Group paid for breast implants of beauty queen on gay marriage rampage
by Mike Sheehan
Controversial model Carrie Prejean is heading to Washington to support a campaign against gay marriage — and taking her paid-for breast implants along.The reigning Miss California, who caused a sensation at the Miss USA pageant when she said she believed marriage should be between a man and a woman, will work with the National Organization for Marriage to protect “traditional” heterosexual marriage. |
Mexico’s Swine Flu and the Globalization of Disease
by Laura Carlsen
Mexico has long been considered the laboratory of globalization. Now a potentially deadly virus has germinated in that laboratory, finding ideal conditions to move quickly along a path toward global pandemic.Those conditions include: a rapid transition from small livestock production to industrial meat farms after NAFTA established incentives for foreign investment, the failed decentralization of Mexico's health system along lines established by multilateral lending banks, lax and non-enforced environmental and health regulations as the Mexican government was forced to downsize, the increased flow of goods and persons across borders, and restricted access to life-saving medicines due to NAFTA intellectual property monopolies for pharmaceutical companies. |
Culture of Unpunished Sexual Assault in Military
by Dahr Jamail
MARFA, Texas - Sexual assault of women serving in the U.S. military, while brought to light in recent reports, has a long tradition in that institution.Women in America were first allowed into the military during the Revolutionary War in 1775, and their travails are as old. |
White House backtracks after Biden says to avoid trains, subways over flu
by Raw Story
The White House has backtracked over comments Vice President Joe Biden said this morning on The Today Show in which he remarked that he’d told his family to avoid subways, trains and “confined places” over the recent scare of swine flu.A White House source purportedly called Biden’s remarks “imprecise” in comments early Thursday. “His statement this morning on the ‘Today Show’, just talking about his family certainly not the policy of the White House,” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said. |
Push is on to boost U.S.-Cuba agro trade
by Lesley Clark
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's overtures to Cuba have enlivened the debate in Congress on boosting American travel and trade with the island, though Raúl Castro on Wednesday dismissed the administration's opening salvos, saying they ``only achieve the minimum.'' |
GOP Rep.: Notion that Matthew Shepard murder was hate crime ‘a hoax’
by Jeremy Gantz
Less than one month after she used the term “tar baby” on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) has managed to offend another group of Americans: gay people.Speaking on the House floor Wednesday while a hate crimes bill – known as the “Matthew Shepard bill,” after the gay 21-year-old who was brutally murdered in 1998 – was being debated, Foxx called the University of Wyoming student’s association with the legislation “a hoax” because, she said, Shepard was not killed because of his sexual orientation. |
Obama calls out ‘folks waving tea bags’ on Fox News
by David Edwards
In response to a student’s question, President Obama took a swipe at “certain news channels” which promoted tea party protests during his town hall meeting at a high school in Arnold, Missouri Wednesday morning.Politico notes that it was a “veiled shot at the Fox News Channel, the cable news network closely associated with the protests.” |
Obama: Waterboarding 'is torture'
by Jeff Mason
President Barack Obama called simulated drowning a form of torture on Wednesday, and defended his decision to end a practice used against terrorism suspects by the Bush administration.Obama said the process, known as waterboarding, violated American ideals and was not appropriate even if it made getting information from suspected enemies easier. |
As Good as Their Word
by Nicholas von Hoffman
The ructions in the world of finance have given us a chance to see the big-time CEOs up close at the Congressional witness table. It's not a pretty sight.Almost without exception they appear to lack charm, warmth or wisdom, confining themselves to biz-speak clichés. As the public faces of the largest and once richest institutions in finance and banking, they are a sorry lot. |
Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: Accountability, Torture, and the Obama Administration
by Frida Berrigan & Jeremy Varon
Witness Against Torture’s 100 Days Campaign to Close Guantanamo and End Torture began in the heady days following President Obama’s Executive Orders, signed on day one, promising the closure of the detention camp at Guantanamo within a year and ending the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program. Years of protest-- including a 2005 demonstration at the detention camp itself, arrest actions in Washington, D.C., and a resulting trial in which we condemned Guantanamo in the name of the detainees-- had paid off. The nightmare appeared close to over. |
Disclosure of ‘Secrets’ in the '70s Didn’t Destroy the Nation
by Amy Goodman
President Barack Obama promised "more transparent ... more creative" government. His release of the torture memos, and the Pentagon's expected release of more photos of detainee abuse, is a step in the right direction. Yet he assured the CIA that he will not prosecute those who followed the instructions to torture from the Bush administration. Congress might not agree with this leniency, with prominent senators calling for investigations. |
Baghdad Violence Worst in Year
by Corinne Reilly and Hussein Kadhim
BAGHDAD - April was the bloodiest month for violence in Baghdad in more than a year, another sign that Iraq's security gains are beginning to reverse.President Barack Obama acknowledged Wednesday night that violence has risen in recent weeks, but he said the levels of violence were still below last year's. |
100 days of the media's trivial pursuit
by Eric Boehlert
It's fitting that the foolery started right in time for Barack Obama's inauguration.As January 20 approached, the Beltway press corps announced the new tone and tenor it had adopted for covering the incoming Democratic administration. Suddenly obsessed with trivia, while glomming onto nitpicking, gotcha-style critiques, the press corps transformed itself from its Bush-era persona in preparation for the new administration's traditional 100-day White House sprint. |
You want frights with that?
by Ed Naha
The conventional Republican response to anything they can't logically respond to is, "9/11 changed everything." Well, apparently, that's true. For one thing, these post-attack times allow hordes of media mavens, conservative politicos and paranoid pundits to scream "Boo!" at us with alarming regularity. |
North Korea: From Axis of Evil to hot new tourist destination
by Jane Stillwater
Well it took me over six months but I finally finished typing up the notes on my trip to North Korea. This is a rather long read but well worth it (if I do say so myself) -- a rare and incredible eye-witness account that will probably make you think that you have actually been there yourself. |
Words matter: From the axis of evil to the crucible of terrorism
by Aimee Kligman
While in Pakistan, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke about its northern region turning into a 'crucible of terrorism'. Did he forget so fast the backlash of former President Bush's use of the 'axis of evil' to describe what he perceived were the enemies of the United States? What made the gaffe even greater was that he was on Pakistani soil at the time. A subsequent al-Jazeera round table brought forth the idea that President Zardari was infuriated by Brown's rhetoric. |
The Amtrak Connection
by Gail Collins
Imagine those Amtrak conversations between Joe Biden and Arlen Specter. The vice president’s devotion to taking the train home to Wilmington, Del., is legend. It turns out that besides reinforcing his commitment to mass transit, Biden’s commute also gave him hours and hours of uninterrupted quality time with the senator from Pennsylvania. |
