Monday, April 6, 2009
US authorities 'complicit' in drug trafficking.....
The President of Mexico has an unfortunate message for Americans still ignorant of the Drug War's cold realities: Some of your politicians are involved. Yes folks, it is long-past time to start thinking about alternative strategies for combating both the harmful effects of drug addiction and the deadly effects of forcing an economy outside of the law. "It is impossible to pass tons of drugs and cocaine to U.S. without some great complicity of some American authorities," said Mexican President Felipe Calderone. "There is traffic in Mexico because there is corruption in Mexico. And that is true. But with the same argument, if there is traffic in United States, it is because there is some corruption in United States."....Link
Wants case against NSA dismissed...........
President Barack Obama invoked "state secrets" to prevent a court from reviewing the legality of the National Security Agency's warantless wiretapping program, moving late Friday to have a lawsuit that challenged the program dismissed. The move -- which holds that information surrounding the massive eavesdropping program should be kept from the public because of its sensitivity -- follows an earlier decision in March to block handover of documents relating to the Bush Administration's decision to spy on a charity. The arguments also mirror the Bush Administration's efforts to dismiss an earlier suit against AT&T. The Friday brief involves a lawsuit filed by the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing the NSA for the wiretapping program. The agency monitored the telephone calls and emails of thousands of people within the United States without a court's approval in an effort to thwart terrorist attacks....Link
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Estimated taxpayer cost for bailout jumps...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. congressional budget analysts have raised their estimate of the net cost to taxpayers for the government's financial rescue program to $356 billion, an increase of $167 billion from earlier estimates. The Congressional Budget Office had originally projected the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program would cost taxpayers $189 billion. The additional cost, which applies to TARP spending for fiscal years 2009 and 2010, was included in the CBO's March projection of a $1.8 trillion deficit for fiscal 2009, which ends September 30. The TARP cost projection was raised due to changes in financial market conditions, new transactions and a shift in expected timing of payments, the CBO said.Link
Conyers Wants a Special Counsel...........
On Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers quietly released the final draft of an extensive report he first unveiled in January documenting the Bush administration’s “unreviewable war powers” and the possible crimes committed in implementing those policies. In order to determine whether Bush officials broke laws, Conyers has recommended that Attorney General Eric Holder appoint a special prosecutor to launch a criminal inquiry to investigate, among other things, whether “enhanced interrogation techniques” used against alleged terrorist detainees violated international and federal laws against torture. “The Attorney General should appoint a Special Counsel to determine whether there were criminal violations committed pursuant to Bush Administration policies that were undertaken under unreviewable war powers, including enhanced interrogation, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless domestic surveillance,” Conyers’s report says. “In this regard, the report firmly rejects the notion that we should move on from these matters.”....Link
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
