The year was 2000, and Cox Newspapers had about 30 people in Washington to cover the new Bush administration. Eight years later, a similar transformation is under way, the stakes heightened by two foreign wars and the worst economic collapse in decades, but Cox will not be there to cover it. Cox, the publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Austin American-Statesman and 15 other papers, announced this month that its Washington bureau would simply close its doors on April 1.
Washington News Bureaus Are Shrinking
Career Army officer sues Rumsfeld, Cheney, saying no evacuation order given on 9/11
A career Army officer who survived the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, claims that no evacuation was ordered inside the Pentagon, despite flight controllers calling in warnings of approaching hijacked aircraft nearly 20 minutes before the building was struck.
According to a time-line of the attacks, the Federal Aviation Administration notified NORAD that American Airlines Flight 77 had been hijacked at 9:24 a.m. The Pentagon was not struck until 9:43 a.m.
On behalf of retired Army officer April Gallop, California attorney William Veale has filed a civil suit against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and former US Air Force General Richard Myers, who was acting chairman of the joint chiefs on 9/11. It alleges they engaged in conspiracy to facilitate the terrorist attacks and purposefully failed to warn those inside the Pentagon, contributing to injuries she and her two-month-old son incurred.
Dick Cheney's fantasy world
In yet another attempt at revisionist history by the outgoing Bush administration, vice-president Dick Cheney, in an exclusive interview with ABC News, took exception to former presidential adviser Karl Rove's contention that the US would not have gone to war if available intelligence before the invasion had shown Iraq not to possess weapons of mass destruction. Cheney noted that the only thing the US got wrong on Iraq was that there were no stockpiles of WMD at the time of the 2003 invasion. "What they found was that Saddam Hussein still had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. He had the technology, he had the people, he had the basic feed stock."
Perino: We’re not occupiers in Iraq; we’re guests
During today’s White House press briefing, spokesperson Dana Perino echoed President Bush’s claim that Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi’s frustrations are not representative of the Iraqi public’s sentiments. She pointed out that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki apologized for the mistreatment of his guest. When reporter Helen Thomas pointed out that U.S. forces are actually “occupiers,” Perino bristled:
The shoe heard around the world
An Iraqi journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, an Arab, a Muslim, may have just launched the Muslim “Shoe Revolution” on behalf of the millions of Iraqis, dead, injured, ill and disabled, due to the illegal, immoral, and murderous invasion of his country by an aloof, disconnected, and disoriented from reality cowboy president selected by Cheney, Israel’s supporters, the Ashke-Nazi Neo-cons, and Corporate America to fulfill their dream of cheap oil and eliminating one of Israel’s enemies.
Which American Are You?
A personal message from Jesse Richard.
But when I really listened to the lyrics I almost cried. I heard myself in this song. I heard my own desire to get other people to pay attention to what is taking place in this world. I heard my entire struggle to get my friends, family members and complete strangers to take notice of what is going on. But the thing that almost brought me to tears was my realization that this struggle has been going on for at least the age of the song itself...at least 40 years! And to think I am 44! People have been trying to wake up their fellow citizens for my entire life! And people are still not getting the message! How sad.
Bush administration eases railroad route safety rule
Saying it wants to help protect people like Neuschwander, the Bush administration is pushing through a new rule that requires railroads to use the safest and most secure routes to transport hazardous cargo.
But the rule, which becomes effective during Bush's last month in office, would leave route-making decisions to railroad companies and would not require them to seek input from residents or local governments when assessing which route is safest.
Critics say the rule will allow railroads to continue sending dangerous materials through densely populated areas rather than taking longer routes that bypass cities.
Court sides with ACLU, strikes down Patriot Act gag provision
A federal appeals court ruling late Monday is the cause célèbre of the American Civil Liberties Union, as another provision of the Bush administration's Patriot Act falls to the judicial system.
Until the ruling, recipients of so-called "national security letters" were legally forbidden from speaking out. The letters, usually a demand for documents, or a notice that private records had been searched by government authorities, were criticized as a cover-all for FBI abuses.
NYC ruling limits airlines' liability for 9/11
A judge says developer Larry Silverstein cannot recover more from the aviation industry than the $2.8 billion value of the World Trade Center if his lawsuits succeed.
Hellerstein rejected Silverstein's claims that his company would be entitled to as much as $16.2 billion from American Airlines, United Airlines and other aviation defendants.
A lawsuit on behalf of Silverstein's companies claimed that negligence by the airlines allowed the terrorists to hijack planes that struck the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
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