saturday reads

Congratulations, Australia! Good riddance to John Howard.


Children by the thousands are entering the U.S. illegally - without their parents.


Bob Herbert: Lost in a Flood of Debt


Think Progress: ‘Wave Of Violence’ Against Women In Iraq Undercuts White House’s Claims Of Success


TPM's Bush Secrecy List


Former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien says that it was among the great victories in his life that he stood against US pressure to join in the Iraq War.


Matt Taibbi: Mike Huckabee Is Not a Sane Man

friday reads

At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled by USA TODAY.


Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data without probable cause


Tanks and heavily armed troops in armoured vehicles were out in force on Beirut's streets amid fears of a descent into violence as a parliament session to elect a successor to pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud was delayed for a further week.


Paul Krugman: Banks Gone Wild


Naomi Klein - Shocked in Death, Shocked in Life: More Than a Taser Story


What Would Jesus Buy?

wednesday reads

Lost in the post: the personal details of 25 million people


Just in time for the holidays, there's a special place in Hell just waiting to be filled by some as-yet-unknown Pentagon bureaucrat. Apparently, thousands of wounded soldiers who served in Iraq are being asked to return part of their enlistment bonuses -- because their injuries prevented them from completing their tours.


A civilian contractor is accused of bribing a U.S. Army official in Kuwait to win millions of dollars in business with the military, according to a federal indictment disclosed Tuesday.


The Bush administration is threatening that it will issue furlough notices to up to 150,000 civilian workers at military bases in mid-December if Congress does not approve unrestricted Iraq funding immediately.


Keith Olbermann's Countdouwn: Bush Was A Passively Involved “Liar In Chief”


Paging Patrick Fitzgerald. Your services are needed in DC.


Not since the "Patriot Act" of 2001 has any bill so threatened our constitutionally guaranteed rights.


Three years after a devastating United States-led siege of the city, residents of Fallujah continue to struggle with a shattered economy, infrastructure and lack of mobility.

tuesday reads

Grand Jury Probe Goes beyond Blackwater

Federal authorities have convened a grand jury to investigate multiple shootings involving private security contractors in Iraq, including a Sept. 16 incident in which guards for Blackwater Worldwide killed 17 civilians at a Baghdad traffic circle, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The Washington grand jury has issued subpoenas to several private security firms, including Blackwater, a legal source briefed on the probe said yesterday. Authorities are seeking company "after-action" reports and other documents that may shed light on specific incidents, he said.

The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, declined to say which incidents have been targeted, but he said the investigation ranges well beyond Blackwater. Private security companies in Iraq "have been shooting a lot of people," he said.

The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented.


The number of Americans in prison has risen eight-fold since 1970, with little impact on crime but at great cost to taxpayers and society, researchers said in a report calling for a major justice-system overhaul.


Jane Smiley: Why Human Rights are More Important than National Security


Civil servants join huge French strike

The Warning

ArtofMentalWarfare.com presents The Warning, a politically powerful new music video featuring Grammy Award-winning artist Trent Reznor. The Warning takes on the covert interests behind the war and our media saturated society. From war crimes to the destruction of the environment and a celebrity-obsessed culture, The Warning is a clarion call to action for an apathetic nation.

monday reads

Aid poured into Bangladesh today as the death toll from Cyclone Sidr spiralled above 3,000, with fears that thousands more bodies have yet to be found.


John Brown: Too Parocial for Empire


Paul Krugman: Republicans and Race


Goldman Sachs cashes in on the credit crisis.


Yet another person dies by taser.


Headline of the Day: Expectations low for U.S.-Mideast peace talks


Worst. Op-Ed Day. Ever.

more explosive than the Pentagon Papers

Brad Blog

"I'd say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers," Daniel Ellsberg told us in regard to former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.

"From what I understand, from what she has to tell, it has a major difference from the Pentagon Papers in that it deals directly with criminal activity and may involve impeachable offenses," Ellsberg explained. "And I don't necessarily mean the President or the Vice-President, though I wouldn't be surprised if the information reached up that high. But other members of the Executive Branch may be impeached as well. And she says similar about Congress."

Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

sunday reads

They were told depleted uranium was not hazardous. Now, 23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers and residents have cancer - and experts say their suffering shows the use of such weapons may be a war crime


While Congress and President Bush squabble over health insurance for low-income children, school officials nationwide are scrambling each day to find affordable medical care so that sick and needy students can continue to learn.


Patients Without Borders

Long before the dentists and the doctors got there, before the nurses, the hygienists and X-ray techs came, before anyone had flicked on the portable mammography unit or sterilized the day’s first set of surgical instruments, the people who needed them showed up to wait. It was 3 a.m. at the Wise County Fairgrounds in Virginia — Friday, July 20, 2007 — the start of a rainy Appalachian morning. Outside the gates, people lay in their trucks or in tents pitched along the grassy parking lot, waiting for their chance to have their medical needs treated at no charge — part of an annual three-day “expedition” led by a volunteer medical relief corps called Remote Area Medical.

The group, most often referred to as RAM, has sent health expeditions to countries like Guyana, India, Tanzania and Haiti, but increasingly its work is in the United States, where 47 million people — more than 15 percent of the population — live without health insurance.

In the foreclosure crisis of 2007, thousands of American families are losing their homes without ever missing a payment. They are renters in houses whose owners default on their mortgages — a large but little noticed class of casualties.