Remember how Sarah Palin said that she explored foreign countries through books and how implausible that was? Now it turns out that she can’t even name any newspapers or magazines that she reads reqularly. Pressed by Katie Couric, she said she reads ‘all of them, any of them.’ In a 2006 Pew poll, only 40 […]
Rice and Torture
Rice led Bush administration discussions of torture techniques, according to documents secured and released by Sen. Carl Levin as part of a congressional inquiry. I can’t tell from this article how complicit Rice was in authorizing torture; that she was complicit in policy-making on the issue now seems clear. We also know what the outcome […]
Troopergate and Palin
Witness flips in troopergate. A private contractor now admits under oath that she was pressured by Palin’s office over Palin’s attempt vindictively to fire her ex-brother-in-law.
Al-Maliki: US Cannot Afford to Stay; Physicians to Carry Weapons
In an interview with the Associated Press, PM Nuri al-Maliki warned that the future is dark if Iraq and the US do not agree on a security pact. And without a pact, he said, all the security progress made in the last year would be at risk. He points out that the alternative is to […]
Karzai: Civilian Gov’t of Pakistan better against Terrorism; Pakistan Bajaur Campaign Leaves 15 Dead
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai believes that the new civilian government will take more effective steps against the Pakistani Taliban on the Afghan border. This stance is the opposite of that of John McCain, who supported military dictator Pervez Musharraf (who was forced to resign as president in August under threat of impeachment). Pakistani forces claim […]
Kaptur: Playing Wall Street Bailout
Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) on how the Reality Game, “Wall Street Bailout,” is played: See also Chalmers Johnson at Tomdispatch.com on the Pentagon Bailout Fraud.
Bombings in Baghdad Kill 34, Wound 100; Arab-Kurdish Violence in Diyala
A wave of deadly bombings and other attacks swept Baghdad on Sunday, killing nearly three dozen persons and wounding over 100. The attacks on Shiite neighborhoods were likely intended to remind the Iraqi public on the eve of Eid al-Fitr (the celebration of the end of the fasting month of Ramadan) that the Sunni guerrilla […]
Daragahi: Damascus Bombing Payback from Radical Sunnis
These bombings in Baghdad follow a major such attack in Damascus, Syria, which was probably carried out by radical revivalist Sunnis (“Salafis”) to punish the Syrian regime for cracking down on their movements, both into Iraq and between Lebanon and Syria. The Syrian regime, as Borzou Daragahi points out, is also a strong backer of […]
Obama Won: Gallup/USA Today Poll; 52% Say Obama best to Fix Problems, vs. 35% for McCain
In addition to those two snap polls done just after the debate on Friday by CNN and by CBS, there is now further evidence that Obama won the first debate handily. A Gallup/ USA Today poll of 701 viewers of the debate done on Saturday found that 46% of viewers said Barack Obama did better; […]