Truthout
Cheney Admits to War Crimes, Media Yawns, Obama Turns the Other Cheek
Dick Cheney is a sadist.
On Sunday, in an exclusive interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News' "This Week," Cheney proclaimed his love of torture, derided the Obama administration for outlawing the practice, and admitted that the Bush White House ordered Justice Department attorneys to fix the law around the administration's policy interests.
"I was a big supporter of waterboarding," Cheney told Karl, as if he were issuing a challenge to officials in the current administration,
Goldman Plays, We Pay
The story of the financial debacle will end the way it began, with the super-hustlers from Goldman Sachs at the center of the action and profiting wildly. Never in U.S. history has one company wielded such destructive power over our political economy, irrespective of whether a Republican or a Democrat happened to be president.
HAITI LIVE BLOG DAY 3: Obama Taps George W. Bush, Bill Clinton to Lead US Relief Efforts
Here's the link to Wednesday's live blog.
5:26 pm PDT: We couldn't leave for the day without first reporting on this development.
HAITI EARTHQUAKE LIVE BLOG: Who to Follow and What to Read for Breaking Developments
9:15pm PDT: Truthout is wrapping up its coverage for the evening of the earthquake in Haiti. We hope you found this live blog helpful and informative.
You can continue to follow our streaming twitter feed on the right hand side, which includes handpicked tweets from several residents of Haiti reporting what they are witnessing on the ground. Just move your mouse over the tweet to read it and keep it from scrolling.
Health Inequality: Gates Foundation Bans Abortion
Melinda French Gates, philanthropist, co-founder and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was greeted with great applause on the first day of the Women Deliver conference in Washington, D.C. earlier this summer. But the hand clapping was temporary.
Joshua Holland | We're Being Conned on Social Security
They just want to steal our money.
Allow me to take a moment to fix that whole “Social Security crisis” that has everyone in Washington gnashing their teeth. When you see how easily it’s done, you may begin to realize that whenever our elites start chattering about “tax-gaps," they’re almost certainly trying to rip you off -- making a slick grab for something to which you are, ultimately, “entitled.”
After 20 Years of Protection, Owl Declining but Forests Remain
Washington - Twenty years after northern spotted owls were protected under the Endangered Species Act, their numbers continue to decline, and scientists aren't certain whether the birds will survive even though logging was banned on much of the old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest where they live in order to save them.
Life vs. Productivity: "What Would You Live and Die to Protect?"
"It is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself, when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks." -Malcolm X
If someone broke into your house, pinned down your loved ones and began pouring poison down their throats, would you stop that person?
What if someone poured crude oil all over your crops and livestock? Wouldn't you try to stop them from doing it?
Good Health Means Justice and Rights
Alternative Health Care in Haiti, Part IV
With the motto "Providing a preferential option for the poor in health care," Partners in Health offers an unusual model of health care provision. Its mission is both medical and moral.
Partners in Health is widely recognized as changing the potential for health for low-income people and countries throughout the world.
Gulf Oil Spill Puzzle: A Giant Piece Begins Long Rise to Surface
Atlanta - The mystery of why the massive blowout preventer at the heart of the Deepwater Horizon accident failed and caused the enormous Gulf oil spill is a step closer to being solved.
Clearing the way for the drilling of a final relief well to permanently kill the Macondo well, BP and its now well-worn underwater remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) disconnected the troubled piece of equipment at 1:20 Central time Friday in order to lift it to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.
The Powerful "Coincidence" of 2010 Campaign Words
Words matter unless they don't, in 2010.
On this side of the Pond, Tony Blair glibly slammed Gordon Brown on the BBC this week, whilst releasing his memoir at the moment his Labour Party began its critical leadership vote. Coincidence?
Secure Communities Opt-Out May Be on the Table
As the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Secure Communities program continues to expand aggressively, ICE is finally suggesting a procedure for local jurisdictions to opt out of the newest local immigration enforcement program.
How Democrats Can Avoid the Shrapnel in November
To say that the American people are angry is an understatement. The political brain of Americans today reflects a volatile mixture of fear and fury, and when you mix those together, you get an explosion. The only question at this point is how to mitigate the damage when the bomb detonates in November.
How Ruthless Banks Gutted the Black Middle Class and Got Away With It
The real estate and foreclosure crisis has stripped African-American families of more wealth than any single event in history.
Texas BP Lawsuit Hardly a Harbinger of Change
Overshadowed by the explosion on Deepwater Horizon and the subsequent hemorrhaging of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, water pollution was only one of tragedies that marred April 2010. From April 6 to May 16, BP poured over 500,000 pounds of contaminants into the air. The unauthorized release - the 73rd since 2005 at the Texas City Oil Refinery just outside of Houston - included the known carcinogen Benzene, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide.
The reason for the toxic release was twofold. A faulty seal in a J-100 compressor triggered ignition, causing the unit to shut down. Once extinguished, BP, which had the option to keep this single unit closed, opted, instead, to keep systems running and rely on flares to burn off toxins.
Will Militant Abortion Foe Christine O’Donnell Pull a “Joe Miller” in Delaware?
Wednesday morning, Americans were greeted with the blood-curdling news that the far-right, tea-party-backed candidate Joe Miller had defeated Lisa Murkowski in Alaska's Senate primary race. It marked the tea party's first primary victory over a sitting senator.
Miller's win should spark a national wake-up call. A brigade of terrifying tea party challengers is marching over the primary horizon, full-force - and now we know they can actually win.
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill’s 30-Year Legacy
Washington - A surprisingly small number of scientists have studied the impacts of the oil spill resulting from the 1979 blowout at the Ixtoc I oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Wes Tunnell, who first studied the spill’s effects in July and August of 1980 and has returned many times since, is one of the few exceptions.
Robert Reich | The Great Jobs Depression Worsens
The Great Jobs Depression continues to worsen.
The Labor Department reports this morning that companies created ony 67,000 new jobs in August. That’s down from the 107,000 they created in July. And because the government laid off temporary Census workers, the economy as a whole lost 54,000 jobs.
To put this into perspective, we need 125,000 net new jobs a month just to keep up with the growth of the population and the potential workforce.
States Pass Staggering Array of Anti-Choice Laws, Policies and Ballot Measures
Live in Tennessee, Mississippi, Arizona, Missouri or Louisiana? The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) wants you to know that, with the implementation of health care reform in 2014, you will not have access to abortion coverage in your state's health exchanges. These states have enacted insurance bans on abortion coverage. Five other states considered the bans and the CRR expects more to do so in 2011. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. The 2010 state legislative session has seen legislation forcing women to undergo "biased counseling" (and compelling health care providers to provide said counseling) which may contain medically inaccurate and misleading information, as well as mandatory ultrasound requirements.