Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Governor extends tax deadline

TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

The rough weather has yielded some relief for taxpayers.

Federal and state officials have said the deadline for filing returns has been extended to midnight Thursday. The deadline for federal and state taxes had been midnight tonight.

241 Reads

How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America

By Zbigniew Brzezinski
Sunday, March 25, 2007; Page B01

The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.

The damage these three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.

259 Reads

By Carol D. Leonnig and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 7, 2007; Page A01

A federal jury convicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby yesterday of lying about his role in the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity, culminating a four-year legal saga that transfixed official Washington and revealed the inner workings of the White House and the media.

After 10 days of deliberations, the 11 jurors found Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff guilty of four felony counts of making false statements to the FBI, lying to a grand jury and obstructing a probe into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity. The jury acquitted him of one count of lying to the FBI about his conversation with a Time magazine reporter. Libby is the highest-ranking White House official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-contra scandal nearly two decades ago.

163 Reads

By Jonathan Weisman and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 22, 2007

As the British announced the beginning of their departure from Iraq yesterday, President Bush's top foreign policy aide proclaimed it "basically a good-news story." Yet for an already besieged White House, the decision was doing a good job masquerading as a bad-news story.

What national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley meant was that the British believe they have made enough progress in southern Iraq to turn over more of their sector to Iraqi forces. To many back in Washington, though, what resonated was that Bush's main partner in Iraq is starting to get out just as the president is sending in more U.S. troops.

159 Reads

By MICHAEL MOSS
Published: December 17, 2006 New York Times

BAGHDAD — In a cavernous room that once displayed gifts given to Saddam Hussein, eight men in yellow prison garb sat on the floor facing the wall, guarded by two American soldiers.

Among them was Abdulla Sultan Khalaf, a Ministry of Industry employee seized by American troops who said they found 10 blasting caps and 100 sticks of TNT. When his name was called, he stood, walked into a cagelike defendant’s box and peered over the wooden slats at a panel of three Iraqi judges of the central court.

The judges reviewed evidence prepared by an American military lawyer — testimony from two soldiers, photographs and a sketch of the scene.

The evidence went largely unchallenged, because Mr. Khalaf had no lawyer. The judges appointed one, but Mr. Khalaf had no chance to speak with him. Mr. Khalaf told the judges that the soldiers were probably chasing a rogue nephew and denied that the explosives were his or ever in his house. “Let me examine the pictures,” he insisted. The judges ignored him. His lawyer said nothing, beyond declaring Mr. Khalaf’s innocence. The trial lasted 15 minutes.

The judges conducted six trials of similar length and depth before lunch, then deliberated for four minutes. Five defendants were found guilty; one was acquitted. “The evidence is enough,” Judge Saeb Khorsheed Ahmed said in convicting Mr. Khalaf. “Thirty years.”

167 Reads