Government food safety scientists report political, corporate interference
kim Geiger | LA Times.com Scientists and inspectors at the federal agencies responsible for food safety say they face political and corporate interference with their work, according to a survey released Monday by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonpartisan advocate for unbiased science in government. The survey suggests a continuation of problems that government [...]
President Obama, the CIA and the Master of the Cover-Up
gMelvin A Goodman | Truthout.org The Obama administration quietly announced Friday the appointment of John McLaughlin, former deputy CIA director, to head the internal investigation of the intelligence failures that led to the Christmas Day attempted bombing of a Delta airliner headed for Detroit as well as the events leading to the shootings at Fort Hood in November. [...]
Obama signs bills for record Pentagon, Homeland Security spending
Patrick Martin |wsws.org In a ceremony Wednesday, US President Barack Obama signed legislation authorizing the largest ever military budget, a gargantuan $680 billion for the Pentagon, including $130 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Thursday, he signed a spending bill funneling another $44 billion into the Department of Homeland Security, to strengthen [...]
The Cover-Up Continues
Editorial | NYTimes.com The Obama administration has clung for so long to the Bush administration’s expansive claims of national security and executive power that it is in danger of turning President George W. Bush’s cover-up of abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism into President Barack Obama’s cover-up. We have had recent reminders of [...]
Michel Chossudovsky on the Banker Bailouts
GlobalResearch.ca
Afghanistan: Where Empires Go to Die
Dahr Jamil | GlobalResearch.ca On September 7 the Swedish aid agency Swedish Committee for Afghanistan reported that the previous week US soldiers raided one of its hospitals. According to the director of the aid agency, Anders Fange, troops stormed through both the men’s and women’s wards, where they frantically searched for wounded Taliban fighters. Genghis Khan [...]
Obama supports extending Patriot Act
Joe Palazzolo | MainJustice.com The Obama administration has blessed three controversial provisions of the Patriot Act that expand the government’s reach in counter-terrorism investigations. In a Sept. 14 letter to lawmakers, Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich said the Justice Department supports the use of roving wiretaps, the authority to access business records and the ability [...]
Bush’s Search Policy For Travelers Is Kept
Ellen Nakashima | WashingtonPost.com The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search — without suspicion of wrongdoing — the contents of a traveler’s laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections. The policy, disclosed Thursday in a pair of Department [...]
The Real Grand Chessboard and the Profiteers of War
Prof. Peter Dale Scott | GlobalResearch.ca “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or [...]
Call it G.W.O.T. or J.I.H.A.D., Obama is waging Bush’s war
Kori Schake | ForeginPolicy.com Assistant to the President John Brennan gave a speech yesterday, ostensibly a landmark address. He assured listeners that “the fight against terrorists and violent extremists has been returned to its right and proper place: no longer defining — indeed, distorting-our entire national security and foreign policy, but rather serving as a [...]
Obama goes to bat for Bush wiretap program
Bob Egelko | SFGate.com President Obama is adamant about maintaining the secrecy of a wiretapping program authorized by George W. Bush, an administration lawyer told a federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday. Obama “does not intend to use the state-secrets privilege to cover up illegal activities,” said Justice Department attorney Anthony Coppolino. But in [...]
NSA Shields Government Networks With More AT&T Secret Rooms
Kim Zetter | Wired.com Just a week after the Defense Department announced plans to put the National Security Agency in charge of military cyber defense and attack, the agency’s reach has already expanded to include monitoring of government civilian networks. The Obama administration has decided to proceed with a classified Bush administration plan to let [...]
U.S. grants support Iranian dissidents
Ken Dilanian | GlobalResearch.ca Global Research Editor’s Note This report published in USA Today confirms unequivocally that Washington has directly financed dissident groups in Iran. WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is moving forward with plans to fund groups that support Iranian dissidents, records and interviews show, continuing a program that became controversial when it was expanded [...]
Documents Back Saudi Link to Extremists
Eric Lichtblau | NYTimes.com Documents gathered by lawyers for the families of Sept. 11 victims provide new evidence of extensive financial support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family, but the material may never find its way into court because of legal and diplomatic obstacles. The case has [...]
Confidential memo reveals US plan to provoke an invasion of Iraq
Jamie Doward, Gaby Hinsliff and Mark Townsend | Guardian.co.uk A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK’s role in toppling Saddam Hussein. The memo, written on [...]
Obama Orders Pentagon to “Rejuvenate Contingency Plans” for Iran Attack
PressTV.ir As Washington gets updates on Israeli plans to strike Iran, US President Barack Obama orders the Pentagon to rejuvenate contingency plans for the use of military in Iran. Despite the prospects of diplomatic engagement with Tehran over its nuclear program, Defense Secretary and Pentagon chief Robert Gates said Friday that the White House has [...]
Cheney’s Chief Assassin Is Now Obama’s Commander in Afghanistan
James Petras | AlterNet.org “The Deltas are psychos…You have to be a certified psychopath to join the Delta Force…”, a US Army colonel from Fort Bragg once told me back in the 1980s. Now President Obama has elevated the most notorious of the psychopaths, General Stanley McChrystal, to head the US and NATO military command [...]
Obama will continue Bush-era military tribunals
Stephen C Webster | RawStory.com Breaking a key promise from his campaign, President Barack Obama is expected to announce Friday the return of military commission trials for a small number of terrorism suspects. Obama had previously promised to abolish them. The tribunals, often criticized as overly protective of state secrets and willing to accept evidence [...]
On Torture, the Pressure Builds
Ray McGovern | InfoWars.com Well, well. The New York Times has finally put a story together on the key role that two controversial psychologists played in devising the Bush administration’s torture policies. Guess we should be thankful for small favors. Apparently, a NYTimes“exposé” requires a 21-month gestation period; just by way of pointing out that the substance of the Times“exposé” [...]
