Christopher Hill* was finally confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq yesterday, a month later than he should have been. The reason for the delay was an American patriot named Sam Brownback, the U.S. Senator from Kansas, who allegedly had objections to Hill’s independent conversations with the North Koreans–passively, but not explicitly, approved by the Bush [...]

There are lots of stories on the web today about the Senate Armed Services Committee report that was released last night. It shows, among other things, that the Bush Administration began planning for its harsh interrogation program months before it received legal authorization, and that Pentagon policies led to much of the mistreatment of prisoners [...]

It seems to me that David Ignatius, who knows a thing or two about the clandestine service, is precisely right about the impact of the torture memos on the CIA.

I have updated the story I posted earlier today with yet another scientist, this one in France, objecting to the way the CIA and the Justice Department used his work to justify prolonged sleep deprivation on detainees. Dr. S. Hakki Onen, sleep specialist and geriatrician with the Hôpital Gériatrique A. Charial, a part of the [...]

UPDATE: Since posting this blog post, my story has been updated with the testimonial of a third scientist objecting to citation of their work by the CIA and the Justice Department. See the post above for a better explanation. With the help of Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin, I just posted a story about another scientist [...]

Okay, that’s not exactly his reputation to outsiders, and particularly among conservatives. But within the world’s most exclusive club, it turns out that the Liberal Lion is considered the easiest Democrat to work with. That’s according to this survey of Senators by The Hill newspaper. Here’s the full list: THE MOST, AND LEAST BIPARTISAN MEMBERS [...]

In today’s installment, Iowa Republican Steve King offers his take on that encounter between Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez: [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.c-spanarchives.org/flash/cspanPlayer.swf" fvars=" pid=285420-8 ; clipStart=618.02 ; clipStop=711.09 ; autoplay=0 " width="365" height="340" /] (H/T: C-SPAN Video Library)

Last night on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has discovered a new-found love for the press now that he has no government power, continued his post-election campaign against President Obama’s national security policies. The most alarming part of the interview was his suggestion that the Obama Administration is trying [...]

Kevin Sack of the New York Times has a riveting and heartbreaking story on the front page of today’s edition about Texas parents in a desperate struggle to find health care for their 21-year-old cancer patient son as they face the prospect of their health insurance running out. Particularly outrageous is the treatment this family [...]