Army Private Brandon Neely served as a prison guard at Guantánamo in the first years the facility was in operation. With the Bush Administration, and thus the threat of retaliation…
The Justice Department’s long-standing probe of corruption in connection with Halliburton’s Nigerian contracts—a matter of obvious and acute concern to Vice President Dick Cheney—was rushed to a final settlement just…
1 O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear,…
Remember those memoranda about torture that President Bush and Vice President Cheney both stressed they relied upon in deciding to torture prisoners? It looks like the Justice Department’s own ethics…
On Thursday evening Barack Obama delivered a remarkable speech about Lincoln and his message in Springfield, Illinois. The speech got relatively little public attention, which is not surprising considering its…
From the Washington Post: Marvin Hoffman is listed in campaign finance records as one of the many lobbyists with the powerful PMA Group donating money to lawmakers. But Hoffman is…
At hominem simul ac viderunt dii, amplexi fratrem ipsi suum. Indignum iudicarunt qui in scænam unquam prodiisset ludicramque exercuisset artem infamem. Et suam atque patris similtudinem non poterant satis exosculari.…
The Associated Press reports: Blackwater Worldwide is abandoning its tarnished brand name as it tries to shake a reputation battered by oft-criticized work in Iraq, renaming its family of two…
John R. MacArthur is publisher of Harper’s Magazine and author of the book You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America. This column originally appeared in the…
I should confess straightaway to an unseemly feeling of delight today, brought on by the wonders of the wonderful Web. This week’s posts on a sentence by the talented Joseph…
From John Judis: There are many good things to say about the stimulus bill. But all in all, it wasn’t as good as it could be: It’s probably too small…
By a margin of 2 to 1, Americans feel it’s time for an accounting of the Bush Administration’s illegal practices, including torture and warrantless surveillance. And 40% of Americans are…
From the Washington Post: It takes a certain amount of nerve to have an event at the National Press Club and then ban the press from covering it. It takes…
Today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, and it deserves to be commemorated in a fashion other than a shopping trip. He was America’s real war president, and he was also a…
In two cases in the last year the British Government has represented to courts that continuation of proceedings that included allegations of criminal wrongdoing by British and foreign officials would…
It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the…
From the Chicago Tribune: An unlikely suitor has stepped to the plate with a job offer for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The Joliet JackHammers, a Will County minor-league baseball team,…
While Bush Administration torture-apologists continue to plead that the evidence cannot conclusively establish links between Rumsfeld Pentagon policies and the torture of detainees, the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded otherwise.…
The Bush Justice Department rushed to defend John Yoo when he got hit with civil lawsuits brought by victims of the torture policies that he helped to author. Now the…
Today is Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s 45th birthday. Three months after the electoral defeat of the McCain-Palin ticket, she remains a highly visible figure. For the Religious Right and other…
From the Columbus Dispatch, via Talkingpointsmemo: “When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression. He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use…
In my most recent post, I shared an exchange with a novelist friend about the work of the novelist Joseph O’Neill. When we left off, my friend wondered what I…
Interesting interview about Middle East coverage at Columbia Journalism Review with Sydney Morning Herald foreign correspondent Paul McGeough. A few excerpts: People keep repeating that Hamas’s charter is opposed to…
This is new to me: the Homeland Security Television Channel, “the world’s first online, on-demand television network dedicated to homeland security and global development.” The channel is also “dedicated to…
From Eli Lake: As President Obama weighs options for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq, the country’s military is purchasing American helicopters, cargo planes and tanks equipment that typically requires…
Yesterday I posted the first part of a conversation with Emile Nakhleh, former head of the CIA’s Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program and author of the new book, A Necessary…
As noted here last night, the FBI has raided a lobby shop, PMA, which is closely enmeshed with Congressman John Murtha, chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. According to Taxpayers…
Binyam Mohamed is a 30-year-old Ethiopian who was granted political asylum in Britain in 1994. In 2002, he was seized by Pakistani authorities and turned over to American intelligence officials…