As Copenhagen Summit Closes, Obama Maintains Widely Criticized US Position on Emissions Cuts, Climate Aid

DemocracyNow!
December 18, 2009

After ten days of talks, uncertainty looms over the Copenhagen summit—and, some might say, the fate of the planet. Negotiations remain deadlocked as fundamental divisions remain between rich and poor countries. A draft agreement drawn up by a small group of countries, including the US, was dismissed overnight by developing nations. President Obama arrived early this morning to join nearly 120 other world leaders at the summit. In a much anticipated address, Obama offered no new proposals to address the demands of developing countries...

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How Bugliosi Met the Bush Censors

By David Swanson
Consortium News
November 25, 2009

Editor’s Note: In the United States, the immense power of the right-wing news media, the cowardly careerism of the corporate press, and the weakness of independent media add up to a system of propaganda that is subtly Orwellian, hyping trivial matters and ignoring significant ones, even while many Americans think they are being protected by a free press.

While this dark reality is something we write about often at Consortiumnews.com, it has become increasingly apparent to almost anyone who speaks out on important topics, such as demanding accountability from George W. Bush and other protected figures, as David Swanson notes in this guest essay:

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A Court Decision that Reflects What Type of Country the U.S. is

by Glenn Greenwald
Salon via ICH
November 4, 2009

Even when government officials purposely subject an innocent person to brutal torture, they enjoy full immunity.

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Supreme Court to Take Up PATRIOT Act with Review of Case on Humanitarian Assistance to Groups on Terror List

DemocracyNow!
October 1, 2009

In its first-ever review of the PATRIOT Act, the Supreme Court has announced it will decide the constitutionality of a controversial anti-terrorism law that makes it a crime to give any form of aid, including humanitarian assistance, to groups on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. The Supreme Court case centers on a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project. We speak to David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor and attorney in the case...

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Ask Your Representative to Support H. Res. 554

Read The Bill
September 23, 2009

At the end of the day it comes down to this: an informed citizenry is critical to a functioning democracy. The point isn't only whether legislators read every word, but whether all citizens - people like us - have an opportunity to review and comment on pending legislation before it has an impact on our lives.

We are going to make sure we have that chance.

There's no ifs, ands, or buts. Legislation should be online for everyone to read.

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“Good Billions After Bad”–One Year After Wall Street Bailout, Pulitzer Winners Barlett and Steele Investigate Where All the Money Went

DemocracyNow!
September 10, 2009

It’s been exactly one year since the onset of the financial crisis and the passage of the Bush administration’s $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. But what were the factors in deciding who received bailout funds? And what happened to all the money? The answer to those two simple questions is: We don’t know. In a new article in Vanity Fair, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative team Donald Barlett and James Steele try to find an answer. The problem is, they write, “once the money left the building, the government lost all track of it.”...

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High Court Weighs Rules On Campaign Finance

by Nina Totenberg
National Public Radio
September 9, 2009

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have returned early from their summer recess to hear arguments in a case that could rip apart the legal underpinnings of the nation's campaign finance laws. For more than a century, for all practical purposes, those laws have barred corporations from spending money on candidate elections.

Wednesday's argument is a double first: The first argument to be heard by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and the first time new U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan will argue a case before the Supreme Court.

The justices view the case as so important that they are hearing it three weeks before the official opening of the new term, and they have taken the unusual step of allowing same-day broadcast of the audio...

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Fraud Complaints Cloud Afghan Election

by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
National Public Radio
September 1, 2009

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is ahead in the slow tally of ballots cast in the Aug. 20 elections. But the question looming for many Afghan voters isn't who will win, but whether the balloting was credible.

That decision rests with an American, a Canadian, a Dutchman and two Afghans who serve on the country's Electoral Complaints Commission. Hundreds of formal complaints of election fraud have been filed to the commission. If proven, the allegations could change the outcome of the race...

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Nadler: Obama Violating Law By Not Investigating Bush

by Sam Stein
August 21, 2009
Huffington Post

...Nadler said that a special prosecutor should handle the task, because some of the likely subjects of such an investigation worked in the Justice Department. "There is an inherent conflict interest," said Nadler," which is why you must appoint a special prosecutor. But, again, you have no choice because that's the law."

Respected by his colleagues as one of the sharpest legal minds in Congress, Nadler has taken a leading role in pushing the Obama administration to investigate its predecessor. Beyond the legal requirements, he argues that there is a moral and political imperative - lest the precedent be set that potential illegalities go un-probed...

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Supreme Court Orders Evidentiary Hearing for Death Row Prisoner Troy Anthony Davis; Rare Decision Could Result in New Trial

DemocracyNow!
August 19, 2009

The Supreme Court has taken the rare step of ordering a new hearing for Georgia death row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis. The nation’s highest court ordered a federal district court in Georgia to “receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes his innocence.” Davis was convicted for the 1989 killing of a white police officer. Since then, seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony, and there is no physical evidence tying him to the crime scene. In a Democracy Now! special, we hear from Davis, speaking from death row; Davis’s fifteen-year-old nephew Antone, and his sister Martina Correia, who have led the campaign to exonerate him; Laura Moye of Amnesty International USA; and Ezekiel Edwards, a staff attorney at the Innocence Project...

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Afghanistan Holds National Elections Amidst Violence, Fraud Allegations and Media Censorship

DemocracyNow!
August 20, 2009

Millions of Afghans are voting in presidential and provincial elections today amid tight security and threats of violence from the Taliban. There are also widespread concerns about corruption, with reports of voting cards being openly sold and of candidates offering large bribes. We speak to independent journalist Rick Rowley in northern Afghanistan and get analysis from radio host and author Sonali Kolhatkar...

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Why We Must Shift Our Attention from “Save Newspapers” to “Save Society”

The revolution will not be published
by Clay Shirky
July-August 2009
Utne Reader

...That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can be neither mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify...

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Cheney's CIA Secrets: We Must Fight to Get the Truth

By Marie Cocco, Washington Monthly (via Alternet). Posted July 17, 2009.

The scary part is how little we know about the Bush Administration's clandestine plans...

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Politico and the Washington Post Have Become Virtual "Escort Services" for Moneyed Elites

From Raw Story
Alternet
July 17, 2009

More and more mainstream media are brokering cozy relationships between politicians and lobbyists...

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This article links to related articles

NSA’s cyber-security grab is a major expansion of web surveillance

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal
Jun 26, 2009

In yet another example of his going back on campaign promises, Obama has backpedaled on his commitment to privacy rights. The slide to supporting illegal and intrusive surveillance began when Obama supported immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that willingly participated in the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program code named Stellar Wind...

What the Left Should be Learning From Iran

by Al Giordano
CounterPunch
June 19 - 21, 2009 (really!)

...As a journalist, I have always followed the stories that help me to learn something new and important to me. And every hour, I’m learning a new set of tricks from these brave communicators in Iran and around the world: methods and techniques that will serve us in this hemisphere, soon enough, too...

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The Disappointing Leon Panetta

By Melvin A. Goodman
Consortium News
June 19, 2009

CIA Director Leon Panetta is continuing the culture of cover-up that has plagued the Agency for the past three decades, ever since William Casey and Robert Gates collaborated in the 1980s to hide the crimes of Iran-Contra and to politicize sensitive intelligence...

The End of Impunity?

By: Tom Jacobs
Miller-McCune
June 19, 2009


An upcoming PBS documentary shows how the International Criminal Court has changed the world's approach to crimes against humanity — without, as yet, trying a case...

American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone

DemocracyNow!
June 18, 2009

Twenty years ago today, I.F. Stone died at the age of eighty-one. He was the premier investigative reporter of the twentieth century, a self-described radical journalist. I.F. Stone’s legacy of work spanned the New Deal, World War II, McCarthyism, the Cold War, Israel/Palestine, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and beyond. He scooped reporters right and left. As the FBI tracked him, he tracked down the story. He is best remembered for his self-published I.F. Stone’s Weekly. At its peak in the 1960s, the one-man publication had a circulation of about 70,000. We speak to his biographer, D.D. Guttenplan, and air historic recordings of I.F. Stone at the 1965 Vietnam teach-in in Berkeley, CA, and on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour...

Stop the Internet Rip-Off of 2009

Time Warner Cable is trying to restrict Internet use by shamelessly overcharging people who use the Web every day. Now other phone and cable giants like Comcast and AT&T are following suit -- weighing schemes to hike prices, shut down the free-flowing Web and keep user innovation in check.
The Internet is an engine of economic growth, civic engagement and free speech. To prosper in the 21st century, we need to encourage more Internet use, not less. The Broadband Internet Fairness Act would make price-gouging plans illegal and require the big phone and cable companies to disclose their schemes to the Federal Trade Commission.
This bill is our bill. By signing this letter, you're telling your representative to support the Broadband Internet Fairness Act today.

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Omnibus CYA Act of 2009

by David Swanson
Op Ed News
June 8, 2009

A healthy rivalry between the branches of government is the soul of our republic, so when the Senate's proposed ban on releasing photos and videos of torture fell short of completely covering things up, the White House proposed allowing prisoners to plead guilty to capital crimes and be executed without actual trials that might reveal evidence. Preemption being the technique of the hour, I'm going to preemptively fill you in on the next move from Capitol Hill. You will have read it here first...

Can't Buy Me Justice?

By Brenda Wright
June 9, 2009
Demos Blog

"We conclude that there is a serious risk of actual bias, based on objective and reasonable perceptions when a person with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the case by raising funds or directing the judge's election campaign when the case was pending or imminent. The inquiry centers on the contributions relative size in comparison to the total amount of money contributed to the campaign, the total amount spent in the election, and the apparent effect such contribution had on the outcome of the election."

Sonia Maria Sotomayor -- She's No Clarence Thomas, But No Thurgood Marshall Either

by Bruce Dixon
June 5, 2009
Op Ed News

...If we really want more than a change in the color of the faces at the top of American society, we'll have to spend a lot more energy evaluating their corporate connections of our judges on every level, and determining who they really serve...

Human Rights Attorney Vince Warren: Obama’s “Preventive Detention” Plan Goes Beyond Bush Admin Policies

DemocracyNow.org
We get reaction to President Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney’s dueling speeches on torture from Vince Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Warren took part in a secret meeting Wednesday between Obama and several human rights groups. Warren says although he welcomes Obama’s willingness to hear critical views, he’s disappointed in Obama’s new support for preventive detention...

Obama sees court pick as smart with common touch

National Public Radio
WASHINGTON May 24, 2009, 02:32 am ET · On the verge of choosing his first Supreme Court nominee, President Barack Obama has already provided a profile of the person he is likely to pick: an intellectual heavyweight with a "common touch," someone whose brand of justice means seeing life from the perspective of the powerless...

Was It the National Security Bureaucrats Who Forced Obama to Hold on to the Torture Photos?

by John Dean
Findlaw.com
May 16, 2009

Politicians come and go, but the folks who actually run the government have an agenda of their own, including covering their mistakes...

US Courts - Enemies of Education?

truthout
May 8, 2009

Is there a "constitutional right to education"?

Legal scholar and civil rights advocate Erwin Chemerinsky says there is. "There has to be a right to education in the Constitution," he declares, "and equal protection is a Constitutional imperative."

But according to Chemerinsky, this right has been fundamentally undermined by the Supreme Court. With the retirement of Justice David Souter, and the possible retirement in the next few years of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens, the role of the court in defending the right to education will be thrust into the national spotlight. What role might their replacements play in guaranteeing education to American children, and reversing the conservative momentum of the last three decades?