tuesday reads

QOTD

"We are deeply disappointed with this recommendation from the board of pardons and paroles," said Donald Francis Donovan of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, counsel to Medellín "The board has failed to support the United States in fulfilling its international legal obligations. The board's action ... risks the safety of thousands of Americans travelling and living abroad.

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.


R.I.P. Rakan


Ken Silverstein: Will Bush Administration Let Oil Companies Skate on Money Paid to African Dictator?

Exxon Mobil is quietly commemorating the biggest operating profit in U.S. corporate history, announcing last week that it had earned $11.7 billion during the second quarter. Here’s something else that Exxon, and a number of other major energy firms, are surely commemorating: the apparent failure of the Bush Administration to hold them accountable for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in Equatorial Guinea, even though congress issued a detailed report more than four years ago that an elementary school student could have used as a roadmap for prosecution.

Back in July of 2004, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations published a study that detailed the practices of seven oil companies in Equatorial Guinea, which has been ruled by dictator Teodoro Nguema Obiang since 1979. The report also looked at the role in the country of Riggs Bank (now PNC), which two months earlier had paid a $25 million fine for effectively helping Obiang and his family stash cash in accounts in Washington. Around this time the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched a probe of the oil companies, with particular scrutiny of Exxon, Marathon and Amerada Hess.

Name change for CIFA


About 1,000 Marines deployed to train Afghan security forces will have their tours of duty extended by 30 days, a U.S. defense official said on Monday.


1 in 4 soldiers at war have hearing loss


The federal judge who presided over the nation's only peer-to-peer copyright-infringement trial announced from the bench here Monday that he is likely to declare a mistrial.


Leonard Pitts Jr.: The Partisan Injustice at Justice


God hates wingnuts


A panel created by state law as an overseer of Capital Metro fares, voted 6-4 to approve what is essentially a doubling of Capital Metro fares by 2010. Man sought in Cap Metro bus hijacking.