DUBYA'S WISDOM ~~ HIS TOP 50 STUPID QUOTES
1-”We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.”
2-”It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.”
3-”The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.”
John Cusack Talks About "War, Inc" (VIDEO)
John Cusack talked about his new baby, "War, Inc," with Craig Ferguson earlier this week. The movie opens next Friday in New York and LA.
New Passport cards called security vulnerability
The State Department will soon begin production of an electronic passport card that security specialists and members of Congress fear will be vulnerable to alteration or counterfeiting.
The agency has contracted with L-1 Identity Solutions Inc. to produce electronic-passport cards as a substitute for booklet passports for use by Americans who travel frequently by road or sea to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Chicago Citizens Reject Terror Drill Fearmongering
The latest opportunity for authorities to grandstand, fearmonger and practice processing citizens through a de facto internment camp fell flat on its face yesterday after just 350 out of an expected 4,000 turned up to participate in a mock terror drill at Chicago's Sears Centre Arena.
"An elaborate public-health drill Tuesday that organizers had hoped would use thousands of volunteers to help test the Chicago area's response to a possible bioterrorism attack instead drew fewer than 350 people—and one beleaguered Cook County Board president," reports the Chicago Tribune.
'Recount' Premieres in Jacksonville
A new HBO film examines the days after the 2000 election while America waited on a Florida recount to find out who the next president would be. A new movie premieres Wednesday night in Jacksonville.
The HBO films "Recount" takes a look back at the 2000 election and the events that followed while America tried to figure out who the next president would be. The film stars Kevin Spacey as Ron Klain, who was Al Gore's former Chief of Staff during the election. Parts of the movie were shot in Jacksonville.
Is Real ID Really Going to Happen?
Yesterday, May 11, was when the Real ID Act, signed into law three years ago to the day, was due to kick in.
The law set national standards for all state driver's licenses and other forms of photo identification. It directs states to store people's drivers license information in a database, along with additional identity information, like a digital copy of each person's birth certificate. The law mandates that all state databases are to be linked. By now, every state should have built this database and issued Real ID-compliant licenses to all residents.
But you don't need to worry about these new ID's. The law has yet to go into effect. Little about Real ID has gone as planned. All 50 states, and the District of Columbia, were given extensions by the Dept. of Homeland Security to comply with Real ID. This extension was given despite the fact that 17 states passed resolutions saying they have no intention of ever implementing the program.
Jeb Bush is back
When last we saw Jeb Bush, he was handing the keys to the breakdown-plagued car that is the state of Florida to his successor, Charlie Crist, and heading off into a South Florida sunset. The former guv vowed to stay out of the media and out of politics -- in deference to the current guv, despite their ideological (Crist is more moderate) and stylistic (Bush is more detail-oriented) differences.
But Bush never promised to stay out of the wonky end of Florida public policy, especially in education and socially conservative causes such as fighting against gambling. The result is that a little more than a year after leaving office, Jeb Bush remains a powerful force in Florida.
Some Detainees Are Drugged For Deportation
The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.
The government's forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.
HACKING THE MIND
“We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated. The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electronically control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain.
Dr José Delgado.
Director of Neuropsychiatry, Yale University Medical School Congressional Record, No. 26, Vol. 118 February 24, 1974.
Bush gave up golf 'in solidarity' with soldiers' families
The Politico's Mike Allen talked with President Bush about why he gave up golf. Bush said, "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died see the Commander in Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them, and I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."
The US president traced his decision to the August 19, 2003 bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed the world body's top official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Bush's last round of golf as president dates back to October 13, 2003, according to meticulous records kept by CBS news.
Colbert shows solidarity with Bill O'Reilly F-bomb rant (Video)
With a newly-discovered video of Fox pundit Bill O'Reilly exploding into a profanity-laced rant quickly becoming the latest Internet sensation, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert was bound to be drawn into the ongoing commotion.
"Apparently some jokers out there have posted a twenty year old video of my mentor, Papa Bear Bill O'Reilly," Colbert began, showing a bleeped version of the clip. "It's a shocker. I mean, who could have guessed Bill O'Reilly had a temper?"
"In solidarity with you, Bill," Colbert continued, "I am showing a never-before-seen clip of me back when I was the midday anchor at WPTS in Patterson Springs, North Carolina."
Edwards to Endorse Obama
There's a sudden buzz that John Edwards will endorse Barack Obama at a Wednesday evening rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
It's nice timing for Obama -- a day after Hillary Clinton trounced him in West Virginia. And the setting is good, too, as Obama tries to shore up support in a swing state loaded with the kind of Reagan Democrats who really might pay attention to what Edwards has to say. It's also an early delivery from Obama on his campaign's promise to work hard in Michigan, even as the state's Democratic party tries to sort out how to handle its disputed delegates.
Army Yanks 'Voice-To-Skull Devices' Site
The Army's very strange webpage on "Voice-to-Skull" weapons has been removed. It was strange it was there, and it's even stranger it's gone. If you Google it, you'll see the entry for "Voice-to-Skull device," but, if you click on the website, the link is dead.
Nonlethal weapon which includes (1) a neuro-electromagnetic device which uses microwave transmission of sound into the skull of persons or animals by way of pulse-modulated microwave radiation; and (2) a silent sound device which can transmit sound into the skull of person or animals. NOTE: The sound modulation may be voice or audio subliminal messages.
GOP getting crushed in polls, key races
John McCain is planning to run as a different kind of Republican. But being any kind of Republican seems like some sort of death sentence these days.
In case you’ve been too consumed by the Democratic race to notice, Republicans are getting crushed in historic ways both at the polls and in the polls.
At the polls, it has been a massacre. In recent weeks, Republicans have lost a Louisiana House seat they had held for more than two decades and an Illinois House seat they had held for more than three. Internal polls show that next week they could lose a Mississippi House seat that they have held for 13 years.
Barack Obama 'has enough super-delegates to win Democratic nomination'
The Illinois senator last week switched his attention to the general election battle against John McCain after locking down more than enough pledges to reach the victory target of 2,025 delegates.
A senior Democrat strategist, familiar with discussions at the highest levels of the Obama camp, has revealed that Mr Obama is now confident of the support of around 120 of the remaining 260 undeclared superdelegates.
His aides believe he will only need between 70 and 80 to be sure of the nomination if he wins the Oregon, Montana and South Dakota primaries as expected ater this month.
Why the Obama-Clinton ticket is nuts
The Clinton veepstakes is an ideal subject for pontificating because so few people have any hard information to know what they are talking about. That makes it easy to bluster on both sides of the question with equal conviction.
That is exactly what Politico has done. Below are five reasons the speculation about her running for vice president is nuts. Here’s a link to five other reasons it may not be.
... And why it isn't nuts
An Obama-Clinton ticket would definitely be out of the ordinary. But 2008 is not an ordinary year. Here’s why the skeptics may be wrong. Five reasons why Barack Obama should offer Hillary Rodham Clinton the vice presidential nomination — and why she would take it.
Obama open to Clinton as possible running mate
Democrat Barack Obama on Thursday did not rule out selecting rival Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate if he ultimately defeats her in a race in which he has an almost insurmountable lead.
"There's no doubt that she's qualified to be vice president, there's no doubt she's qualified to be president," Obama told NBC News. "She is tireless, she is smart. She is capable. And so obviously she'd be on anybody's short list to be a potential vice presidential candidate," said Obama
Clinton's Letter to Obama About Florida and Michigan
Hillary Clinton just sent a formal public letter to Barack Obama calling on him to work to find a resolution to the Florida and Michigan question that reflects the votes in those states and seats their delegations at the convention. She also attempts to shame him for what she calls his failure to "support those efforts" in Michigan, and for the Obama campaign's opposition to revotes in Florida. "In Florida a number of revote options were proposed. I am not aware of any that you supported," she writes.
Where did the Web rumors about Obama come from?
Some things about Barack Obama rub some voters the wrong way.
"We don't need a Muslim," said Jannay Smith, a retiree from Kokomo, Ind. "Who's to say if he gets in there what he'll do?"
Added Steve Shallenberger, a Kokomo electrician: "He's just calling himself a Christian because he knows that's what we in Indiana want to hear."
Then there's Sherry Richey, also from Kokomo: "He wouldn't put his hand on the Bible; he wanted the Quran. He won't put his hand over his heart during the anthem or say the Pledge of Allegiance. He's too un-American."
All of these slurs on Obama are categorically untrue.
THE RNC'S 1,200 PAGES OF CLINTON OPPO
Two Republican officials at the Republican National Committee who are involved in "opposition research efforts" in preparation for the general election say the RNC's oppo research dossier on Sen. Clinton runs more than 1,200 pages in length.
According to these officials, the book includes "previously undisclosed information about Hillary Clinton's connections to the Whitewater scandal, travel office firings, and Democratic fundraising efforts." Given that the book has not been shared with us, we've been unable to confirm this assertion. Furthermore, the Republican officials would not describe the nature of the "new information."
Damsel of Distress
This is an amazing story. The Democratic Party has a winner. It has a nominee. You know this because he has the most votes and the most elected delegates, and there's no way, mathematically, his opponent can get past him. Even after the worst two weeks of his campaign, he blew past her by 14 in North Carolina and came within two in Indiana.
He's got this thing. And the Democratic Party, after this long and brutal slog, should be dancing in the streets. Party elders should be coming out on the balcony in full array, in full regalia, and telling the crowd, "Habemus nominatum": "We have a nominee." And the crowd below should be cheering, "Viva Obamus! Viva nominatum!"
Instead, you know where they are, the party elders. They are in a Democratic club on Capitol Hill, slump-shouldered at the bar, having a drink and then two, in a state of what might be called depressed horror. "What are they doing to the party?" they wail. "Why are they doing this?"
Stewart asks McCain to 'repudiate and denounce' Bush
When Senator John McCain appeared on Wednesday’s Daily Show to discuss his candidacy for president, Jon Stewart hit him with a tough one right off.
“Everybody knows Barack Obama has a problem with the Reverend Wright issue,” Stewart began. “Americans, I think 35% said that they were concerned about his relationship with the reverend. You, sir, have your own person, religious — I don’t want to say zealot — but a religious person endorsing your campaign that Americans have expressed greater concern, your relationship with him — 43%. Will you take the opportunity right now to repudiate and denounce President Bush?”
Hillary's Nuclear Option, Force Florida and Michigan Delegate showdown
There are a lot of "ifs'' in the "nuclear option'' that Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign could consider for claiming her party's nomination, the way Tom Edsall tells it:
If Clinton does well or outright wins in Indiana and/or North Carolina this week, if her argument for electability takes hold and if enough party activists are willing to withstand the revolt that would ensue, Clinton could force a vote of the party's bylaws committee to seat the disputed, Clinton-rich delegations of Florida and Michigan and overtake Barack Obama's delegate lead.
GOP leaders warn of election disaster
Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC’s money.
The double shot of bad news had one veteran Republican House member worrying aloud that the party’s electoral woes — brought into sharp focus by Woody Jenkins’ loss to Don Cazayoux in Louisiana on Saturday — have the House Republican Conference splitting apart in “everybody for himself” mode.
n a piece published in Human Events, the Republicans’ onetime captain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.
White House admits pre-war e-mails not archived
The White House does not have archival copies of e-mails exchanged between administration officials during the weeks leading up to President Bush's decision to invade Iraq nor for the first two months of the war there, according to a just-released filing concerning millions of e-mails alleged to have gone missing or been deleted.
"A White House declaration filed late last night ... makes the stunning admission that the White House failed to preserve ANY backup tapes for the period March 1, 2003 through May 22, 2003, a period of time during which the U.S. went to war in Iraq,"
FBI Raids Home, Office of Office of Special Counsel
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided the Office of Special Counsel here, seizing computers and documents belonging to the agency chief Scott Bloch and staff.
More than a dozen FBI agents served grand jury subpoenas shortly after 10 a.m., shutting down the agency's computer network and searching its offices, as well as Mr. Bloch's home. Employees said the searches appeared focused on alleged obstruction of justice by Mr. Bloch during the course of an 2006 inquiry into his conduct in office.
A Psychedelic 'Problem Child' Comes Full Circle
ON the afternoon of Jan. 11, Albert Hofmann, the chemist who discovered LSD, had about a dozen friends and family up to his glass-walled home in the mountains near Basel, Switzerland, for a party. It was his 102nd birthday and, in an important sense, also a homecoming.
Dr. Hofmann, who died last week, spent the latter part of his life consulting with scientists around the world who wanted to bring his “problem child,” as he called the drug, back into the lab to study as a therapeutic agent. Not long before his last birthday, he learned that health officials in his native Switzerland had approved what will be the first known medical trial of LSD anywhere in more than 35 years — to test whether the drug can help relieve distress at end of life
Pentagon Wants Cyberwar Range to 'Replicate Human Behavior and Frailties'
The Pentagon's way-out researchers don't just want to build an Internet simulator, to test out cyberwar tactics. They want the range's operators to "realistically replicate human behavior and frailties," too.
Congress has ordered the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, to put together a National Cyber Range, as part of a massive (and massively secret) $30 billion, government-wide effort better prep for battle online. The project is now considered a top priority for the Agency. And to make sure the facility is as true-to-life as possible, Darpa wants the contractors running the Range to be able to "replicate realistic human behavior on nodes,"
John McCain Did Not Vote for George Bush in 2000
The fact that this man was so angry at what George Bush had done to him, and at what Bush represented for their party, that he did not even vote for him in 2000 shows just how far he has fallen since then in his hunger for the presidency. By abandoning his core principles and embracing Bush -- both literally and metaphorically -- he has morphed into an older and crankier version of the man he couldn't stomach voting for in 2000.
McCain's fall has been Shakespearean -- and really hard to watch for those, like myself, who so admired and even loved him. His nobility and his true reformer years have given way to pandering in the service of ambition.
Operation Acoustic Kitty
At the height of the Cold War, the US Central Intelligence Agency was willing to try just about anything to gain an advantage over the dreaded Communists. The agency considered using exploding cigars or seashells to remove Cuban leader Fidel Castro; they employed psychics to attempt "remote viewing" of Russian military secrets; and the CIA even put the Soviets on the business ends of clairvoyant minds to attempt mind-control.
Clinton: OPEC 'can no longer be a cartel'
Clinton's attacks on oil prices as artificially inflated, Enron-style, keep escalating, and today she appeared to threaten to break up the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"We’re going to go right at OPEC," she said. "They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get to gether once every couple of months" at a hotel in "some plush place in the world" to set prices, she told a crowd a volunteer fire house in Merillville.
It's a potent message, like the attack on "Wall Street money grubbers," with deep roots in American politics. It's also very hard to figure out what exactly she means by the threat to break OPEC.
NSA-Spied-On Lawyers Get Day in Court and New Yorker Profile
First the Feds investigate a Saudi charity in Oregon, wiretap the director and two of the group's lawyers, try to designate it a terrorist group and accidentally give the group proof of the wiretapping. Then years later when Al Haramain's American lawyers sue, claiming they were wiretapped without warrants, the feds seek to bury the case with a nearly all powerful litigation tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege, raising profound questions about whether the president is accountable to the law.
US plan to protect last 300 Right Whales from shipping blocked by Cheney
Efforts to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale from being killed by ships are being blocked by Vice President Dick Cheney according to leaked documents.
A behind the scenes struggle is raging between the White House and US government scientists who want to force ships to slow down near the calving grounds of the almost extinct right whale.
The right whale controversy is the latest example of the Bush Administration sidestepping the advice of its on scientists which are aimed at protecting endangered species or threats to the environment.
Pentagon Expands Propaganda Reach With Foreign "News" Websites
The Pentagon is expanding "Information Operations" on the Internet with purposefully set up foreign news websites that are designed to look like independent media sources but in reality are nothing more than direct military propaganda.
USA Today reports:
"The Pentagon is setting up a global network of foreign-language news websites, including an Arabic site for Iraqis, and hiring local journalists to write current events stories and other content that promote U.S. interests and counter insurgent messages."
Daily Show: Cable news created 'festival of Wrights' (Video)
Senator Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is “dominating cable news coverage like a missing white girl,” quips Jon Stewart.
The media has elected to binge, akin to Stewart’s on-camera ice cream indulgence, on remarks, jokes and sermons by the Reverend, in a veritable “Festival of Wrights.” Not even a stern, on-camera repudiation from the Senator himself can stop the spin machine.
Colbert: Hannity, O'Reilly didn't leave Catholic Church (Video)
The Colbert Report's take on Rev Wright.
From the Memory Hole: CIA Instructions to Media Assets re: Assassination of President Kennedy
RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report
This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination. Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachment.
Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active addresses are requested:
To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to asset.
"Check out the link and read the whole "Memo" it was declassified in the 90's it is from CIA Document #1035-960, marked "PSYCH" for presumably Psychological Warfare Operations" Willy Bova
How to Cast a Ballot in Indiana if You Don't Have State-Issued Photo-ID...
For those wondering what a legally registered voter needs to do to successfully cast a ballot in Indiana --- now that their draconian polling place Photo ID restrictions have been upheld by the Supreme Court --- so that it might be counted, in the event the voter doesn't currently own a state-issued photo ID (no, military ID is not acceptable) we thought we'd offer a handy quick guide.
HBO Film Recount Relives Florida 2000 (Video)
Supreme Court Justice Antonin "get over it" Scalia likely won't be watching it, but HBO will be re-living the election that launched a thousand legal briefs -- and tens of thousands of touch-screen voting machines -- when it airs the new film Recount beginning May 25th.
The movie stars Kevin Spacey as Al Gore's former chief of staff, Ron Klain, and Laura Dern as Katherine Harris, the formidable former Florida secretary of state who certified George Bush the victor.
The uncredited star, of course, is the hanging, dangling, pregnant chads.....
After Records Reveal E-Voting Glitches, Florida Election Official Jokes She'll Stop Keeping Records
Kathy Dent, the election director in Sarasota County, Florida, was the target of controversy after the 2006 election when more than 18,000 ballots cast on ES&S touch-screen voting machines in her county showed no vote cast in the 13th congressional district race. The so-called undervote rate in that race was five times what is considered normal and resulted in two lawsuits filed by voters and the defeated candidate, Christine Jennings, who lost the congressional seat by fewer than 400 votes.
Documents that Wired.com obtained through a records request last year showed that voters in 19 precincts reported problems with the machines on Election Day, complaining that they had to press the ES&S screens repeatedly to cast their vote or that even after a machine registered their vote for Jennings on the ballot page, the vote had disappeared by the time they reached the review screen at the end of the ballot. Throughout the day, poll workers called in the complaints to Dent's office, where staff recorded the problems on the forms that Wired.com obtained.
Olbermann: McCain doesn't even play by his own ethical rules (Video)
Under the heading “Double Talk Express,” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann reported on Monday that Sen. John McCain has twice crossed ethical guidelines laid down by his own campaign. “He’s such a maverick, he not only doesn’t play by other people’s rules, he doesn’t even play by his own rules,” stated Olbermann mockingly.
In the War Against Terrorism, Intelligence Drones On
Finding a "needle in a needle stack": That's how the head of Army intelligence training described the new challenge of spying in the war on terrorism. Searching for a "needle in a haystack" would be much easier, he says, because at least "there's a visible difference."
NYC Is Getting a New High-Tech Defense Perimeter. Let's Hope It Works
At the southernmost end of Brooklyn, just off Dead Horse Bay, there's a weather-beaten helipad where the New York Police Department keeps a gray unmarked twin-engine Bell 412 helicopter. Detective Brendan Galligan ushers me aboard. "We don't really let people see this," he says.
We climb in behind the pilot and find ourselves facing a console with three screens: One shows a map of the city; another, an interface for checking license plates and addresses; and the third, the view from a gyro-stabilized L-3 Wescam camera attached to the chopper's nose. The camera can see clear across the city, in both the visible and the infrared slices of the spectrum; then it can broadcast the images to police headquarters using an onboard microwave transmitter.
One-Stop Defense Shopping
The Government Accountability Office reported last month on how things are going with nearly 100 major U.S. defense systems. Not well, it seems. They have exceeded their original budgets and are, on average, almost two years behind schedule.
The GAO report lays bare a festering problem in our nation's military procurement system: Competition barely exists in the defense industry and is growing weaker by the day.
Michigan voters to decide on legal Medical Marijuana
When Michigan voters head to the polls this November, they'll have the chance to remove the legal hassles for tens of thousands of their neighbors whose pain and suffering caused by a dozen diseases can be eased with medical marijuana. A measure that will appear on the ballot there this fall would remove penalties for suffering patients who find their only relief from smoking a joint, eating a pot brownie or brewing tea with the infamous herb. A poll last month found two-thirds of Michiganders support the proposal, which would make their state the 13th to legalize medical marijuana.
US air force calls for mission to combat climate change
The US air force will this week call for the world's top scientists to come together in a 21st-century Apollo-style programme to develop greener fuels and tackle global warming. It wants universities, governments, companies and environmental groups to collaborate on a multibillion-dollar effort to work out greenhouse gas emissions of existing and future fuels.
He said controversy over the environmental impact of biofuels showed such an effort was needed to avoid making the situation worse: "If you look at the situation with bioethanol from corn, a lot of people saw that as a panacea, but now it seems that if you include the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, the carbon footprint may be worse than people realised.
The Plunge Protection Team Turns 20
Some people foolishly think that Washington's recent high-profile effort to steer, subsidize and protect the American financial sector is the beginning of something new -- a revolutionary development.
It isn't. Consider that the President's Working Group on Financial Markets – nicknamed “the Plunge Protection Team” by The Washington Post in 1997 & ndash; quietly observed its 20th birthday on Mar. 18.
"Quietly,” in fact, is an understatement. “Semi-secretly” would be more like it. The Working Group, or PPT, is much-pondered but reclusive group that has declined to submit to the federal Freedom of Information Act or to testify in detail before Congress about its activities. This is true even though its current chief, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. – Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke is another prominent member -- made no secret of revving up its operations after he took took over at Treasury in 2006.
Electoral College road to the White House favors Democrats; McCain playing defense
The electoral road to the White House favors Democrats this fall — either Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton — and has Republican John McCain playing defense to thwart a presidential power shift.
A downtrodden economy, the war in Iraq and a public call for change have created an Electoral College outlook and a political environment filled with extraordinary opportunity for the Democrats and enormous challenge for the GOP nominee-in-waiting.
Both parties count on victory in dozens of states that long have voted their way. The competition to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win is expected to play out primarily in 14 states. All but one saw the greatest action in 2004. The exception is Virginia, a longtime Republican stronghold where Democrats have made inroads.
With Bingaman Endorsement, Obama Takes Senate Support Lead
Sen. Barack Obama officially pulled ahead today in the scramble for endorsements from colleagues in the U.S. Senate, thanks to Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.
Never one of the Senate's most high-profile members, Bingaman now has a claim to political fame: He put Obama over the top after his long slog to catch Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had a head start in winning the support of her peers. Obama now has 14 endorsements to Clinton's 13.
Court: Government Must Reveal Watch-List Status to Constantly Detained Americans
The Terrorist Screening Center, which runs the list, says it has been pruning the list and removing errant entries, even as the list grows by an estimated 20,000 names a month. While the TSC says the majority of the names on the list are foreigners, most of the people compared against the list are Americans, who are checked against the list when they are stopped for a traffic violation, enter or leave the country or fly domestically.
Additionally, the judge ruled that the state secrets privilege against disclosing sources and methods does apply to FBI investigative files and terrorism information in its TIDES database, but that the government should show those documents to the judge in secret, so the judge can decide what portions of those files can be safely released.