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Gates Tries to Get F-35 Program Back on Course / Christopher Drew / February 3, 2010 / NYTimes - Yahoo / But rather than being the Chevrolet of the skies, as it was once billed, the fighter plane, also called the F-35, has turned into the Pentagon’s biggest budget-buster. Read more...

Obama's chief of staff sorry for 'retarded' remark / Associated Press / February 2, 2010 / Washington Post / WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's tart-tongued chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has apologized for using the word "retarded" to describe liberal activists whose tactics on health care he questioned. Read more...

State of the Union: Highlights, reactions, analyses / January 28, 2010 / Washington (CNN) -- Citing a "deficit of trust" in government by the American people, President Obama's first State of the Union address urged Congress to erode the influence of special interests and work together to confront the nation's most pressing problems. Read more...

A Preview of the House’s A.I.G. Hearing / NYTimes / January 26, 2010 / Ahead of a House committee hearing on Wednesday, more details are emerging about the government’s bailout of the American International Group in 2008 and why its trading partners were paid in full. Read more...

As China Rises, Economic Conflict With West Rises Too / KATRIN BENNHOLD / January 26, 2010 / It has emerged — sooner and more assertively than had been expected before the wrenching global financial crisis, which badly damaged all the established industrial powers, from the United States to Europe and Japan. Read more...

Campaign-finance ruling may prove to be a lifeline for broadcast networks / Frank Ahrens / Washington Post / January 23, 2010 / The struggling media industry -- particularly television networks and local broadcast stations -- could end up being the big beneficiaries of Thursday's Supreme Court ruling lifting limits on corporate donations to political campaigns. Read more...

Goldman under investigation for its securities dealings / Greg Gordon / McClatchy Newspapers / Fri Jan 22, 2010 / WASHINGTON — One of Congress' premier watchdog panels is investigating Goldman Sachs' role in the subprime mortgage meltdown, including how the firm sold securities backed by risky home loans while it simultaneously bet that those bonds would lose value, people familiar with the inquiry said Friday. Read more...

Supreme Court Overturns Campaign Spending Limits on Corporations, Unions Corporations Allowed to Spend Freely to Campaign but Still Barred From Direct Contributions By ARIANE De VOGUE, TERRY MORAN and DEVIN DWYER / WASHINGTON / Jan. 21, 2010 / ABCNews / In a 5-4 decision, the court called into question the constitutionality of all federal and state regulation of independent corporate political advocacy, including a federal law dating back to 1947 and the laws of dozens of states. Read more...

Healing The Hindu Kush Manmohan’s warning on Afghanistan is one Obama must heed - DEC 07, 2009 - OutlookIndia - BRUCE RIEDEL - At a time many Americans are asking why we are in Afghanistan, the soft-spoken Indian prime minister was very direct and candid in describing the stakes in Afghanistan in an interview with the Washington Post on the eve of his meetings with President Barack Hussein Obama in the Oval Office. Read more...

Report: CIA interrogations informed by bad science - PAMELA HESS - 09-21-2009 - Associated Press – WASHINGTON – Prolonged stress from the CIA's harsh interrogations could have impaired the memories of terrorist suspects, diminishing their ability to recall and provide the detailed information the spy agency sought, according to a scientific paper published Monday. Read more...

Why Obama Won't Be Able to Reform Wall Street - Arianna Huffington - September 14, 2009 - .... They stand on the bridge making theatrical gestures they claim will steer us in a new direction while, down in the control room, the autopilot, programmed by politicians in the pocket of special interests, continues to guide the ship of state along its predetermined course. Read more...

Rules on Wilson's outburst open to interpretation - BEN EVANS, Associated Press Writer – WASHINGTON – Republican Rep. Joe Wilson may have violated good taste when he yelled "You lie!" at President Barack Obama last week, and Democrats are moving forward with a resolution scolding him for it. But did he break any specific House rules? Read more...

‘Leading architect’ of Bush surveillance quietly appointed to declassification board - JOHN BYRNE - September 11, 2009 - RawStory - The man who helped oversee President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program now has a new job: a membership on the Public Interest Declassification Board. Read more...

Sotomayor makes history - Foon Rhee - August 6, 2009 - Boston.com - While it has been a done deal ever since she survived her confirmation hearings last month without a meltdown, Sonia Sotomayor still made history this afternoon when the US Senate voted to put her on the nation's highest court. Read more...

  Video: Kucinich – the Federal Reserve is paying banks NOT to make loans to struggling Americans! - sakerfa - August 2, 2009 (C-SPAN -July 21, 2009) – U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio, 10th District) questions Neil M. Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, about interest payments made to banks that keep their TARP funds and other government (taxpayer) bailout money with the Federal Reserve, instead of making loans to struggling Americans (the original intent of the TARP, remember?) The Fed makes generous interest payments to the banks for “parking” their “excess reserves” at the Fed. Read more...

 Ron Paul: What Are They So Afraid Of? On Thursday, 07-30-2009, Congressman Paul spoke on the House floor to set the record straight on HR 1207, Federal Reserve "Independence," secret FOMC operations, and why transparency is in the public's best interest. Read more...

Legacy Fight: Inside Bush and Cheney's Tense Final Days - MASSIMO CALABRESI AND MICHAEL WEISSKOPF – Thu Jul 23, 2009 - (Time) Hours before they were to leave office after eight troubled years, George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney had one final and painful piece of business to conclude. Read more...

AP sources: Cheney told CIA not to discuss program - PAMELA HESS - Associated Press – Sun Jul 12, 2009 - WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Dick Cheney directed the CIA eight years ago not to inform Congress about a nascent counterterrorism program that CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated in June, officials with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday. Read more...

White House Kept Justice Lawyers in Dark on Warrantless Wiretapping - Carrie Johnson and Ellen Nakashima - Washington Post - July 10, 2009 - The Bush White House so strictly controlled access to its warrantless eavesdropping program that only three Justice Department lawyers were aware of the plan, which nearly ignited mass resignations and a constitutional crisis when a wider circle of administration officials began to question its legality, according to a watchdog report released today. Read more...

 The Fed Under Fire - AmericanNewsProject - July 10, 2009 - The Federal Reserve is one of the most powerful and secretive institutions in Washington, long considered beyond the reach of lawmakers. But now, as details emerge of how the Fed secretly doled out... Read more and online video short...

Islamist urges al Qaeda to open up to Obama's offer - CAIRO, June 6, 2009 - (Reuters) - A leader of an Islamist group that waged an insurgency in Egypt in the 1990s called on Saturday for al Qaeda and the Taliban to consider an opening offered by the U.S. president and call a halt to attacks on U.S. civilians. Read more...

When Will Dick Cheney's Tower of Lies Finally Come Tumbling Down on Him? - Arianna Huffington - June 2, 2009 - Cheney has spent the better part of the last seven years doing everything in his power to convince the American people of the very connection he now says there was "never any evidence" of. Read more...

Ballmer Says Obama Tax Would Move Microsoft U.S. Jobs Offshore - Ryan J. Donmoyer June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steven Ballmer said the world’s largest software company would respond to higher taxes on U.S. companies’ foreign profits by moving some employees offshore. Read more...

Bernanke Warns Deficits Threaten Financial Stability (Update2) - Craig Torres and Brian Faler - June 3, 2009 - (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said large U.S. budget deficits threaten financial stability and the government can’t continue indefinitely to borrow at the current rate to finance the shortfall. Read more...

Sotomayor's Confirmation Hearings Will Be a Trial of the GOP - Roberto Lovato - New America Media - May 27, 2009 - As she faces what is already expected to be a host of hostile questions from the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in her confirmation hearings, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court, should remember one thing: that it is not she who will be on trial, but the Republican Party Read more...

Former Interrogator Rebukes Cheney for Torture Speech - bravenewfilms - May 25, 2009 - Dick Cheney says that torturing detainees has saved American lives. That claim is patently false. Cheney's torture policy was directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of A... Online video short...

India likely to move on U.S. military pact - May 24, 2009 - Sanjeev Miglani NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's new ruling coalition, freed of pressure from its former communist allies, is expected to move forward soon on a military logistics deal with the United States that would help U.S. operations in the region. Read more...

FAA and DOD Cleared Way for 9/11 Hijackers - May 13, 2009 - Gary Evans - Daily Censored - the 9/11 attacks were carried out with precision, and required support — whether known, or unknown to the actual attackers — from agents within the Bush government. Read more...

KSM Questioned About al Qaeda-Iraq Ties During Waterboarding - Sam Stein - 05-15-2009 - HuffingtonPost - Some of the first questions asked of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed upon his capture and during the time during which he was waterboarded were about possible connections between al Qaeda and Iraq, according to a review of several reports on U.S. intelligence operations. Read more...

Pelosi says Bush team misled her on waterboarding - JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press - 05-14-2009 - WASHINGTON – Under strong attack from Republicans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA and Bush administration of misleading her about waterboarding detainees in the war on terror and sharply rebutted claims she was complicit in the method's use. Read more...

Battle Lines in Torture Debate Harden - Jim Malone - Washington 12 May 2009 - Former Vice President Dick Cheney and several religious leaders are the latest to add their voices to the national debate over harsh interrogation techniques used on some terrorism suspects during the Bush administration. Read more...

 Ron Paul Questions Richard Holbrooke - 5/5/2009 - At the House Foreign Relations Committee Hearing, Ron Paul questions Richard Holbrooke about US policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan Online video short...

Obama Welcomes Specter to Democratic Party - Washington Post - 04-29-2009 - President Obama said he will offer Sen. Arlen Specter his full support when Specter runs for re-election in 2010. Read more...

Leahy wants to probe 'chain of command' on torture - April 26, 2009 - WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An independent commission is needed to determine who authorized the use of abusive interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists, a leading advocate of such a panel said Sunday. Read more...

CIA reportedly declined to closely evaluate harsh interrogations - Greg Miller - Los Angeles Times - 04-26-2009 - Current and former US officials say the failure to carefully examine the value of 'enhanced' methods like waterboarding -- despite calls to do so as early as 2003 -- was part of a broader trend. Read more...

European Nations May Investigate Bush Officials Over Prisoner Treatment - Craig Whitlock - Washington Post - April 22, 2009 BERLIN -- European prosecutors are likely to investigate CIA and Bush administration officials on suspicion of violating an international ban on torture if they are not held legally accountable at home, according to U.N. officials and human rights lawyers. Read more...

Obama and the CIA - Wall Street Journal - 04-21-2009 - Wall Street Journal - ‎ President Obama on Monday paid his first formal visit to CIA headquarters, in order, as he put it, to "underscore the importance" of the agency and let its staff "know that you've got my full support. Read more...

Cheney v. Obama - primebuzz - 04-21-2009 - WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to possible prosecution of Bush administration officials who devised harsh terrorism-era interrogation tactics. Read more...

Waterboarding More Frequent, Memos Suggest - WASHINGTON, April 20, 2009 CBS/AP) - The U.S. waterboarded suspected terrorists far more than previously acknowledged, including a total of 266 times for two al Qaeda operatives, according to recently released CIA memos. Read more...

CIA interrogation tactics: a terrifying ordeal - MATT APUZZO - Associated Press – Few people have ever witnessed the process, which was designed to extract secrets from "high value" suspects during the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks on the U.S Read more...

U.S. phone intercepts go beyond legal limits: report - Thu Apr 16, 2009 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The National Security Agency intercepted Americans' e-mails and phone calls in recent months on a scale that went beyond limits set by the U.S. Congress last year, The New York Times reported on Wednesday. Read more...

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