The full Republican media "noise" machine is rising up in a full-scale "hissy fit" because the President pointed out that Osama bin Laden was killed a year ago, under his watch. They are pretending to be absolutely outraged, accusing the President of politicizing the killing of bin Laden. more »
Marcy Wheeler hosted a panel on torture at the AFN conference featuring Rep. Jerry Nadler and Christopher Anders of the ACLU, in which Nadler set forth a couple of ideas that are illuminating about the thinking among political players on the subject.
Marcy writes about one of them here:
Yesterday, Jerrold Nadler announced he will hold a hearing on state secrets on Thursday. more »
washingtonpost.com — Top officials from the Bush administration have hit upon a revealing new theme as they retrospectively justify their national security policies. Call it the White House 9/11 trauma defense. But careful analysis could have replaced the impulse to break all the rules.
hosted.ap.org — The United States remains "dangerously vulnerable" to chemical, biological and nuclear attacks seven years after 9/11, a forthcoming independent study concludes. And a House Democrats' report says the Bush administration has missed one opportunity after another to improve the nation's security. The recent political rupture between Russia and the U.S. only makes matters worse, said Lee Hamilton, the former Indiana Democratic congressman who helped lead the 9/11 Commission and now chairs the independent group's latest study.
After one spends 45 years in Washington, high farce does not normally throw one off balance. I found the past few days, however, an acid test of my equilibrium.
I missed the National Prayer Breakfast—for the 45th time in a row. But, as I drove to work I listened with rapt attention as President George W. Bush gave his insights on prayer:
In federal court cases, it is illegal for the prosecution to go “judge shopping.” Federal prosecutors, however, did just that by maneuvering to have the case of alleged terrorist mastermind Jose Padilla heard before Judge Marcia G. Cooke. Why was the prosecution so confident Judge Cooke would do its bidding?
“The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance," wrote philosopher John Rawls, in A Theory of Justice. In the case of Jose Padilla, the Justice Department made the veil opaque to the point of impenetrability. more »
U.S. prisons have become the hothouses for growing hardened criminals and more than one Islamic extremist. Not unlike their counterparts in the Middle East, these young men live in poverty and filth. And like their “brothers” in the Middle East, they are often desperate, hopeless and filled with rage that could be channeled outward in acts condoned and even celebrated by radical Islam. Given the time and effort and large pool from which to choose, it’s surprising, however, how unsuccessful prison imams in the United States appear to have been in recruiting such vulnerable targets.
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