As Jim Moore explained, before making over George W. Bush, Karl Rove “created” Rick Perry—the man who succeeded Bush as governor of Texas and is now locked in a difficult…
Is an Italian law that grants senior officials of the government immunity from criminal prosecution during the time they serve in office consistent with the Italian Constitution’s guarantee that all…
A meeting of the House Intelligence Committee abruptly terminated this morning when Justice Department officials called to testify about their review of an internal CIA report on the 2001 shootdown…
Barry Eisler’s novel Fault Line opens with a U.S. government hit team taking out an Iranian nuclear scientist on a visit to Istanbul. Eisler, a former covert operative for the…
International summitry has attracted over the past few years an array of protesters. Some are peaceful, out to make a point about the lack of accountability of the international system…
What a difference an election makes. The National Brand Index, a ranking of countries on the basis of their perceived position in culture, governance, people, exports, tourism, landscape and education,…
Ted Trautman contributed reporting for this interview. Joe Berlinger is the director and producer of the new movie “Crude: The Real Price of Oil,” which tells the story of an…
We’ve just gone through the era of “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) in which any social question was put through a test against scripture, as interpreted by the likes of…
Caught in the Web, 1860. The International Monetary Fund said that the global economy was improving and that banks would probably have to absorb another $1.5 trillion in losses in…
Cologne’s Wallraf Richartz Museum has launched an impressive new exhibition entitled “Vincent van Gogh: Shoes,” built around a celebrated painting by the Dutch master from 1886. Some might wonder how…
“It is not disloyal to hold our officials to the highest standards of conduct.” That statement comes from a prosecutor near the end of the trial of a group of…
Writing at Belief.net, Rod Dreher highlights a new initiative on the religious right: the Conservative Bible Project. The effort aims to rewrite the Bible to remove its notorious liberal bias…
From the Washington Post: In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until…
Imagine if the Bush Administration were helping cover up the vote farce in Afghanistan? How much bloviating would be emanating from the liberal blogosphere at this point? From Peter Galbraith:…
Who prop, thou ask’st in these bad days, my mind?– He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men, Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen, And Tmolus hill,…
After letting myself go lately on the depressing subject of military tattoos and tainted investments, I thought, as I often do, of a line of Matthew Arnold’s: “Who prop, thou…
It’s worth diving into one of those 38 habeas cases to get a taste of the arguments that are being made. One decided late last week by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly,…
For seven years, the Bush Administration told us that the prisoners held at Guantánamo were the “worst of the worst.” These are the kind of people who would chew through…
“I came to the conclusion very soon that this probably wasn’t the right way to go. Probably before I left Guantanamo, I was of the opinion it needed to go…
Confronted with a choice between the recommendations of two advocates, one smart and one seemingly less smart, on what basis does one choose that of the less smart one? Without…
From the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics: From January 2007 through June 2009, Senator Max Baucus collected contributions from 37 outside lobbyists representing PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s…
Up until now President Obama has been unable to round up any Republican backing for his major initiatives. Finally, though, it appears that Obama’s call for bipartisanship has paid off.…