SALON: So [candidate] Barack Obama — the one trying to convince Democrats to make him their nominee and then their President — said that abducting people and imprisoning them without charges was (a) un-American; (b) tyrannical; (c) unnecessary to fight Terrorism; (d) a potent means for stoking anti-Americanism and fueling Terrorism; (e) a means of endangering captured American troops, Americans traveling abroad and Americans generally; and (f) a violent betrayal of core, centuries-old Western principles of justice.  But today’s Barack Obama, safely ensconced in the White House, fights tooth and nail to preserve his power to do exactly that.I’m not searching for ways to criticize Obama.  I […]

[Image courtesy of NYPL DIGITAL LIBRARY] WASHINGTON POST: The CIA no longer operates any secret overseas prisons, Director Leon Panetta said yesterday, and has not detained anyone since he became chief in February. Panetta’s statement, contained in a message to the CIA workforce, also said the agency will no longer use contractors to conduct interrogations or to provide security for remaining detention sites. Referring to “black sites,” as the secret prisons were known, Panetta said the agency has a plan “to decommission the remaining sites,” an apparent reference to facilities still in existence but no longer operational. He said that […]

THE HILL’S CONGRESS BLOG: American’s support for marijuana law reform is fast approaching a tipping point — a scenario made all that more remarkable when one considers that the federal government has spent nearly seven decades propagandizing against it.  Mainstream America is coming to terms with marijuana, and growing more and more dissatisfied with our nation’s failing pot policies. […] In the past days, leading commentators like David Sirota, Kathleen Parker, Paul Jacob,  Hendrik Hertzberg, Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Greenwald , Debra Saunders (San Francisco Chronicle), Leonard Pitts (Miami Herald),  John Richardson (Esquire), and Margery Eagan (Boston Herald), have all opined […]

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials. The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven’t sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war. The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. and doesn’t target a particular company or region, said a […]

WASHINGTON POST: Medical officers who oversaw interrogations of terrorism suspects in CIA secret prisons committed gross violations of medical ethics and in some cases essentially participated in torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a confidential report that labeled the CIA program “inhuman.” Health personnel offered supervision and even assistance as suspected al-Qaeda operatives were beaten, deprived of food, exposed to temperature extremes and subjected to waterboarding, the relief agency said in the 2007 report, a copy of which was posted on a magazine Web site yesterday. The report quoted one medical official as telling a detainee: […]

TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE: Five children between ages 7 and 16 were found shot dead, allegedly by their father, in their home southeast of Tacoma, Wash., authorities said Saturday night. The body of the children’s father was discovered Saturday morning in his car near a casino about 25 miles away. The man had apparently killed himself with a rifle, authorities said. The discovery prompted Pierce County sheriff’s deputies to check on the children at a mobile home park near Graham, Wash., said Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the sheriff’s department. He identified the dead children as four girls and a boy. […]