to keep his sanity he had to get away from the rabid right wing that controls the Republican Party. |
Dose of reality: Maddow mocks Texas governor’s anti-flu requests
by David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Texas Governor Rick Perry’s request for the federal government to provide his state with 37,430 courses of anti-flu medication from the national stockpile has come under fire in light of his earlier resistance to accepting federal stimulus money.San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was particularly scathing in an interview Monday with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow about Perry’s urgency over a handful of swine flu cases in his state compared with his lack of concern for the far larger number of unemployed. |
Court allows landmark torture renditions case to proceed
by Stephen C. Webster
Ruling strikes major blow to Bush/Obama position on state secretsA federal appeals court ruled Tuesday to reinstate an ACLU lawsuit against a Boeing subsidiary that allegedly helped the CIA transport terror war prisoners to so-called black sites where they were tortured. The Obama administration had argued the case’s very existence would endanger national security and pressed the court to dispose of it. |
Conyers, Nadler request special prosecutor on torture
by Raw Story
Congressmen John Conyers and Jerrold Nadler have written a letter to the Attorney General requesting the appointment of a special prosecutor on torture.“While I applaud the Obama administration for releasing these torture memos in the spirit of openness and transparency, the memos’ alarming content requires further action,” opined Nadler, who chairs the House Judiceary Committee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. “These memos, without a shadow of a doubt, authorized torture and gave explicit instruction on how to carry it out, all the while carefully attempting to maintain a legal fig leaf. |
Officials: Florida labs checking 80 Florida cases for swine flu
by Mark Silva and Rafael A. Olmeda
MIAMIState health laboratories are analyzing 80 samples from patients across the state worried that they might have swine flu, 20 of them from Miami-Dade County, health officials said today.At a news conference this afternoon, Miami Dade County health officials said sending the samples to a state lab is an early step in the diagnosis of swine flu, and they stressed that no cases have been confirmed in Florida. |
Hyping the Pandemic: "Just What the Doctor Ordered!!!"
by Fred Cederholm
I’ve been thinking about global-ity. Actually I’ve been thinking about the oneness of our world, the auto industry developments, pandemics, hindsight, accelerations, BIG BROTHER is WATCHING, and an orderly” new world dis-order. Last week we were again confronted by a looming crisis impacting all of us on planet Earth. It was not as though there was there were not enough on our collective plates. |
Pinter to Obama: "Smash the Mirror"
by Mike Whitney
About a month before Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski appeared on PBS's Charlie Rose Show and was asked whether he thought Obama would be a good choice for president. Brzezinski paused for a minute, peered at Rose out of the corner of his eye, and answered, "Just think of the symbolism." As soon as he said that, Brzezinski and Rose broke out into laughter as though they were sharing a private joke. |
The International Criminal Court and A Rogue Empire
by David Swanson
One of the best books published in Canada last year is one of the best books published in the United States thus far this year: "The Sun Climbs Slow: The International Criminal Court and the Struggle for Justice," by Erna Paris.It's appropriate for this story to come to us from our northern neighbor. This is largely a history of the development of international law, culminating in the surprising success of the creation of an international criminal court (ICC). The ICC now has 108 countries as state parties, and the theoretical power to prosecute war crimes by anyone anywhere on earth. The ICC is currently prosecuting a sitting head of state, the president of Sudan. The ICC's decisions cannot be vetoed by UN Security Council members. It is theoretically independent and loyal only to international law. |
Lies About Iraq Real Inspiration for Torture
by Bill Gallagher
Taking a trip into Dick Cheney's perverted mind is a dark, depressing experience but essential in understanding how our nation descended into the depravity of torture. Sick Dick likes to say how "so-called torture"- as he refers to waterboarding- "kept us safe for seven and a half years." |
Barack Obama's Stress Test After 100 Days In Office
by Danny Schechter
How Should We Assess the Change Administration: What the World Thinks?How would you do on a "stress test? " Even as the soundness of banks is supposedly measured -- with many expected to show signs of insolvency -- the whole stress idea demands a broader focus. |
Christian White Nationalism in the Age of Obama
by Bill Berkowitz
What's a white racist to do these days? A new book examines the history of white nationalism as it has moved from the fringe to the mainstream, describes the religious roots of the movement, and alerts us to its political and social goals.Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream |
The "Beautiful Kidnapper" and Other Simple Responses to Torture Arguments
by RJ Eskow
The ticking time bomb. We've been hearing about it for years, but it's never actually happened. Yet its constantly being brought up - to justify torture in thousands of situations where there is no ticking time bomb. What kind of sense does that make? |
Foolish Employment, Health Policies Leave US Wide Open for a Pandemic
by Dave Lindorff
The outbreak of a new swine flu in Mexico, and the potential threat of a new global pandemic, shines a bright light on a major weakness in the United States--an employment system where most workers are not paid or even face getting let go if they get sick and have to stay home from work, combined with a broken healthcare system where roughly one in six people have no ready access to a doctor. |
