Putin doesn't have a soul: Clinton 

Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton joked that Russian President Vladimir Putin, as an ex-KGB agent, had no soul, in the latest swipe at Russia from the 2008 campaign trail. 

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses.

They have repeatedly violated the Constitution.

They have transgressed national and international law.

They have lied to the American people time after time.

Who needs a Ministry of Truth when we have an "independent media" that seems perfectly willing to tell us that we've always been at war with East Asia? 

I'm referring to the perfect fluidity, depending on the storyline, with which the legitimacy, or lack thereof, of the "Iraqi government" is acknowledged.  

 

2007 was an incredibly frustrating year for opponents of the seemingly endless "War on Terror," and all that it is used to justify. 

Democratic control of Congress had little impact on U.S. foreign policy and progressive lawmakers made little progress towards ending the disastrous occupation of Iraq.  

 

"Every year begins with the renewal of hope.

My hope for 2008 is for everyone to think of others; show compassion and kindness and, no matter what, always try your best."

morris dilemma

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is now fighting for its life after a shattering defeat last night in Iowa at the hands of the black senator from Illinois, Barrack Obama.

Also on life support is the candidacy of the Mormon Mitt Romney, trounced in Iowa's Republican caucuses by Mike Huckabee, the folksy and decidedly Christian former governor of Arkansas. 

A few weeks ago, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) asked Gen. Hartmann essentially the same question: How would the military's legal community react if the Iranian government used water torture to extract vital strategic information from a captured US soldier?

“I am not prepared to answer that question,” responded Gen. Hartmann, the kind of reply one offers when it's too dangerous to speak the obvious truth.

 

The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey appointed an outside prosecutor to oversee the case.  

If you doubt Britain needs a written constitution, listen to the strangely unbalanced discussion broadcast by the BBC last Friday.  

The Today programme asked Lord Guthrie, formerly chief of the defence staff, and Sir Kevin Tebbit, until recently the senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, if parliament should decide whether or not the country goes to war.  

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. 

Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior.  

It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been manuevering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto does not change this agenda. In fact, it simplifies Bush-Cheney’s options. 

 

My friend, the late Fr Percy Church MSC wrote a dramatic description of his Christmas in Bethlehem:   

In Memoriam: John Howard

The resolution I propose for Labor back in power - and for the Opposition once again in opposition, the courts that have dithered on the issue and those newspaper pundits who never understood what was involved - is to make 2008 the year Australia stops messing around with habeas corpus. 

The right to have the courts - not the Crown, governments, ministers or public servants - decide who languishes in the clink, was not easily won.

The NSW Ombudsman has failed to follow through on threats he would review the state's Freedom of Information Act despite latest figures showing that NSW continues to lag behind the rest of the country in releasing documents sought under the law. 

The NSW Ombudsman's annual report reveals that the percentage of freedom-of-information applications released in full in NSW dropped from 81 per cent in 1995-96 to 52 per cent in 2005-06.