Homeland Security preps flu quarantine guidelines by Stephen C. Webster The Department of Homeland Security is preparing to quarantine people with confirmed swine flu infections, according to a newly released memo obtained by CBS News.From CBS: [The memo] says: "The Department of Justice has established legal federal authorities pertaining to the implementation of a quarantine and enforcement. Under approval from HHS, the Surgeon General has the authority to issue quarantines."
Glenn Beck: A Savvy Fraud Who Knows Just How to Please His Audience of Conservative Suckers by Alexander Zaitchik Fox News host Glenn Beck has done all the necessary spadework to position himself at the center of a brewing and increasingly paranoid right-wing insurgency.From challenging Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison to prove he isn't working with Al-Qaida, to taking tearful stands against Barack Obama's Democratic Reich, the self-described "rodeo clown" is pushing his televised tirades and skits closer to the angrier, more unhinged fare of his daily talk radio show, now ranked third nationally, where he has been honing his confessional Molotov-throwing shtick for a decade.
Rove mocked spending on flu preparedness by Raw Story Bush’s Brain doesn’t appear to be quite so prescient in the face of a potential global flu epidemic.Writing in a column in the Wall Street Journal in February, Rove attacked Democrats for what he dubbed as reckless spending — stimulus money being doled out to industries “that added jobs last year.”
'New' evidence of secret CIA detention site in Poland reported by Raw Story 2 years ago... by Diane Sweet Der Spiegel reports this morning of 'new' evidence of a torture prison housed at the Polish military airbase of Stare Kiejkuty, north of Szymany. It's certainly an important revelation, and it was just as important in March 2007 when Raw Story originally identified Stare Kiejkuty as being part of the CIA's secret rendition and detention program.
Earliest case of swine flew 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.
Secretary Napolitano - So nice to have someone rational in office. by Robert A. Kezelis This 51 yr old, former governor of Arizona, is the third head of the Department of Homeland Scrutiny. I suspect that we are lucky to have her. If nothing else, she's a survivor.She had breast cancer, a radical mastectomy, and she continued to work throughout that painful ordeal. She represented Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearing, and earned the enmity, hatred, and never-ending disgust of today's ultra-conservatives because of her work there. She was a US attorney, concentrating on issues that were not popular, but did much good, including on the street police work support, and consumer protection. As governor of Arizona (a state whose population is limited to two age groups, 18 and 80), she was applauded by all sides, even the most conservative political foes. She was named one of the top 5 governors at that time.
Workers Walk the Plank by Bob Herbert I’m sure everyone is thrilled to know that the high rollers on Wall Street are bouncing back. With profits on the rebound, the big shots at the biggest institutions are on track, as The Times reported Sunday, to make as much money this year as they were hauling in before the mega-recession began.
Chasing Ghosts in Afghanistan by Katrina vanden Heuvel & Greg Kaufmann There were two important hearings regarding Afghanistan on the Hill last week -- in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and at the Congressional Progressive Caucus' (CPC) third forum examining the war. Both raised critical questions about the current strategy of escalation -- questions Congress should take to heart as it considers the $83 billion war supplemental in coming weeks.
Climate Change Hitting Entire Arctic Ecosystem, Says Report by John Vidal Extensive climate change is now affecting every form of life in the Arctic, according to a major new assessment by international polar scientists.In the past four years, air temperatures have increased, sea ice has declined sharply, surface waters in the Arctic ocean have warmed and permafrost is in some areas rapidly thawing.
US Seeks to End Bush Mountaintop Coal Mining Rule by Ayesha Rascoe WASHINGTON - The U.S. Interior Department said on Monday it will try to overturn a Bush administration rule that made iCalling the rule "bad policy," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he will ask the Justice Department to go to the courts to withdraw the Bush regulation and send it back to Interior to stop the policy.
Torture Is Foreplay for War by David Swanson When did recent U.S. torture begin on a major scale? When September 11, 2001, provided a weak excuse to attack Iraq, an excuse that would need some bolstering. When did Bybee send the CIA a recipe for torturing Abu Zubaydah? A week after the Downing Street meeting. When did our government waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times? The same month the bombs destroyed Baghdad. When did the intense torturing of key figures stop, although the routine torturing of thousands of people continued? As soon as the war on Iraq was underway.
What They Craved: Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11 by Marjorie Cohn When I testified last year before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties about Bush interrogation policies, Congressman Trent Franks (R-Ariz) stated that former CIA Director Michael Hayden had confirmed that the Bush administration only waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zabaydah, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashirit for one minute each. I told Franks that I didn't believe that. Sure enough, one of the newly released torture memos reveals that Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times and Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times. One of Stephen Bradbury's 2005 memos asserted that "enhanced techniques" on Zubaydah yielded the identification of Mohammed and an alleged radioactive bomb plot by Jose Padilla. But FBI supervisory special agent Ali Soufan, who interrogated Zubaydah from March to June 2002, wrote in the New York Times that Zubaydah produced that information under traditional interrogation methods, before the harsh techniques were ever used.
President's way Bush league: Many Americans want officials who sanctioned torture of prisoners to face justice by Eric Margolis Nations that use torture disgrace themselves. Armed forces and police that torture inevitably become brutalized and corrupted. "Limited" use of torture quickly becomes generalized. Information obtained by torture is mostly unreliable.I learned these maxims observing or covering dirty "pacification" wars, from Algeria to Indochina, Central and South America, southern Africa, the Mideast, Afghanistan, and Kashmir.
Democrats' 'Battered Wife Syndrome' by Robert Parry In recent years, the Washington political dynamic has often resembled an abusive marriage, in which the bullying husband (the Republicans) slaps the wife and kids around, and the battered wife (the Democrats) makes excuses and hides the ugly bruises from outsiders to keep the family together.
