Gay U.S. diplomats to get benefits for partners: report by Agence France-Presse In a policy shift, the U.S. State Department will offer equal benefits and protections to same-sex partners of American diplomats, The New York Times reported.The newspaper said the shift was spelled out in an internal memorandum Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent last week to an association of gay and lesbian foreign service officers.
Rove follows Cheney’s lead, picks Limbaugh over Powell by David Edwards and Jeremy Gantz Two weeks after former vice president Dick Cheney chose Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell for Republican party membership, Karl Rove has followed suit.Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Rove – White House chief of staff under George W. Bush – said: “Yes, [I would choose Limbaugh] if I had to pick between the two.” But Rove struck a more inclusive tone than Cheney did earlier this month, saying that “anybody who says they’re a Republican is a Republican. There’s no membership committee.”
9/11 commissioner slams Bush by Pete Yost A former member of the 9/11 Commission criticizes former President George W. Bush in a new book for not responding to pre-attack intelligence on Osama bin Laden's intentions.In "The Emperor's New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Watergate to 9/11," Richard Ben-Veniste writes that CIA analysts told Bush that bin Laden was determined to strike inside the United States, "yet the president had done absolutely nothing to follow up."
Kind and Fraternal Feelings by Commondreams.org Memorial Day, it turns out, is yet another hijacked holiday. It was first observed in 1865 as Decoration Day by liberated slaves, who independently set up, decorated and proclaimed an ad-hoc graveyard – a field of "passionless mounds" – to honor dead Union soldiers.
La Cage aux Democrats by Frank Rich THE most potent word in our new president’s lexicon — change — has been heard much less since his inspiring campaign gave way to the hard realities of governing. But on Tuesday night, the irresistible Obama brand made an unexpected and pointed cameo appearance on America’s most popular television show, “American Idol.” In the talent competition’s climactic faceoff, the song picked for one of the two finalists, Adam Lambert, was Sam Cooke’s soul classic, “A Change Is Gonna Come.”
Spain's Judges Cross Borders in Rights Cases by Craig Whitlock High-Ranking US Officials Among Targets of InquiriesMADRID -- Spanish judges are boldly declaring their authority to prosecute high-ranking government officials in the United States, China and Israel, among other places, delighting human rights activists but enraging officials in the countries they target and triggering a political backlash in a nation uncomfortable acting as the world's conscience.
Religious Morality Is Problematic - A Failure in Mexico & in the U.S. by Mark Biskeborn "To say that Mexico is a failed state is absolutely false," said Mexico’s current president, Felipe Calderon. "I have not lost any part—any single part—of Mexican territory."Maybe Calderon should reconsider his claim. What about Ciudad Juarez? Calling in 5,000 troops sounds like an offensive mobilization of the Army to regain the territory lost by the local police.
A Shiny, Brand-new Conspiracy Theory by Bob Patterson In trying to concoct a new and original conspiracy theory that is astounding in its brilliance and unbeatable in the clever insight category, we collected our relevant facts.(Evidence Exhibit A) According to extensive evidence enumerated on the Brad Blog, it seems as if the Republicans can use the new paperless voting machines to preselect the winners of the election.
Alta Cockers with Air Guitars by Alan Rolnick Author of Landmark StatusMy brother recently sent me a riotous pictographic transliteration of a Joe Cocker performance from Woodstock, which, despite seeming like it was only yesterday to those who were there and are still here, really did take place almost forty years ago. Watching the clip, I realized that Joe was the original air guitarist, inventor of the invisible instrument and the leading techniques for playing it. At the time, we didn’t know there was (or ever would be) a name for what he was doing.
The US, torture and the waterboarding issue...and then, there's Dick Cheney by Aimee Kligman Something extraordinary happened today, and it was caught on tape. A conservative talk show host, Erich "Mancow " Muller of Chicago's Big 89, WLS-AM Mancow & Cassidy show, put his money where his mouth was (literally) and agreed to be waterboarded in order to prove that the procedure does not constitute torture. He is the first conservative to show the testicular fortitude to undergo waterboarding; this is said in light of the fact that Sean Hannity, a FOX News mouthpiece, indicated that he would undergo waterboarding for charity and still has to show up; additionally, the ever ubiquitous Dick Cheney continues to talk about the effectiveness of waterboarding in extracting 'valuable' information from detainees, and his daughter, whose only claim to fame are her genes, positively declared today on TV that waterboarding was not torture, and that the prosecution of those who engaged in the practice resulted from 'other things they had done' to prisoners.
New RNC Video Compares Nancy Pelosi To Linda Lovelace by Steve Young After first shocking the political world with a video that juxtaposed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the James Bond villainess, PUSSY Galore, the Republican National Committee racheted up the sexual political promiscuity stakes by putting out a commercial comparing the speaker with the X-rated star of Deep Throat, Linda Lovelace.
No gloating in Sri Lanka by Eric Margolis History teaches it's imperative that the government should be magnanimous in victoryPARIS -- The standard wisdom has it that conventional armies can't win guerilla warsThe decisive defeat last week of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers shows there are important exceptions to this general rule. Chechnya, Angola and Ukraine in the 1950s were other examples of isolated guerilla movements that eventually were crushed by greatly superior forces with no concern for civilian casualties.
I Stand with the Speaker and Against Guantanamo by Brent Budowsky Washington is experiencing deja vu.Republicans play the politics of fear and many Democrats run for cover. Republicans play the politics of personal destruction, in this case attacking the Speaker, and many pundits parrot the spin and pretend it is news. Washington wages its war of words while troops in Afghanistan fight without everything they need to win.
Spiritual Medicine: Bridging the Gap Between Religion and Psychology by Bill Berkowitz By Gale Bataille and Bill BerkowitzHistorically, religion and mental health issues have had an uneasy relationship—and it goes both ways: people with mental illness have long faced stigma in religious communities, and mental health professionals have, for the most part, been suspicious of religion.
