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July 27, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Wisconsin’s governor Scott Walker has signed into a law a controversial requirement that voters present photo ID in order to exercise their right to vote. Now, he has announced plans to close as many as 16 motor vehicle offices, every one of them in districts that favor Democrats. What’s more, Walker’s plan includes expanding hours [...]
May 5, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
There is a simple response to the GOP hardliners who say bin Laden’s demise justifies waterboarding and other torture techniques used under the Bush administration, and that is: if it had worked, it would not have taken 10 years to locate bin Laden. What “led” the US intelligence community, and SEAL Team Six to bin Laden’s fortified compound was long-running, diligent intelligence work of the kind that is hampered and obstructed by irrational fits of violence, torture and vengeful behavior.
March 27, 2011 :: The Editors :: 2 Comments
Today, Juan Cole published an open letter to the political left, asking them to understand the humanitarian urgency of the situation in Libya, and to balance their desire for an end to war and foreign interventions against the need to protect human life and ensure that a viable democracy movement is not put down through massive slaughter of thousands or tens of thousands of civilians. Cole is right. Though military action is never the best of all possible outcomes, it is sometimes the only way to protect innocent human life against plans of deliberate mass murder.
March 24, 2011 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
There has been a lot of controversy among members of Congress as to whether Pres. Obama “consulted” adequately with the Congress before intervening in the Libyan crisis. The controversy is mostly cynical politicking by opponents of Obama who were demanding Obama intervene, right up until he did. In fact, Pres. Obama sent notice to Congress, [...]
March 10, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
Rachel Maddow reports on the Michigan governor’s legislation giving himself emergency powers, including the power to dissolve local governments, take over cities, unincorporate entire municipalities —the equivalent of erasing them from the political map— and remove elected officials, replacing them with his own unilaterally appointed substitutes.
March 9, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
Republicans in the Wisconsin state Senate have voted to force through a bill banning collective bargaining for public employees in the state. The move is being described as a new parliamentary move, without precedent and possibly without any legal foundation. There are now accusations of clear ethics violations in the process used to force the measure through, and threats of legal action.
March 9, 2011 :: staff :: One Comment
The governor of Michigan is trying to force through the legislature a bill that would establish emergency rule, LITERALLY. Gov. Snyder is seeking emergency powers that would enable him to 1) unilaterally declare a “financial emergency”, 2) disincorporate entire municipal governments, 3) dismiss elected officials with no replacement election to follow, 4) seize control of local civil services, 5) hand taxpayer money, services and POWERS to private, for-profit firms.
February 28, 2011 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
Wisconsin’s Republican governor, whose attack on the rights of public servants has sparked the most persistent and widespread public protests seen in the state’s history. After two weeks of protests, the governor’s abject refusal to negotiate in any way with opponents to his bid to strip public workers of their rights has brought over 100,000 peaceful demonstrators to the state capitol complex this weekend. Gov. Walker is now seeking to bar any further protest in a desperate bid to impose his will on the people.
February 22, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
This ad is now running statewide in Wisconsin. Firefighters and other public servants are joining together to oppose the campaign to eliminate collective bargaining rights in their state. They are calling on all Wisconsinites to stand with them in defense of basic civil rights.
February 21, 2011 :: staff :: One Comment
As tens of thousands rallied for the 7th consecutive day at the state capitol of Wisconsin, the governor has repeated his demand that Democrats return to “debate” the legislation, which he says will not be negotiated or altered in any way. The near total ban on collective bargaining rights for public servants in the state of Wisconsin, as proposed by Gov. Walker —in office less than 2 months— has been described as the most extreme reversal of labor rights in US history.
February 21, 2011 :: The Editors :: 4 Comments
The protest rally opposing Gov. Walker’s draconian plan to eliminate collective bargaining rights is now entering its second week. 14 Democratic lawmakers remain outside the state, in boycott of the plan to impose Walker’s radical agenda on the people of Wisconsin. And today the news comes the last union that had not abandoned Walker, the state police union, has now done so.
February 20, 2011 :: Denver Lessing :: 4 Comments
The last week has seen mounting protests in Madison, Wisconsin, with crowds occupying the state capitol grounds swelling from 10,000 to 25,000 to 30,000, 40,000 and now on Saturday, 60,000. Schools have been closed, and university faculty and students are striking in order to participate in the protests. The demonstrators oppose Gov. Walker’s plan to strip public employees of all collective bargaining rights.
February 17, 2011 :: staff :: 3 Comments
The protest movement taking over the capital of Wisconsin, where tens of thousands of ordinary people have flocked to the state Capitol building, led today to an effort by Democratic lawmakers to prevent a vote that would strip the state’s public employees of fundamental labor rights. The 14 Democratic lawmakers crossed the state line and are seeking asylum in a neighboring state, reportedly Illinois. (Some states will extradite truant lawmakers; some will not.) They are said to be seeking shelter at an undisclosed location.
January 4, 2011 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
Less than one year after the historic passage of healthcare insurance reform, financial regulatory reform and the initial phase of EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is asking industry to provide a wish list of regulations they would like erased from federal law. Issa is the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs, and has announced his intention to use the post to eliminate consumer protections and anti-fraud regulations.
January 3, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
One of the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks shows George W. Bush’s ambassador to France advised the White House to launch a military-style trade war against any EU nation that opposed the implementation of genetically modified seeds. Despite widespread, credible scientific concern about the possible harm to human health or to the environment or food supply from the use of genetically engineered crops, the Bush administration appears to have used diplomats as sales agents for Monsanto and other major corporations.
December 22, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Lame Duck session of Congress is supposed to be ineffectual and, well, “lame”, unable to get things done. It is even more the case in a year when control of Congress changes hands. But this lame duck session has been historically active and engaged. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has been struggling to set himself up as a key leader by undermining signature initiatives put forward by the Democratic majority, but has watched idly as one after another major initiative passes the Senate and goes to the president for signature.
August 8, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The spreading notion that the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution should be repealed, in order to stop illegal immigration, is a direct assault on all Americans. Most of us became citizens because we were born in this country. We required no special paperwork beyond a recognition of our birth and the giving of a legal name. We were given social security numbers and citizenship, due to our being born on American soil, and our citizenship was not conditioned on our parents’ behavior or origins.
August 1, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
SB1070 is a threat to the freedom and quality of life of all Americans, but first to Arizonans. The law’s draconian anti-immigrant provisions, —which not only include random stops based on “reasonable suspicion” (clearly an indication that visual profiling is required) but also a form of domestic “extraordinary rendition”, or prisoner transfer out of jurisdiction with no judicial oversight— are an attack on basic Constitutional freedoms that protect all U.S. citizens.
August 1, 2010 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a Republican who supports the draconian anti-immigrant law, today lied on CBS’ political show ‘Face the Nation’ when he said the federal policy on immigration law is to deliberately “not thoroughly enforce the law”. He also lied about the capability of the “papers please” law to combat organized crime and a rash of kidnapping in Arizona. Responsible citizens must remember: SB1070′s absolute ban on safe interaction with government or community turns hundreds of thousands of people into targets for a drug mafia protection racket.
July 30, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
In the first judicial test of Arizona’s controversial law requiring police to target those they “reasonably” suspect of being undocumented immigrants, a federal judge has set aside the “papers please” clause. The ruling means the law will be implemented only in part, with special instructions to law enforcement officials that they are not to ask for proof of residency on routine traffic stops or from people on the street, but only in cases of serious crime.
April 29, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
El estado de Arizona —antiguamente parte del territorio español que vino a ser México, y uno de los estados de mayor población de ascendencia hispana— ha legalizado el perfilamiento racial y la persecución sistemática de los inmigrantes. La ley denominada como propuesta SB1070 no sólo permite, sino exige, a los agentes de policía estatales y municipales pedir los documentos migratorios a cualquier individuo que se les parezca “razonablemente” sospechoso de ser indocumentado.
April 28, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
MSNBC reporter and host Rachel Maddow reveals the foundation of clear and overt racist ideology that helped shape and promote the anti-immigrant legislation that has been passed and signed into law in Arizona, requiring policemen to demand documentation of residency from anyone who “looks like” they might be an undocumented immigration.
April 7, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In what could be a landmark ruling, a federal court has blocked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from imposing a network neutrality constraint on internet service providers who own the network they administer. There are serious issues of Constitutionality involved in the ruling, and net neutrality advocates say any move away from absolute neutrality would be a violation of the First Amendment protection of press freedom, and possibly of the freedom to assemble.
February 14, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
There were three individuals convicted by the Bush-Cheney administration in military courts, and two of them are currently free and walking the street. There have been hundreds of individuals convicted on terrorism charges in civilian criminal courts, over the last three administrations, the current one included, and every one of those convictions has been upheld, and every one of those terrorists is behind bars today.
February 12, 2010 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
NBC’s chief Pentagon corresondent Jim Miklaszewski told MSNBC this morning that in his opinion military trials are “more reliable” in terms of the outcomes they produce. The comment was perhaps an unwelcome introduction of Constitutional questions into the debate over whether to try accused 9/11 terrorist conspirators in a civilian criminal court or before a military tribunal.
January 9, 2010 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been a relentless defender of the most aggressive tacts used during the Bush era to combat terrorism. The word aggressive applies to the attitude, of course, not the thoroughgoing nature or effectiveness of those policies. He is now attacking Pres. Obama for his response to the alleged terror plot that involved a Christmas Day bombing over Detroit, which was foiled. Yet Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate foreign relations committee, has called Cheney’s criticism unfair, and says Obama’s response has been “strong” and “decisive”.
January 5, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
At the end of Barack Obama’s first year in office, there is controversy over the nature and extent of his accomplishments, and even some allies and supporters appear to have forgotten the atmosphere of multidirectional crisis in which Obama took office. What’s more, the steady decline in Obama’s approval ratings appears to follow very closely a shift in media reporting away from reporting facts and back to the hyper-commentary style of the run-up to the Iraq war, an atmosphere in which conservative political propaganda fares better than the facts of deliberative action.
December 15, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Barack Obama’s campaign for the United States Senate, in 2004, was driven by a clear moral commitment to the need to make government more open and more accountable to the people. His record of work in state government to tackle predatory lending, corruption and ethics conflicts, helped make him a national figure almost upon entry into the Senate. He sponsored and pushed the most sweeping ethics reforms in over a generation, to make government more transparent, and promised to do so as president. Now, the White House has issued a studied and comprehensive open government directive that will ensure greater transparency and a freer flow of information to the public.
December 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
There has long been a view in Washington that the federal government cannot enact regulations aimed at curbing carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases (GHG) without a specific new statutory framework passed by Congress. In an effort to be conciliatory toward pro-business interests and conservatives in both parties, Pres. Obama has largely held to this view of climate-linked emissions regulations. But this view is actually not supported by existing legislation and judicial precedent.
December 9, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ruled that carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to human health, two years after the US Supreme Court gave it the authority to regulate carbon emissions for that very reason, under the Clean Air Act. The finding gives new weight to the American administration’s efforts to help achieve international consensus on aggressive emissions reductions at Copenhagen.
November 16, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
In a vile new low, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani has said he expects bringing the accused 9/11 mastermind to justice will directly cause new terror attacks on New York. Mr. Giuliani is now seeking to use the memory of 9/11 and the very real and lasting trauma felt by so many people, to [...]
October 21, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) is facing questions about his responsibility for wrongfully executing Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of arson for a fire that killed his daughters, despite new expert analysis showing there was in fact zero evidence of arson. An investigation into the execution has already found that Perry was given the new evidence to [...]
September 29, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
During the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, riot police were recorded firing tear gas into crowds of students and faculty who were doing nothing more than sitting, standing or walking on their own campus. A group of students reported being forcibly removed from “our own unit”. By PA, the police order all people in the public spaces on campus to “immediately disperse” or risk attack from “less lethal munitions”.
September 24, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The legislature of the state of Massachusetts has voted to grant Gov. Deval Patrick (D) the power to appoint an interim replacement for the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D). The move means the Democratic party will see its fragile 60-vote majority in the United States Senate restored, in time for crucial votes on healthcare reform this fall. Today, Gov. Patrick has named Paul Grattan Kirk, Jr. to the interim post.
September 14, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) presided over 200 executions between taking office in 2001 and June of this year. During that time, Texas executed three times more people than the next three states combined had executed since 1976. New investigations are now raising the question of just how many innocent people were sent to their deaths by a governor and a system that ignore legal obligations to examine new evidence or counter prosecutorial or judicial misconduct?
September 4, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
After reviewing the CIA inspector general’s (IG) report on prisoner abuse during and surrounding the Bush-era “war on terror”, the watchdog Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) says doctors not only attended and supervised prisoner abuse, but recorded information that “may amount to human experimentation”.
September 2, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Former vice president Dick Cheney has been engaged in a relentless public relations campaign, attacking Pres. Obama for ongoing efforts to clarify who violated the law in staging an extra-legal system of detention and torture, and openly defending torture as useful, necessary and good. But Obama’s opponent in the 2008 elections and a leader of Cheney’s own party, Sen. John McCain, says the torture was a violation of the law and helped America’s enemies.
August 31, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Deval Patrick, the Democratic governor of Massachusetts, is now “coming out strongly in favor of the idea” of naming an interim replacement for the late Sen. Kennedy, at Sen. Kennedy’s request, to avoid leaving his state with a vacancy in the Senate for several months, as reported by the New York Times. After initial skepticism, there are now reports suggesting state lawmakers may be leaning toward supporting such a move.
August 26, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
A special prosecutor’s investigation launched under the Bush administration, to collect evidence relating to the CIA’s destruction of video tapes of abusive interrogations has been expanded to include possible illegal activity carried out in connection with the “war on terror”. Holder announced on Monday that US Attorney John Durham will expand the videotape-destruction probe to include potential illegal activities related to abusive interrogations and potentially the circumventing of due process laws, both international and domestic.
August 20, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), popularly known as the “Lion of the Senate”, who has served 47 years in the upper house of the US Congress, is battling an aggressive brain cancer, and has been relegated to a long absence, even as the nation debates the issue that has most consumed his efforts as a legislator. Healthcare reform has been Ted Kennedy’s primordial concern throughout his time in the Senate, and it has never been closer, but at a time he is needed on Capitol Hill, he is sidelined by gravely ill health.
July 22, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is filing a federal lawsuit to force release of documents the intelligence community has refused to turn over in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. US intelligence agencies keep records of internal reports and investigations of alleged wrongdoing, and are obliged to report that wrongdoing to the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), but may have failed to do so in recent years.
July 13, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
The Wall Street Journal has reported that the secret CIA program, allegedly ordered concealed from Congress by then vice president Dick Cheney, was a plan to kill or capture Al-Qaeda operatives, in response to a 2001 directive of Pres. George W. Bush. The secret program’s existence —though not its details— became known last week when sources involved in the CIA director’s testimony on the issue made known Cheney’s involvement in ordering the CIA not disclose the program’s existence to Congress.
July 11, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Former US vice president Dick Cheney has been linked to the 8-year long cover-up of a secret CIA project about which Congress was never briefed, until last month. The current director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, only learned of the secret project —details of which have still not been released— last month. He immediately ordered its closure. Now, it has been revealed that in a closed-door briefing last month with members of Congress, Panetta revealed that former vice-president Cheney ordered the project be concealed from Congress.
June 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
It has been said in recent decades that leaders of nuclear-armed states have a “finger on the button”. It is an alarming yet somewhat convenient concept, but it has not generally been all that accurate. It turns out, as we look back on the Cold War “brinksmanship” of mutually-assured destruction (MAD), that both the USSR and the USA guarded their superpotent polarity with carefully complex systems of security, multiple-key activation and other failsafes.
June 18, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Bush administration made a name for itself finding ways to obscure information about its activities by claiming the right to “state secrets” under the “sources and methods” rule, protecting active intelligence operations. The entire scope of the “enhanced interrogations” regime was justified under the need to use detainee interrogations not for criminal prosecution but as sources of militarily “actionable” intelligence. The use of “national security letters” comprehensively erasing certain citizens’ First Amendment rights regarding specific government activity proliferated wildly during the Bush years, threatening criminal prosecution in secret courts should the relevant “sources and methods” be compromised.
June 17, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
It is an indisputable fact that one of the most significant contributors to our economic downturn was a unraveling of major financial institutions and the lack of adequate regulatory structures to prevent abuse and excess. A culture of irresponsibility took root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street. And a regulatory regime basically crafted in the wake of a 20th century economic crisis — the Great Depression — was overwhelmed by the speed, scope, and sophistication of a 21st century global economy.
May 26, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Pres. Barack Obama has proposed the closure of the extralegal prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where hundreds of accused terror suspects have been held for years without charge and without access to the due process guaranteed by our Constitution. With critics defaming the president as somehow wanting to “release terrorists on US soil”, an absurd claim, Obama has now muddied the soaring poetry of his defense of our Constitution and its values with an as-yet unspecified plan to establish a “legal regime” of “prolonged detention” without charge or due process.
May 15, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
There are questions about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her having revealed only recently that she had been briefed about harsh interrogation techniques. She has said the briefings were classified and that the contents were not permitted to be discussed, even with members of Congress who were not present. The CIA and some Republicans opposing the push for hearings, an independent investigation or a truth commission, have said Pelosi was briefed thoroughly on the nature and application of “enhanced interrogation techniques”.
May 13, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
A former FBI interrogator today told the first Congressional hearing into “enhanced interrogation techniques” —an alleged regime of systematic torture— that waterboarding was slow, ineffective and unnecessary. He told the hearings, from behind a screen used to protect his identity, that after he had used non-abusive legal interrogation techniques to elicit useful information from Abu Zubaydah, CIA ‘contractors’ took over, waterboarded him, and the suspect “shut down” and refused to talk.
May 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The president of the United States has taken what is perhaps his most problematic decision, in terms of following through on bold promises about ethics and transparency reform. The decision to withhold Pentagon photographs reportedly showing extreme interrogations was made due to concern the images could inflame violence against US personnel overseas.
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