Obama to release Reagan records kept secret by Bush by Muriel Kane The Obama administration is about to release 244,966 pages of documents from the Reagan White House that the Bush administration had held back for years during a review of whether to assert executive privilege.Historians and advocates of government transparency have complained strongly about the Bush backlog, which Obama ended with an executive order signed the day after he took office that limits the review period to 30 days in most cases.
Reporter working on story critical of VA has his equipment confiscated by Rachel Oswald A public radio reporter visiting a VA hospital earlier this week to work on a story about veterans' healthcare was stopped by government officials mid-interview, ordered to leave the hospital and had some of his recording equipment confiscated.David Schultz, a reporter with a local NPR affliate, WAMU 88.5, was at the Veteran Affairs Hospital in Washington, DC on Tuesday night, covering a townhall meeting on the quality of minority healthcare. In the middle of an interview with one of the veterans at the meeting on the below quality healthcare he was receiving at the hospital, Schultz was told by hospital officials to halt the interview and to turn over his recording equipment.
Are Local Republican Parties Afraid of Obama? by David Sirota I took part in a panel on CNN this weekend that looked at the issues of gun control, drug policy reform and American foreign policy hubris through the lens of President Obama's recent visit to Europe. Watch it here.What's so interesting about this clip is Jim Greer, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party. Notice how he's willing to both acknowledge problems with our gun laws/enforcement, to publicly criticize the Bush administration's unilateralism, and to give some props to Obama. He's still a GOP chairman, of course -- he still takes some cheap shots, he still tries to polarize the gun debate by implying that progressives want to take away everyone's guns, and he makes a few partisan attacks on Obama. But he's surprisingly deferential to the president, and surprisingly more rational than your standard Republican parrot.
America, Torture and Hypocrisy by Robert Parry The International Committee of the Red Cross’s torture report should be required reading for all Americans not just because its contents are shocking – which they are – but because it reveals that the United States is not the special nation that it often pretends to be, and won’t be as long as it chooses to look away from such crimes.
Do artichoke hearts ever break? by Dennis Rahkonen An older man walks through freezing mist, in a poor neighborhood where most homes are spare and simple, and typically in need of more than cosmetic repair.Cars parked at the curb are uniformly from years ago, very rusted, or with body panels of colors different than long-past showroom originality.
When The Hour Is Late, And Things Aren't Going So Great...Just Fabricate!! by David Michael Green What do you do when your politics suck, your politicians have been repudiated and thrown out of office, all your ideas have proved disastrous, and the public hates you?Well, if you had even the slightest shred of integrity, you'd apologize, fix your politics, and start all over again.
The Official End of Obama's Honeymoon by Matt Taibbi But Summers, a leading architect of the administration’s economic policies and response to the global recession, appears to have collected the most income. Financial institutions including JP Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch paid Summers for speaking appearances in 2008. Fees ranged from $45,000 for a Nov. 12 Merrill Lynch appearance to $135,000 for an April 16 visit to Goldman Sachs, according to his disclosure form.
Obama's Iraq troop withdrawal plan hits a snag by Doug Thompson A dramatic increase in al-Qaeda violence in Masul and Baqubah may doom President Barack Obama's plans to withdraw combat troops from Iraq.The top American general this week told The Times of London that more troops may be needed to control violence in those two troubled cities.
Breaking: Five US soldiers killed in Iraq blast by Raw Story MOSUL, Iraq, April 10 (Reuters) - A suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives outside an Iraqi base in the northern city of Mosul on Friday, killing five U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi policemen, the U.S. military said. The attack was the deadliest for U.S. soldiers in Iraq for months. An insurgency led by al Qaeda and other militants has proven stubborn in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, even as the violence set off by the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 has waned elsewhere in Iraq.
Making Banking Boring by Paul Krugman Thirty-plus years ago, when I was a graduate student in economics, only the least ambitious of my classmates sought careers in the financial world. Even then, investment banks paid more than teaching or public service — but not that much more, and anyway, everyone knew that banking was, well, boring.
The Best Investment Money Can Buy! by David Sirota Feeling sorry for yourself? Struggling to get by? Wondering how you can get a bailout? Well, stop moping, because it's not too late!I may not have Suze Orman's verve or Billy Mays' voice. But I've discovered a revolutionary risk-free investment plan straight from those who brought us the economic meltdown. So in this column-fomercial, I won't waste your time with Ginsu knives or cash-for-timeshare schemes -- I'm going to help make you rich beyond your wildest dreams!
Health Risks of Shipping Pollution have been 'Underestimated' by John Vidal One giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars, study findsBritain and other European governments have been accused of underestimating the health risks from shipping pollution following research which shows that one giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars.
CIA to Close Secret Overseas Prisons, End Security Contracts by Jonathan S. Landay WASHINGTON - The CIA is decommissioning the secret overseas prisons where top al Qaida suspects were subjected to interrogation methods, including simulated drowning, that Attorney General Eric Holder, allied governments, the Red Cross and numerous other experts consider torture, the agency said Thursday.
Deregulation: Bringing Down a Nation by Jon Faulkner When the Reagan Administration oversaw the deregulation of the Savings and Loan Industry the resultant collapse of the S&Ls took everyone by surprise. Congress postured and orated about what in the world may have caused such a costly failure of the banks. If Americans are to believe that they must also believe that Congress is comprised exclusively of morons.
Why the Right Should Support Gay Marriage—the Arrival of an Equal Rights Wave Four Decades After Loving v. Virginia by Raymond Budelman The right constantly stresses the belief in ‘American greatness’ and American Exceptionalism without putting its money where its mouth is. It lauds America for its tolerance while not just condoning, but worse, actively encouraging—if not fomenting—intolerance. The right emphasizes that homosexuals are not entitled to “special” rights—which is simply nothing more than euphemistic language justifying the deprivation of fundamental rights to a rather sizable minority population within this country. Is the right to live free from discrimination a “special” right or is it a right that should be afforded to every single person, citizen or otherwise, living within this country? Is the right to marry the person one loves to be viewed as exceptional? Is the right of marriage so exceptional as to only be afforded to heterosexual couples? Can marriage truly be defined, as it is in Merriam-Webster Dictionary, as “the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law”? Or should marriage be simply defined as “the state of being united to a person as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law”?
