"The bottom line, however, is that the mistakes...were just that," Dick Cheney announced to the nation, "mistakes in judgment, and nothing more." There was no constitutional crisis, no systematic disrespect for ''the rule of law,'' no grand conspiracy, and no Administration-wide dishonesty or coverup. In fact, the evidence will not support any of the more […]

Like most Americans, I was horrified to learn about the shocking brutality contained in the declassified Senate torture report. Under a legal edifice erected by the Bush administration, CIA interrogators subjected terror detainees to large scale, state-sanctioned sadism. Thanks to these horrors perpetrated in all of our names, terms of art like "rectal hydration" and […]

As Dick Cheney and the usual suspects circle the wagons to defend the Bush Torture Team, one its most notorious members has been particularly active in rhetorically waterboarding the Senate torture report. On Tuesday, John Yoo, who at the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel defined torture as "in intensity to the pain accompanying […]

By now, most Americans can probably recite the conservative arguments against the Senate torture report by rote. After seeing Dick Cheney on TV, watching the parade of vein-bursting Republicans on the Senate floor or reading virtually identical columns from the likes of Charles Krauthammer, Rich Lowry and former CIA clandestine services boss Jose Rodriguez, the […]

The just-release Senate torture report is so horrifying that it is difficult to know where to begin. To be sure, shocking revelations about CIA "rectal hydration," rape by broomstick (also known to Fox News and New Yorkers as "Giuliani Time") and other acts of state-sponsored sadism ensure Americans won't soon forget the term "enhanced interrogation […]

As the year draws to a close, the only question in Washington appears to be how--and not whether--Republicans will seek payback against President Obama for his executive action deferring the deportations of four million undocumented immigrants. While House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and soon-to-be Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) want to defer retribution until […]

After five years and $40 million, a declassified version of the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report may finally be released next week. But in advance of its arrival, the CIA's former head of clandestine services has resurfaced again to declare the report "an egregious falsehood" and "a dishonest attempt to rewrite history." Of course, that […]

Two weeks ago, the House Intelligence Committee released its report on the 2012 Benghazi tragedy. Like the previous six probes by the State Department, internal watchdogs and other Congressional panels, the GOP-controlled House Intelligence Committee concluded there had been no stand-down order, no CIA intelligence failure and no cover-up in the killings of Ambassador Chris […]

Almost from its inception in 1974, Republicans have hated the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Ever since Capitol Hill's budget scorekeeper presciently predicted Ronald Ronald's magical tax cuts would produce oceans of red ink, the GOP has had the CBO in its crosshairs over its inconvenient truths about taxes, the economic stimulus, health care and more. […]

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. For two free health care clinics, that is. In Mena, Arkansas, the 9th Street Ministries free clinic closed its doors after 16 years, its services no longer needed by the low income residents in poverty-stricken Polk County who have now obtained health insurance […]