NewsTrust - Bush Administration - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

After Obama Shuns Probe, Bipartisan Panel Finds ‘Indisputable’ Evidence US Tortured Under Bush

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - By Amy Goodman - Apr. 17 (Special Report) - The report concludes that never before in U.S. history had there been “the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.”

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'Hubris': Rachel Maddow Presents Must-Watch Documentary on the Selling of the Iraq War

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Brad Friedman - Feb. 21 (Special Report) - the documentary should be mandatory viewing for those who have lost sight of just how each and every single one of the key reasons used to sell the U.S. on war with Iraq was built on known lies.

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"500 Days": Author Kurt Eichenwald's New Account of How Bush Admin Ignored Warnings Before 9/11

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Sep. 12 (News Report) - Newly disclosed documents provide further evidence the administration of George W. Bush ignored repeated warnings about Osama bin Laden’s plans to attack the United States. In "500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars,” author and journalist Kurt Eichenwald fleshes out how the Bush administration dismissed a number of warnings of an al-Qaeda attack against the United States beginning in the spring of 2001, instead focusing on alleged threats from Saddam Hussein in Iraq. [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Pew Research Center - Jun. 10 (Special Report) - As Americans head to the polls this November, their values and basic beliefs are more polarized along partisan lines than at any point in the past 25 years. Unlike in 1987, when this series of surveys began, the values gap between Republicans and Democrats is now greater than gender, age, race or class divides. Overall, there has been much more stability than change across the 48 political values measures that the Pew Research Center has tracked since 1987. But the average partisan gap has nearly doubled over this 25-year period – from 10 percentage points in 1987 to 18 percentage points in the new study.

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Seymour Hersh: US Training Iranian Terrorists in Nevada

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Amy Goodman, Seymour Hersh - Apr. 11 (Special Report) - the Bush administration secretly trained an Iranian opposition group despite its inclusion on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorists.

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Romney Fundraising Pitch Skews Stats

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Ben Finley - Apr. 07 (News) - In a March fundraising letter to Floridians, Mitt Romney skews economic statistics under President Barack Obama. Among the letter’s claims: Romney says the numbers for unemployment, bankruptcies and foreclosures are “soaring.” That’s simply not true. They all started rising sharply under Bush, continued to rise for a time under Obama ...

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"Merchant of Death" Viktor Bout Sentenced to 25 Years; Trial Ignored His Ties to U.S., Dick Cheney

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Apr. 06 (News Report) - Notorious arms smuggler Viktor Bout, known as the "Merchant of Death," has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiracy to commit terrorism. Our guest, former United Nations arms trafficking investigator Kathi Lynn Austin, says the case allowed American companies to avoid exposure of their collusion with with the U.S. government and private companies linked to Dick Cheney during the Iraq war, even after United Nations sanctions against him in 2004. Authorities say Viktor Bout was involved in trafficking arms to dictators and stoking conflicts in Africa, South America and the Middle East. He has also been accused of furnishing weapons to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and achieved particular notoriety for selling arms in Rwanda in 1998, just four years after the Rwandan genocide. [includes rush transcript]

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John Boehner says Bush tax cuts created 8 million jobs over 10 years

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - By Louis Jacobson - Feb. 20 (Fact Check) - During an interview on NBC’s Today show, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, offered some job-creation statistics to cast a favorable light on the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003. Host Matt Lauer said to Boehner, "You talk about creating jobs. When the Bush era tax cuts were passed in 2001, unemployment in this country was 4.5 percent. Today it's at 9 percent, just down from 10 percent. So why are the Bush era tax cuts creating jobs?" Boehner responded that the tax cuts "created about 8 million jobs over the first 10 years that they were in existence. We've lost about 5 million of those jobs during this recession."

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U.S. Navy Vet Sues Donald Rumsfeld for Torture in Iraq, Court Allows Case to Move Forward

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Donald Vance, Andrea Prasow - Aug. 11 (News Report) - On Monday, a federal appeals court refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by two U.S. citizens against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and unnamed others for developing, authorizing and using harsh interrogation techniques against detainees in Iraq. Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel were working for a private U.S. government contractor, Shield Group Security, in 2006 when they witnessed the sale of U.S. government weapons to Iraqi rebel groups for money and alcohol. After they became FBI informants and collaborated with an investigation into their employer, the company revoked their credentials for entering Iraq’s so-called Green Zone, effectively barring them from the safest part of the country. Shortly afterward, they were arrested and detained by U.S. troops, moved to the U.S.-run prison at Camp Cropper, and subjected to extreme sleep deprivation, interrogated for hours at a time, kept in a very cold cell, and denied food and water for long periods.

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New Court Filing Reveals How the 2004 Ohio Presidential Election Was Hacked

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - By Bob Fritakis - Jul. 26 (News Report) - A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio's 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush. The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove.

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Did Saudi Arabia Attack Us on 9/11?

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swan - Jul. 19 (Investigative Report) - 'Was there a foreign government behind the 9/11 attacks? A decade later, Americans still haven't been given the whole story, while a key 28-page section of Congress's Joint Inquiry report remains censored. Gathering years of leaks and leads, in an adaptation from their new book, Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan examine the connections between Saudi Arabia and the hijackers (15 of whom were Saudi), the Bush White House's decision to ignore or bury evidence, and the frustration of lead investigators - including 9/11-commission staffers, counterterrorism officials, and senators on both sides of the aisle.' Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swan, Vanity Fair

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A Debate on Human Rights Watch's Call For Bush Administration Officials Be Tried For Torture

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jul. 12 (News Report) - Human Rights Watch has released a new report calling on the U.S. government to launch a broad criminal investigation into alleged crimes of torture committed by former President George W. Bush and other top officials under his administration. It comes on the heels of a Department of Justice investigation into alleged torture, abuse and murder during the interrogation of detainees in CIA custody. Earlier this month, the DOJ announced it would launch a full criminal investigation into the deaths of just two prisoners out of 101 cases under review, including one who died at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. We speak to Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, and to John Baker, professor emeritus at Louisiana State University Law School.

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Former CIA Agent Glenn Carle Reveals Bush Admin Effort to Smear War Critic Juan Cole

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 22 (News Report) - Former top CIA counterterrorism officer Glenn Carle has revealed the Bush administration sought damaging personal information on Juan Cole, an academic and prominent critic of the Iraq war, in an attempt to discredit him. Carle says the Bush White House made at least two requests for intelligence about Cole, whose blog "Informed Comment" rose to prominence after the Iraq invasion. Carle refused to carry out the request. In a joint interview, Carle and Cole join us to discuss the explosive revelation and why Cole is now calling for a congressional investigation. "I think I was targeted because this was a propagandistic administration … full of people who thought they could pull the wool over the American people’s eyes," says Cole.

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Stricter Regulation of Formaldehyde Remains Uncertain Despite Carcinogen Ruling

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By by Joaquin Sapien - Jun. 14 (Investigative Report) - by Joaquin Sapien Late last week, the Department of Health and Human Services classified formaldehyde as "a known carcinogen," adding its verdict to two similar reports released by key agencies since 2009. But despite the growing scientific consensus about how formaldehyde can affect human health, it remains to be seen if the studies will lead to tighter U.S. formaldehyde regulations. As we've previously reported, the Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to update its chemical risk assessment for formaldehyde since 1998, but has been stalled repeatedly by the chemical manufacturing industry. EPA assessments are the country's gold standard for how dangerous a chemical is. The formaldehyde assessment would undoubtedly influence the stringency of a rule the EPA is developing on how much of the chemical can safely be released from construction materials that contain it In 2009, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., maneuvered successfully to delay the assessment by putting a hold on the nomination of a key EPA appointee and forcing the agency to send its draft to the National Academy of Sciences for review. Vitter has received substantial campaign contributions from the nation's largest formaldehyde manufacturers and users. After the EPA agreed to send its assessment to the NAS, a top industry lobbyist, Charles Grizzle, threw Vitter a fundraising party, requesting donations of $1,000 a plate. The NAS finished reviewing the EPA assessment in April, sending back a long list of questions and advising the EPA not to finalize the document until it could show exactly how formaldehyde causes cancer, a biological mechanism known as the "mode of action." Dr. Peter Infante, a former director of the Office of Carcinogen Identification and Classification at the Occupational Trailers supplied by FEMA to Katrina survivors were found to have harmful levels of formaldehyde in them. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services classified the chemical as 'a known carcinogen

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Republicans Want FDA Funding Back At 2008 Levels--when Spinach, Peanut Butter, And Tomato Outbreaks Sickened The Country

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Mar. 14 (News Report) - Remember the salmonella-infected tomatoes of 2008? How about the tainted peanut butter of 2007? Or the bad spinach of 2006? These outbreaks sickened thousands and cost the produce industry hundreds of millions. Yet somehow the Republican Party has forgotten about them.

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Bush White House Violations: Political Briefings Reportedly Violated Hatch Act

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Pete Yost - Jan. 24 (News Report) - The White House Office of Political Affairs during the George W. Bush administration violated the law by giving briefings to political employees, concludes a government report issued Monday. The report says the electoral success of the Republican Party and possible strategies for achieving it often were on the agenda at some 75 political briefings at 20 federal agencies from 2001 to 2007. Prohibited political activities were prevalent in the months running up to the 2006 midterm elections, according to the report.

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Controversial Drug Given to All Guantanamo Detainees Akin to "Pharmacologic Waterboarding"

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By Jason Leopold, Jeffrey Kaye - Dec. 01 (Special Report) - The Defense Department forced all "war on terror" detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician called "pharmacologic waterboarding."

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Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By David Corn - Dec. 01 (News Report) - A WikiLeaks cable shows that when Spain considered a criminal case against ex-Bush officials, the Obama White House and Republicans got really bipartisan.

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Fox Reporter on Florida Ballots: Burn Them or Shred Them?

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:32:15 -0800

FAIR - Nov. 16 (News Analysis) - Journalists are supposed to criticize government officials for suppressing information or destroying evidence-- not advocate such actions. If journalism is to contribute to a democratic society, it must frequently expose the country to unpleasant truths. But for Gibson, guest-hosting Fox's popular "The O'Reilly Factor" program, the point of journalism is to preserve the legitimacy of those in power: "George Bush is going to be president. And who needs to know that he's not a legitimate president? Al Gore? Jesse Jackson? His political opponents? How does it do any good for the country to find out that, by somebody's count, the wrong guy is president?"

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George Bush Book 'Decision Points' Lifted Passages From Advisers' Books

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Ryan Grim - Nov. 12 (News Report) - Far from shedding light on how the president approached the crucial "decision points" of his presidency, the clip jobs illuminate something shallower and less surprising about Bush's character: He's too lazy to write his own memoir.

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US asked to begin criminal investigation following Bush publication

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

feeds.bignewsnetwork.com - Nov. 10 (News Report) - Amnesty International has urged a criminal investigation into the role of former US President George W Bush and other officials in the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" against detainees held in secret US custody.

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Inside Job

Sun, 07 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Representational Pictures - By Charles Ferguson - Nov. 07 (Investigative Report) - From Academy Award® nominated filmmaker, Charles Ferguson (“No End In Sight”), comes INSIDE JOB, the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, INSIDE JOB traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia. Narrated by Academy Award® winner Matt Damon, INSIDE JOB was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China.

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24 year old Canadian Omar Khadr pleads guilty to war crimes

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

allvoices.com - Oct. 25 (News) - Canadian detainee Omar Khadr accepted a deal from the United States and pleaded guilty to all five counts of terrorism brought against him on Monday. Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - Seated beside

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I Was a Professor at the Horribly Corrupt American University of Iraq... Until the Neocons Fired Me

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By John Dolan - Oct. 08 (Special Report) - Agresto was in charge of “reforming” the Iraqi education system on good Republican principles. To his credit, he wrote a reasonably honest book about the experience called Mugged by Reality. Unfortunately, the mugging didn’t take; Agresto has gone back to his right-wing roots, avoiding that disrespectful thug, Reality, as much as possible.

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9/11: Nine Years Later

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Daily Beast - Sep. 11 (News Report) - President Obama put a wreath at the Pentagon and Michelle Obama joined Laura Bush in Shanksville, PA to memorialize the victims of the terrorist attacks. President Obama marked the ninth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks at the Pentagon, saying the U.S. would never hand victory to “a sorry band of men” with a twisted vision of Islam. "Today we declare once more we will never hand them that victory,” Obama said, “for our cause is just, our spirit is strong and our resolve unwavering." While honoring the 184 people who died when a plane smashed into the Pentagon, the president was resolute, saying the hijackers had hoped to “exploit our freedoms, but we will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish… They may wish to drive us apart, but we will not give in to their hatred and prejudice.” Obama said the U.S. would never be at war with Islam.

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