When Geo Beach looks you in the eye and says that “Tougher in Alaska,” his 13 week series on the History Channel, isn’t Reality TV, you believe him. It might be the sincerity seen in his penetrating blue eyes. It might also be that not many will challenge a bald-headed 6-foot-3, 225 pound man who [...]
In his speech in Berlin, Barack Obama spoke of many walls that need tearing down. By the count of New York Times columnist David Brooks, Obama used the word “walls” 16 times, and in 11 of them, he was talking about walls coming down. Now, I haven’t talked with anyone, of any political persuasion, who’s [...]
In the name of “Global War on Terror,” the U.S. Government is waging war on non-governmental organizations by applying “shortsighted, undemocratic policies” that are “constraining the critical activities of the charitable and philanthropic sectors, stifling free speech, and ultimately impeding the fight against terrorism.” This is the conclusion of a new white paper prepared by [...]
In a news release dated July 23, 2008, Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced that it has asked the Department of Defense (DoD) to investigate the “Free Day Away” program at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. In its letter to acting DoD Inspector General Gordon Heddell, Americans United (AU) notes a previous investigation [...]
Civil liberties advocates have lost no time in asking a federal court to stop the government from conducting surveillance under the new wiretapping law passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush last week. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a coalition of other groups declared that the new law “gives the [...]
President George W. Bush’s Iraq troop “surge,” which is now ending, got a mixed report card from congressional investigators, who found that many of Bush’s stated goals remained unmet. The Government Accountability Office reported that violence in Iraq has dropped over the past year, but that the training of Iraqi security forces still lags, Sunni [...]
A Justice Department legal opinion issued in August 2002 advised the CIA that its interrogators would not be prosecuted for violating anti-torture laws as long as they acted in “good faith” while using brutal techniques to obtain information from suspected terrorists, according to a previously undisclosed memo released publicly Thursday. The closely guarded Aug. 1, [...]
Former White House political adviser Karl Rove, who has refused to appear before the House Judiciary Committee, ran an end-around against Democratic leaders by having his denial of sponsoring a political prosecution inserted into the Congressional Record by a senior Republican. Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the committee’s ranking Republican, submitted a written question-and-answer exchange [...]
Two weeks ago, Rep. Gary Ackerman, the Democrat from New York, delivered an impassioned speech on the House floor defending a controversial resolution he co-sponsored calling on President George W. Bush “to increase economic, political and diplomatic pressure on Iran.” Since May, when the resolution was introduced, 247 members of Congress have signed on as [...]
As the long-awaited trial of Guantanamo detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan opened this week at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, human rights groups filed suit demanding that the Department of Justice (DOJ) produce documents related to the U.S. government’s ghost detention, torture, and extraordinary rendition program, and Attorney General Michael Mukasey called on Congress to [...]
