Of the many lies told by the Bush Administration about the invasion of Iraq, and there are now too many to catalog, few stand out as prominently as Vice President Dick Cheney’s continued claim that the Iraqi people see Americans as "liberators."
Driven by bitter partisanship and lockstep Republican loyalty to a President and his failed politics, Congress is about to make torture of the law of the land.
The House Wednesday approved George W. Bush’s plan to codify "harsh interrogation techniques" for detainees along with expanded powers for the President to determine just what can and cannot be done to them while they are in custody.
The Senate is expected to approve their modified version today and both Houses of Congress expect to work out any differences and have the bill on the President’s desk by the end of the week.
And we can expect Republicans to spin the approval of torture as a political positive in the rapidly-approaching November mid-term elections, claiming anyone who opposes their barbarianism is "weak" on national security.
By BARRY SCHWEID
About six in 10 Iraqis say they approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and slightly more than that want their government to ask U.S. troops to leave within a year, a poll finds.
By DALE McFEATTERS
Now that the Rev. Jerry Falwell has injected the devil into the presidential race, saying that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton could fire up his supporters more than Lucifer himself, it’s perhaps time to examine the proposition: What if the devil decided to run for president?
By REG HENRY
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Say what you like about U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, but he is never dull. Currently behind in the polls, the senator has an extraordinary new ad on TV to advance his re-election prospects. The ad is so surprising that Pennsylvania residents are surely searching the skies for the pigs that will soon fly over.
By BONNIE ERBE
To date, 65 women soldiers have died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan — a small percentage of the U.S. total of almost 3,000 war dead as of this writing, but a significant number nonetheless.
Why aren’t Americans upset about this? Or should they be?
By JAMES ROSEN
McClatchy Newspapers
Sen. Kent Conrad, senior Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said Wednesday that some of the tax cuts enacted under President Bush might get "trimmed" if his party regains control of Congress.
Conrad and Rep. John Spratt, ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, sharply criticized Republicans for failing to adopt a budget or to pass any of the 12 annual appropriations bills.
Another holier-than-thou right-wing Republican who preaches morality and family values is caught up in a sex scandal, admitting a five-year affair with a much-younger woman and settling, out of court, a lawsuit because he physically abused her.
Now Democrats see the moral lapses of Rep. Don Sherwood as a chance to pick up what once was a solid Republican seat in the House.
Sherwood admitted banging a woman 35 years younger than him and then additionally had to pay the court settlement because he banged her around physically when they weren’t in bed.
By DALE McFEATTERS
The Bush White House is secretive to a fault, so it was more news than it otherwise might have been when the president, angry at what he considered the politically timed leak of a National Intelligence Estimate, ordered that four pages of key conclusions from the report be declassified.
By CLIFFORD D. MAY
An essential American institution is in crisis, but the mainstream media is not covering the story. That’s because the institution in crisis is the mainstream media, which appears incapable of self-examination, much less self-criticism.