The Hill: Retired General and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark said Sunday that a repeal of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy will happen and that wartime is an ideal moment to move ahead with repeal. Clark said on ABC’s “This Week” that with the military focused on war, “this is the [...]
MSNBC: In his first interview since the latest WikiLeaks document dump, General David Petraeus brushed aside reports that Afghanistan’s former Vice President left the country with $52 million in cash. And he denied rumors that he threatened to resign after Afghan President Karzai criticized his battle tactics in a Washington Post interview. Here’s the full [...]
GENEVA (AP)- WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange turned increasingly to Switzerland on Sunday, dodging a barrage of threats online and in the real world to keep access to a trove of U.S. State Department cables under a Swiss Web address. The elusive founder of the website WikiLeaks said he faced “hundreds of death threats.” The site [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton knows how to try to get a laugh from a public embarrassment. Ever since the website WikiLeaks started posting State Department memos—known as cables—and other classified government documents, U.S. officials have been turning a bit red as secret assessments of world leaders have become public. She [...]
New York Times; The State of Illinois is still paying off billions in bills that it got from schools and social service providers last year. Arizona recently stopped paying for certain organ transplants for people in its Medicaid program. States are releasing prisoners early, more to cut expenses than to reward good behavior. And in [...]
Fox News: WASHINGTON — After Senate Republicans, with the help of a few Democrats, refused to cave on extending tax rates for the wealthy next year, a deal to extend unemployment benefits in exchange for White House agreement on continuing everyone’s current rate appears to be gaining traction. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday [...]
Wired: Federal law enforcement agencies have been tracking Americans in real-time using credit cards, loyalty cards and travel reservations without getting a court order, a new document released under a government sunshine request shows. The document, obtained by security researcher Christopher Soghoian, explains how so-called “Hotwatch” orders allow for real-time tracking of individuals in a [...]
Politico: Congressional Republicans are hoping to put Democrats in a no-win new year’s jam: defund a big chunk of their health care overhaul or slash Medicare payments instead. Despite rampant repeal rhetoric, Republicans have so far struggled to dismantle any part of health reform. Now, they see a new path forward: pilfer health reform dollars [...]
Washington Post: The federal government has repeatedly violated legal limits governing the surveillance of U.S. citizens, according to previously secret internal documents obtained through a court battle by the American Civil Liberties Union. In releasing 900 pages of documents, U.S. government agencies refused to say how many Americans’ telephone, e-mail or other communications have been [...]
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Washington Times: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is poised to add the Internet to its portfolio of regulated industries. The agency’s chairman, Julius Genachowski, announced Wednesday that he circulated draft rules he says will “preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet.” No statement could better reflect the gulf between the rhetoric and the reality [...]
New York Times: WASHINGTON — Nine years after the United States vowed to shut down the money pipeline that finances terrorism, senior Obama administration officials say they believe that many millions of dollars are flowing largely unimpeded to extremist groups worldwide, and they have grown frustrated by frequent resistance from allies in the Middle East, [...]
