Top Stories
The New Homeless
Not since perhaps the 1980s recession have so many news accounts surfaced about the homeless in America. As was the case then, today’s stories are filled with tales of working-class Americans—or at least those who were working before the economic ... read more
Navy Becomes First Service to Offer Sabbaticals to Officers and Enlisted Personnel
Determined to keep its best officers and enlisted men from leaving the service entirely, the U.S. Navy has become the first branch of the armed services to allow personnel to step out of their uniforms—and maintain their health benefits—for up to ... read more
Did Jesus Approve of Torture?
“In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”
Matthew 7:12
The majority of evangelical Protestants in the United States have no problem with the use of torture on suspected terrorists, a... read more
33 Americans Killed by Terrorists in 2008
The United States suffered 33 deaths at the hands of terrorists in 2008, none of which occurred at home. Americans killed were in Iraq (21), India (6), Afghanistan (4), Sudan (1) and Yemen (1).
While the United States often assumes it is the N... read more
Island of Plastic Trash Twice the Size of Texas
Floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is a man-made island of plastic, invisible to the naked eye, that’s twice the size of Texas. The refuse was born of decades of dumping plastic containers, bottles and other material that gradually collec... read more
Condoleezza Rice Echoes Nixon, Blunders into Possible Conspiracy Admission
If her six-minute confrontation with students in a Stanford University dorm is any indication, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is ill-prepared for life outside the bubble of the Bush administration.
As recorded on video by student R... read more
Gates Rejects Trials for Dozens of Guantánamo Prisoners
In the midst of testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates let drop a piece of news that unsettled civil libertarians: between 50 and 100 of the prisoners currently being held at Guantánamo Bay... read more
Justice Department Moves to Equalize Cocaine Sentencing For All Races
The federal government may finally be moving towards eliminating the unequal sentencing in U.S. drug laws that punish users of crack more than cocaine. Key government and judicial officials testified at a congressional hearing on Wednesday that th... read more
Appeals Court Reinstates Black Site Torture Lawsuit
The ugly truth about the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program soon may wind up on trial, now that a controversial civil case has been cleared to proceed. The Ninth Circuit appellate court ruled on Tuesday that five foreign nationals who claim the... read more
U.S. Actively Engaged in Cyber-Warfare
The U.S. government is preparing to go on the offensive against the growing threat of cyber-warfare, a New York Times investigation has determined. Like the Cold War, during which American officials planned not only defensive but also “first strik... read more
False Statement on ABC about Waterboarding Shaped Media Coverage
John Kiriakou was the man who made waterboarding okay for Americans to accept. Back in December 2007, just as the use of the controversial interrogation technique was first becoming known by the public, the former CIA officer appeared on numerous ... read more
Swine Flu: Is a U.S. Company Responsible?
Lost amid the panic over the growing swine flu epidemic is a key question: How did it start? According to sources in the United States and Mexico, the culprit may be Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest owner of hog farms, which operates hog-rais... read more
CIA Inspector General: No Evidence Torture Stopped Terror Attacks
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials have insisted that the use of torture techniques yielded valuable information that helped the government thwart terrorist attacks in the United States. But the CIA’s own ins... read more
Supreme Court Hears Reverse Discrimination Case
In a classic case of damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t, the US Supreme Court is deciding a discrimination case (Ricci vs. DeStefano) that has huge ramifications for affirmative action. In 2003 the city of New Haven, Connecticut, gave a test t... read more
CIA and Bush Administration Ignored Ineffectiveness of Torture
“A perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm,” was how one former CIA official described the decision by high-ranking members of the Bush administration to utilize torture methods against detainees that had been proven ineffective years earlier by... read more
Cheney, Rumsfeld Pushed for Torture to Find Non-Existent Saddam-9/11 Link
According to former intelligence and military officials, former Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pushed interrogators to use torture to prove once and for all that a link did exist between al Qaeda and the regime of... read more