Daily Briefing — 26th-27th July 2009

Bush Administration considered breaking the Posse Comitatus Act in 2001 to have the military arrest people on U.S. soil; U.S. admits it has no evidence to supporting holding teenager at Gitmo; India launches nuclear sub; U.S.-allied refugees labeled “terrorists”; Police sodomize man with taser; and more…

Daily Briefing — 22nd-23rd July 2009

Top ten list of Obama’s efforts to destroy civil liberties by Jonathon Turley; Clinton voices U.S. strategy of surrounding Iran with a “defense umbrella”; U.S. clients up the human rights abuses to “fight terror”; China cashing in on its foreign holdings; and more…

C.I.A. Program Hidden From Congress Still Being Used to Influence Afghan Elections?

C.I.A. Director Leon Panetta told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of a program from 2001 until the his first day that was kept from Congress, revealing the C.I.A. withheld information from, misled, and deliberately lied to the Congress.

Two Detainees: One Recently Released Because His Detention ‘Defied Common Sense’ and Another Tortured to Link al-Qai’da to Iraq (mp3/Video)

One of the most informed journalists on Guantanamo Bay and those kidnapped by the Bush Administration in its “War on Terror”, Andy Worthington, interviewed by Democracy Now (DN!) and AntiWar Radio.

U.S. Funding ‘Regime Change’ in Iran

Brian Ross for ABC News in 2007 and Seymour Hersh for The New Yorker in 2008 reported the Bush Administration’s Presidential Finding enacting a C.I.A. plan to use propaganda to push regime change in Iran. Democrats in Congress backed the $400 million dollar appropriation. The July ’08 article by Mr. Hersh quotes a member of the House Appropriations Committee: “[I]t will take another year before we get the intelligence activities under control…. We control the money and they can’t do anything without the money. Money is what it’s all about. But I’m very leery of this Administration.”

Obama Embracing Bush Secrecy Policy After Campaigning on Transparency

‘Civil libertarian’ constutional rights attorney and Salon.com blogger, Glenn Greenwald, runs through the list of Pres. Obama’s enhancement and preservation of the Bush Administration’s “state secrets privilege” with Scott Horton on AntiWar Radio and Amy Goodman/Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now! (DN!).

Obama’s Wars: Jeremy Scahill on Bill Moyers Journal (Video)

Jeremy Scahill discusses international affairs with Bill Moyers on PBS last Friday night saying, “It’s time to take off our Obama T-shirts…. The fact is that this man is governing over a policy that is killing a tremendous number of civilians.”

Bush Spoke of Invading Iraq in 1999

According to Fmr. Pres. George W. Bush’s speechwriter at the time. This story was brought to light just before the ’04 election and turned down by The Washington Post (WaPo) and Los Angeles Times (LAT).

Rachel Maddow on Obama’s Plans For ‘Preventive, Prolonged, Indefinite Detention’

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on President Obama’s speech — calling him out for his leaked plan to detain people in defiance of international law and the Constitution.

Chomsky’s Lectern: Unexceptional Americans — Why We Can’t See the Trees or the Forest

Prof. Noam Chomsky on the torture memos and ‘American exceptionalism’: this is nothing new for American policy.

Senator Rand Paul? (mp3)

AntiWar Radio host Scott Horton really grills the son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Dr. Rand Paul, who announced last week that he’s opened an exploratory committee for a U.S. Sentate run in 2010, representing Kentucky.

The U.S., Russia, Georgia, and the Five-Day War (mp3)

Scott Horton interviews Mark Ames on the geopolitics, history, and future of the Russo-Georgian conflict, heavily opposed Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgia’s significance in the oil industry, and NATO.

President Obama ‘Morphing Into His Predecessor’ Blocking Transparency and Prosecution of Torture (mp3/Video)

International human rights lawyer Scott Horton on AntiWar Radio, human rights investigator John Sifton on Democracy Now! (DN!), constitutional scholar Jonathon Turley with Rachel Maddow and ACLU attorney Amrit Singh with Anderson Cooper on Obama’s decision to further hide Bush Administration crimes of toruring and murdering detainees.

The 21st Century ‘Military-Industrial-Media Complex’ (Video)

The NY Times investigative reporter who the mainstream media won’t interview, David Barstow, interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! (DN!) for the first time since winning the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for exposing the corporate war machine’s propaganda wing: the Pentagon.

Detainees Tortured to Link Saddam to al-Qa’ida (mp3)

AntiWar Radio host Scott Horton interviews Marjorie Cohn on the recent revelation that torture was not used to thwart attacks and gather intel, but to manufacture connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa’ida to justify the consciously illegal Iraq War.