There may be a growing battle between Congress and the president over the Iraq War strategy, but new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she won't block funding for additional troops.
Pelosi's position, revealed in an exclusive interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer, came a day after a group of senators announced a bipartisan resolution condemning the Bush administration's plan to increase U.S. forces in Iraq by more than 20,000 troops.
A senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the murders of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and former spy Alexander Litvinenko are part of an attack by powerful groups against the head of state, the Reuters news agency reported on Thursday.
Litvinenko’s death in London on November 23 from polonium poisoning followed the murder in Moscow of prominent journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Both were critics of Putin.
After sitting through withering criticism in a Senate hearing, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has promised more information on the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian who ended up in a cell in Syria after U.S. officials grabbed him on a stopover in New York.
Gonzales was grilled relentlessly on Thursday by Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy. Leahy said that when Arar — a citizen of both Canada and Syria travelling on a Canadian passpor... (more)
The 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade is coming up Monday, and after writing about abortion for years, it's a bit of a challenge to say something original about it this year.
So let's say a few old things that, because they are so well- established, seldom get mentioned. Here is what isn't news about abortion, as culled from www.secondlookproject.org, a Web site of the Pro-Life Secretariat of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops:
A US soldier has agreed to plead guilty in the rape of a 14-year-old girl and the murder of her and her family in the Iraqi town of Mahmudiya last year.
Sgt Paul Cortez will no longer face the death penalty and has agreed to co-operate in the trials of three other soldiers, his lawyer said.
A fifth soldier, Spec James Barker, pleaded guilty in November and was sentenced to life in prison.
The case is one of several in which US troops are accused of ki... (more)
Caracas, January 19, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— During a briefing before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Intelligence, current CIA chief General Michael V. Hayden revealed President George W. Bush had requested his agency “pay more attention” to the activities of President Hugo Chávez and his government in Venezuela.
General Hayden’s commentaries were directed to the House Committee on Intelligence after outgoing Director of... (more)
Fox News Channel's morning program Fox & Friends pointed to a report on Friday that Sen. Barack Obama had attended a Muslim 'madrasa' while living in Indonesia as a 6-year-old child.
Host Steve Doocy went on to highlight Obama's middle name, Hussein, and questioned whether Obama was indoctrinated in extremist Muslim doctrine.
A proposal to ban certain house parties in the city of Miami Beach is one step closer to reality.
The proposed ordinance would prohibit the commercial use of a single-family home, making it illegal to host a part where there's a sponsor or fee to get in.
A first reading of the ordinance was held on Wednesday night.
Many residents complained about the big parties in the city, but the ordinance was also met with opposition, forcing a change to the orig... (more)
The Australian writer Donald Horne meant the title of his celebrated book, The Lucky Country, as irony. "Australia is a lucky country run by second-rate people who share its luck," he lamented in 1964, describing much of the Australian elite as unfailingly unoriginal, race-obsessed and in thrall to imperial power and its wars. From Britain's 19th century opium adventures to America's current travesty in Iraq, Australians have been sent to fight faraway people with whom they have no quarrel and w... (more)
KAGOSHIMA -- A man who was forced by Kagoshima Prefectural Police investigators to trample on pieces of paper bearing his family members' names was awarded 600,000 yen in damages in a ruling at the Kagoshima District Court on Thursday.
The 61-year-old man, Sachio Kawabata, had filed a lawsuit demanding 2 million yen in compensation for mental anguish suffered while being questioned over an alleged election law violation.
"The investigation method was out of line, an... (more)
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, an iconic conservative who continues to command the attention of the White House, praises President Bush's moves in Iraq and says that leaving the war-torn nation is not possible under present conditions.
Kissinger has penned an editorial in which he states that Bush's "bold decision to order a 'surge' of some 20,000 American troops for Iraq has brought the debate over the war to a defining stage. Th... (more)
The UCLA student who received a righteous tasering at the hands of the university's campus police officers has decided to sue for "unspecified monetary damages", Associated Press reports.
According to the original report in the uni's Daily Bruin, the incident occurred on 14 November last year when security officers at the Powell Library CLICC computer lab asked 23-year-old Mostafa Tabatabainejad "to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check". ... (more)
Police have identified the man they believe poisoned Alexander Litvinenko. The suspected killer was captured on cameras at Heathrow as he flew into Britain to carry out the murder.
Friends of the ex-spy say that the man was a hired killer, sent by the Kremlin, who vanished hours after administering a deadly dose of radioactive polonium-210 to Litvinenko.
He arrived in London on a forged EU passport and reportedly slipped the poison into a cup of tea he made for Litv... (more)
WASHINGTON – Pro-lifers across the nation are ready to tell Congress, the media, and American citizens ”No to abortion!”
From coast to coast, grassroots campaigns are being organized to protest abortion. Tens of thousands of participants are expected to show their support for the sanctity of human life starting Saturday.
The Third Annual Walk for Life West Coast will take place on Saturday with an expected 20,000 people to gather in San Francisco.... (more)
Three years ago, we were a bit surprised that the RIAA had hired a former director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and jokingly (we thought!) suggested that perhaps the RIAA was getting ready to bust down some doors. Not long after that, we were dismayed to hear that the RIAA had taken to dressing up foot soldiers in uniforms that made them look like they were a part of the FBI or some other law enforcemen... (more)
If you would like to know how a ruling clique really works, with its vast army of retainers and courtiers scurrying Osric-like to serve the needs of power, you need look no further than Richard Cohen's latest column in the Washington Post. The good folks at Sadly, No! picked out the choice passage below for special notice, and although they rightly focus on its display of C... (more)
What could better reflect the collective psychosis of the American Empire than our mass obsession with the NFL, culminating in the Super Bowl?
Coming from the same fetid bogs of spiritual decay that spawned the American Way, the NFL reeks with the stench of corporate tyranny, patriarchy, racism, superficiality, greed, competitiveness, and materialism.
Be Happy!
Through it all Americans seem to be happy, or at least, oblivious... (more)
You can read all about the nasty business of washing war crimes at the Washington Post. They start with fixing the headline. “Death in Haditha” - not ‘mass murder in Haditha’ or ‘Another American Atrocity in Iraq.’ Next, forget the damning details, screw the truth and give the perpetrators all the room in the world to blame their conduct on ‘mistakes’ made in the heat of battle amidst the fog of war.
