December 20, 2005
Pentagon Labels Gay Kiss-In A "Credible Threat" to Security!
A February protest at NYU was also listed, along with the law school's LGBT advocacy group OUTlaw, which was classified as "possibly violent" by the Pentagon. A UC-Santa Cruz "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" protest, which included a gay kiss-in, was labelled as a "credible threat" of terrorism.

December 30, 2005
Weapons caches increase in number, size
For example, during the summer, troops would find an average of eight to 10 weapons caches per week — and many of them were small, including small arms, ingredients to make improvised explosive devices and other materials. These days, U.S. and Iraqi forces are finding 15 to 20 large caches per week, said Webster, briefing Pentagon reporters Friday by video teleconference.

December 29, 2005
U.S. partners in Iraq dwindling in number, size
Coalition forces in Iraq now number fewer than 23,000 from 24 countries, down from about 50,000 from 38 countries in 2003. The United States is reducing its troop levels in Iraq, as well, with plans to have about 130,000 troops there by spring 2006 instead of the 138,000 it had stationed there for much of 2005.

December 31, 2005
Absurdity Alert
Bush Signed Anti Torture Legislation
Crawford, Texas (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Friday signed legislation extending key provisions of the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act until February 3 and a bill that bans cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, despite initial resistance to both measures.

December 21, 2005
President has power to spy, Cheney says
MUSCAT, Oman – Vice President Dick Cheney cast the administration's eavesdropping program yesterday as part of a broader effort to reassert presidential powers that he said had been dangerously eroded in the years after Vietnam and Watergate.

December 31, 2005
Bush on Vacation in Texas for 365 days
Crawford, Tex., Dec. 30 -- On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground.

December 31, 2005
2005 US Death Toll in Iraq 842
A U.S. soldier died Saturday from wounds inflicted by a mortar attack in Baghdad, the military said. That put the American military death toll for the year at 842 — four short of 2004's record total despite political progress and dogged U.S. and Iraqi efforts to quash the insurgency. A total of 846 U.S. military personnel died in 2004 and 485 in 2003.

December 30, 2005
Oil Prices End 2005 40 Percent Higher
NEW YORK - Oil futures settled above $61 a barrel Friday and finished 40 percent higher than they started in 2005, capping a tough year for energy consumers but a great one for the petroleum industry as prices soared amid strong demand and tight supplies.

December 23, 2005
Three-quarters say Pentagon propaganda is wrong
Almost three-quarters of Americans think it was wrong for the Pentagon to pay Iraqi newspapers to publish news about U.S. efforts in Iraq, a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows.

December 30, 2005
Chalabi takes over Iraq Oil Ministry
Ahmad Chalabi, Iraq's deputy prime minister, has assumed direct control of the powerful Oil Ministry amid growing panic over an anticipated fuel shortage.

December 31, 2005
Ex-Envoy: British Used Intel After Torture
London - A former British ambassador has published government documents he says prove that Britain knowingly received intelligence extracted under torture from prisoners in Uzbekistan.

[Read Letter #3: UK used intel from torture

December 29, 2005
Lawyers Say Padilla Wants to Stay Put
WASHINGTON - Lawyers for Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held as an enemy combatant for 3 1/2 years, said Friday he wants to stay in military custody until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear his challenge to President Bush's power to detain Americans when the nation is at war.

December 29, 2005
GAO Cites Army's Sloppy Record Keeping
Looking at data from two inventory control points, GAO investigators estimated that 15 percent — or $68 million — of the unclassified shipments they analyzed "could not be confirmed as being received." Additionally, the GAO said receipt records for $481.7 million in unclassified items shipped for repair — about 42 percent — could not be reconciled with shipping records.

December 23, 2005
In letter to Congress, Justice Dept. defends illegal spying on Americans
Moschella said the presidential authority allowing for the surveillance conducted by the super-secret National Security Agency was deeply rooted in what is known as the Authorization for the Use of Military Force approved by Congress Sept. 14, 2001, before the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

December 29, 2005
Washington poised for revelations from Abramoff
The former GOP lobbyist is reportedly negotiating a plea deal with Justice Department persecutors and his insider revelations could rock the political establishment in the nation's capital.

December 29, 2005
US is running out of money: the debt ceiling
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow warned lawmakers on Thursday that a legally set limit on the government's ability to borrow will be hit in mid-February and urged Congress to raise it quickly.

December 30, 2005
Two more Iraqi-run jails show signs of overcrowding and abuse
Iraqi and American inspectors made the new findings at a Baghdad facility on December 20 and one in Tal Afar on Wednesday, a U.S. military official said. The findings suggest broader problems at Iraqi-run detention facilities at a time when the U.S. military is taking steps toward turning over to the Iraqi government thousands of detainees held by American forces.

December 29, 2005
Justice Probes Wiretap Leak
The Justice Department has opened another investigation into leaks of classified information, this time to determine who divulged the existence of President Bush's secret domestic spying program.

December 29, 2005
Nevada tanning salon gets 9/11 loan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Texas golf course, a Nevada tanning salon and an Illinois candy shop were among small businesses that may have improperly received U.S. subsidized loans intended for firms hurt by the September 11 attacks, an internal government watchdog has found.

December 30, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
The CIA's role in breaking our laws
GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world.

The agency is working to establish procedures in the event a prisoner dies in custody. One proposal circulating among mid-level officers calls for rushing in a CIA pathologist to perform an autopsy and then quickly burning the body, according to two sources.

December 30, 2005
George W. Bush as the New Richard M. Nixon: Both Wiretapped Illegally, and Impeachably
There can be no serious question that warrantless wiretapping, in violation of the law, is impeachable. After all, Nixon was charged in Article II of his bill of impeachment with illegal wiretapping for what he, too, claimed were national security reasons.

December 30, 2005
Did Bush roll past legal stop signs?
s he went on to explain, the charge of unchecked power implies that he is asserting a kind of dictatorial authority – precisely what Americans fought, and continue to fight, against in Iraq.

December 29, 2005
George W. Bush: Winning Battles But Losing the War
Zogby: Mr. Bush won with 50.8% of the vote on the same day that majorities gave him a negative job performance rating, said he did not deserve to be re-elected, and saw the country headed on the wrong track. The victory was an historical anomaly, though Messrs. Bush and Rove did indeed get an additional number of rural and conservative voters out to the polls.

December 29, 2005
Journalists Should Expose Secrets, Not Keep Them
Deferring to the judgment of the executive editor of the New York Times may be akin to deferring to the judgment of the chief executive of the United States government. And as it happens, in this case, the avowed foreign policy goals of each do not appear to be in fundamental conflict -- on the meaning of the Iraq war or the wisdom of enshrining a warfare state. Pretenses aside, the operative judgments from the New York Times executive editor go way beyond the purely journalistic.

July 4, 2002
Posted December 30, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Receipt of intelligence obtained by torture
Dissident bloggers in coordinated exposé of UK government lies over torture.

1. We receive intelligence obtained under torture from the Uzbek intelligence services, via the US. We should stop. It is bad information anyway. Tortured dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe, that they and we are fighting the same war against terror.

December 29, 2005
Psst ... Our government has spied on us for decades
But the NSA spying, past and present, makes Operation Shamrock look almost harmless. Some of the earliest unauthorized NSA spying occurred in the late 1960s and centered on individuals and groups associated with anti-Vietnam War protesting. But the largest and most under-reported snooping is the NSA's project Echelon. Echelon encompasses a vast network of electronic spy stations located in the United States, England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand designed to monitor almost every telephonic, fax, e-mail and fiber-optic communication in those countries.

December 29, 2005
NSA Spy Story Could Lead to New Leak Probe
WASHINGTON — The specter of another Washington leak investigation has been raised in the wake of December's revelation that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails inside the United States without court warrants.

December 28, 2005
Torture 'spy' recalled to Britain
An alleged MI6 station chief in Athens has been recalled to Britain "for his own safety" after being identified by a Greek newspaper.

December 23, 2005
European arrest warrant issued for 22 CIA agents
Milan magistrates suspect a CIA team grabbed Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street and flew him for interrogation to Egypt, where he said he was tortured.

December 30, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
84 Guantanamo detainees on hunger strike
In addition, another federal judge ruled earlier this month that it was illegal for the Bush administration to continue imprisoning several Chinese Muslims at the base, although the judge also said he was powerless to order the military to let the men go.

August 23, 2002
Posted December 30, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
FISA Court Chided Justice Dept. On Misinformation
The secretive federal court that approves spying on terror suspects in the United States has refused to give the Justice Department broad new powers, saying the government had misused the law and misled the court dozens of times, according to an extraordinary legal ruling released yesterday.

December 29, 2005
White House and NSA website illegally track visitors
NEW YORK - Unbeknown to the Bush administration, an outside contractor has been using Internet tracking technologies that may be prohibited to analyze usage and traffic patterns at the White House's Web site, an official said Thursday.

December 30, 2005
U.S. to Launch Phased Iraq Pullout
"The bottom line will be that the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police will gain in competence, that they will be able to take on more and more of the territory, whether or not there are still insurgents in that area," he said in an interview with a small group of reporters, including The Associated Press, aboard a military plane en route to the United Arab Emirates.

December 29, 2005
Harris Poll: Many Still Believe Hussein Had Links to al Qaeda
However, all of these beliefs have declined since February of this year, when 64% of those polled believed Mr. Hussein had strong links to al Qaeda and 46% said Mr. Hussein helped plan 9/11.

December 28, 2005
John Dean Interview on Impeachment
When it comes to law, impeachment, politics, and personal experience, perhaps no man living knows more about the subjects than former Nixon White House counsel John Dean, who was charged with obstruction of justice and spent four months in prison for his role in the Watergate cover-up.

December 29, 2005
NSA spied on its own employees, other U.S. intelligence personnel, journalists, and members of Congress
NSA spied on its own employees, other U.S. intelligence personnel, and their journalist and congressional contacts. WMR has learned that the National Security Agency (NSA), on the orders of the Bush administration, eavesdropped on the private conversations and e-mail of its own employees, employees of other U.S. intelligence agencies -- including the CIA and DIA -- and their contacts in the media, Congress, and oversight agencies and offices.

December 12, 2005
Mistake? or Impeachable?
NSA uses computer cookies to track visitors
Those that are not deleted immediately are banned for the most part; the NSA's persistent cookies were not set to expire until 2035.

December 28, 2005
Presidents all the same when scandal strikes
President Bush responded to a question at a White House news conference about what now appears to be a clear violation of federal electronic monitoring laws by trying to argue that he had not ordered the National Security Agency to "monitor" phone and e-mail communications of American citizens without court order; he had merely ordered them to "detect" improper communications.

December 27, 2005
Democrats target seven states in 2006 Senate races
Schumer, the head of Senate Democrats' campaign efforts, said Tuesday he is focusing on seven states where he believes they can take GOP-held Senate seats in 2006: Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee, and Arizona.

December 28, 2005
Impeachment is Now Real
The entire criminal process will be brought to a standstill. Cases that should take six months to a year, will take three times as long, as motions go up and down the appellate ladder – as federal judges trial disagree with each other. Appellate Courts will disagree on issues so novel and so important that the Supreme Court will look at them.

December 28, 2005
GOP Congressional Corruption
While the rules say that a conference agreement can't include elements that haven't been voted in either the House or Senate - and can't exclude elements that have been voted in both - they are often violated. It's only an issue if lawmakers - or outside groups in the know - can make it one.

December 29, 2005
Homeland Security Is Faulted in Audit
Nearly three years after it was formed, the immense Department of Homeland Security remains hampered by severe management and financial problems that contributed to the flawed response to Hurricane Katrina, according to an independent audit released yesterday.

December 29, 2005
The Fast Rise and Steep Fall of Jack Abramoff
Abramoff is the central figure in what could become the biggest congressional corruption scandal in generations. Justice Department persecutors are pressing him and his lawyers to settle fraud and bribery allegations by the end of this week, sources knowledgeable about the case said. Unless he reaches a plea deal, he faces a trial Jan. 9 in Florida in a related fraud case.

December 12, 2005
Federal deficit record for a November
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. federal budget deficit widened as expected to $83.1 billion in November, the largest deficit of any November, the Treasury Department said Monday. A year ago, the deficit was $57.9 billion.

December 28, 2005
Yield-curve inversion usually spells recession
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Treasurys were higher Tuesday after the spread between the 2-year note and the 10-year note inverted for the first time in five years.

An inverted yield curve occurs when short-term maturities pay a higher interest rate than longer-term maturities.

Such an unusual event typically has foreshadowed a noticeable economic downturn. Usually, a recession has followed.

December 08, 2005
U.S. debt expands at fastest clip in 18 years
WASHINGTON (AFX) -- Americans increased their household debt at an annual rate of 11.6% in the third quarter, the fastest growth in 18 years, the Federal Reserve said Thursday in its quarterly flow of funds report.

December 10, 2005
Why foreigners are propping up U.S. debt
NEW YORK (AP) - It's an addiction. Every day, the United States sucks in more and more money from abroad, to keep the nation going.

At our current rate of trade and budget deficits, foreigners need to purchase $2 billion in dollar-denominated assets each day just to keep the dollar stable, said Axel Merk, who manages $60 million at Merk Investments and runs the Merk Hard Currency Fund.

December 28, 2005
37 Vets get in races to fight GOP
On Dec. 20, Fawcett and Winter joined 35 Democratic veterans running for Congress at a strategy session in Washington, D.C. The veterans voted on a name for their emerging caucuslike campaign coalition: Veterans for a Secure America. They also agreed that their military backgrounds should be promoted as credentials for leadership across the full spectrum of public policy.

December 29, 2005
CALLS FOR BUSH IMPEACH
Powerful, Congressional representative and Detroit Democrat John Conyers has introduced a House resolution to create a Select Committee with subpoena authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush Administration. Conyers' resolution cites "the Iraq war and ... possible impeachable offenses; as well as resolutions proposing both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney [that] should be censured by Congress based on the uncontroverted evidence of their abuse of power." The report is entitled "Demand Censure and Accountability for Misconduct by Bush and Cheney in Iraq War."

December 27, 2005
Censuring Bush requires citizens' help
As President Bush and his aides scramble to explain new revelations regarding Bush's authorization of spying on the international telephone calls and e-mails of Americans, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee has begun a process that could lead to the censure, and perhaps the impeachment, of the president and vice president.

December 29, 2005
Most Japanese want Iraq troops home soon
Tokyo: Nearly three-fourths of Japanese voters want the country's troops withdrawn from Iraq within the next six months, a newspaper poll said yesterday.

December 28, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
U.S. Asks Supreme Court to Transfer Terror Suspect
Mr. Padilla, a convert to Islam, traveled through the Middle East and was arrested in May 2002 upon his return to the United States. The Bush administration, in declaring him an enemy combatant and jailing him in a military brig without access to a lawyer, initially accused him of plotting with Al Qaeda to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" on American streets and plotting other attacks within the United States.

But in bringing criminal charges for the first time against Mr. Padilla last month, the administration reversed course and accused him of working to support violent jihad causes in Afghanistan and elsewhere overseas from 1993 through 2001. The criminal charges make no mention of the dirty bomb plot or other American attacks.

December 28, 2005
5,645 secret surveillance applications in 2004
The Justice Department's reports to the U.S. Congress on the surveillance court's activities show that the Bush administration made 5,645 applications for electronic surveillance and physical searches through 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available. In the previous four years, the court received a total of 3,436.

[Note: this explosion in secret surveillance took place in an election year.]

December 28, 2005
Outside Advocacy Group Advertizes WMD Lies
WASHINGTON – The television commercials are attention-grabbing: Newly found Iraqi documents show that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, including anthrax and mustard gas, and had "extensive ties" to al Qaeda. The discoveries are being covered up by those "willing to undermine support for the war on terrorism to selfishly advance their shameless political ambitions."

December 28, 2005
Kurds prepare to take over Iraq after US exit
KIRKUK, Iraq - Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan.

December 28, 2005
Terror cases in jeopardy over wiretaps
WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 - Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.

December 28, 2005
Ex-Enron Exec Strikes Plea Deal
(CBS/AP) A prime defendant in the Enron Corp. criminal trial has struck a plea deal with prosecutors, potentially bolstering the government's case against company founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

December 27, 2005
Bush's counsel on spying now under close scrutiny
Since Sept. 11, 2001, Bush's legal advisers have cleared the way for him to hold enemy combatants without trials; eavesdrop on overseas telephone calls and e-mails; place ever-greater numbers of government documents under a veil of secrecy; imprison a US citizen indefinitely on the suspicion of terrorist links; and, according to The Washington Post, operate a secret CIA prison in an Eastern European country. In each case, the legal official responsible for assessing the extent of Bush's powers was Ashcroft, Gonzales, or Miers.

December 27, 2005
What is your definition of "victory?"
The truest answer probably is the one we don't care to hear. Bush doesn't know when we're going to leave Iraq, and he doesn't know when victory will be achieved — or even, precisely, what it is. Because, among other reasons, how could he?

December 24, 2005
NSA Monitoring Net Communications
By working directly with the backbone networks in the United States, the NSA was able to tap directly into switches and monitor any traffic moving across the networks. This included e-mail, instant messages and even phone calls, as most traditional phone communication is routed using voice over IP these days.

December 27, 2005
White House Prevarications
An earlier version of that claim was examined two years ago by the Government Accountability Office. Its report, published in October 2003, noted that of the 30 elements of the administration's then-recently proclaimed agenda on greenhouse gases, only three were new programs -- as opposed to existing, repackaged programs.

December 27, 2005
CIA Lost Rendition POW's
WASHINGTON - The CIA's independent watchdog is investigating fewer than 10 cases where terror suspects may have been mistakenly swept away to foreign countries by the spy agency, a figure lower than published reports but enough to raise some concerns.

December 26, 2005
Fear destroys what bin Laden could not
If, back in 2001, anyone had told me that four years after bin Laden's attack our president would admit that he broke U.S. law against domestic spying and ignored the Constitution -- and then expect the American people to congratulate him for it -- I would have presumed the girders of our very Republic had crumbled.

December 27, 2005
Possible Impeachable Offensee
NSA Sends Out Spyware
The BetaDot article quoted Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) co-founder John Gilmore as saying, "The clues are piling up that vacuum-cleaner style dragnets are what's at issue, perhaps they've pointed the NSA vacuum cleaner straight into all U.S.-based international telecommunications."

December 27, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Rice authorized National Security Agency to spy on UN Security Council
Two former NSA officials familiar with the agency's campaign to spy on U.N. members say then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice authorized the plan at the request of President Bush, who wanted to know how delegates were going to vote. Rice did not immediately return a call for comment.

December 27, 2005
The I-Word is Gaining Ground
In fact, as Michelle Goldberg reports in Salon, "in the past few days, impeachment "has become a topic of considered discussion among constitutional scholars and experts (including a few Republicans), former intelligence officers, and even a few politicians." Even a moderately liberal columnist like Newsweek's Alter sounds like The Nation, observing: "We're seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator."

December 27, 2005
Impeachment Movement Gains Momentum
The movement to impeach President Bush is gaining momentum, according to US Liberals Guide Deborah White. An early December Rasmussen Reports survey suggested about one-third of Americans would support impeachment, and that was before revelations of domestic wiretaps without warrant. Christmas Eve revelations related to this include news that the Administration has monitored Muslim mosques and homes for abnormal levels of radiation since 2002 - without warrants or court orders - and NSA has also obtained back-door access to domestic and international telecommunications - voice and internet traffic - as part of the warrentless-domestic wiretapping scheme

December 27, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
NSA just one of many federal agencies spying on Americans
Besides the NSA, the Pentagon, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and dozens of private contractors are spying on millions of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

December 27, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
NSA Spied on U.N. Diplomats in Push for Invasion of Iraq
That spying had nothing to do with protecting the United States from a terrorist attack. The entire purpose of the NSA surveillance was to help the White House gain leverage, by whatever means possible, for a resolution in the U.N. Security Council to green light an invasion. When that surveillance was exposed nearly three years ago, the mainstream U.S. media winked at Bush's illegal use of the NSA for his Iraq invasion agenda.

NSA.gov
Does NSA/CSS unconstitutionally spy on Americans?

No. NSA/CSS performs SIGINT operations against foreign powers or agents of foreign powers. It strictly follows laws and regulations designed to preserve every American's privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects U.S. persons from unreasonable searches and seizures by the U.S. government or any person or agency acting on behalf of the U.S. government.

December 23, 2005
Bush Pardon cost over 1/2 million in donations
One of those pardoned, Wendy St. Charles, is a lawyer for a Denver homebuilder, MDC Holdings, parent of Richmond American Homes, The Denver Post reported. St. Charles was convicted on drug charges in 1984 and sentenced to four years in prison.

December 26, 2005
Control of Senate may hinge on Lott
Trent Lott within the next week plans to decide between seeking a fourth term in the U.S. Senate from Mississippi or retiring from public life. That could determine whether Republicans keep control of the Senate in next year's elections. For the longer range, Lott's retirement and replacement could signal that Southern political realignment has peaked and now is receding.

December 26, 2005
Schwarzenegger's name removed from stadium
IENNA (Reuters) - Californian Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian home town of Graz removed his name from the city's stadium over Christmas, amid anger over his decision to deny clemency to a death row inmate.

December 25, 2005
9/11 Was A Magnet for GOP Money Laundering
A Washington Post review of scores of documents, along with interviews with company executives, government officials and procurement specialists, shows that while Reveal was developing a machine that would receive accolades, it also was donating to Rogers's PAC and hiring two lobbying firms to help smooth the way with the government. Rogers pressed homeland security officials to deploy the Reveal machines and take other measures that he said would make the country safer while his PAC received donations from homeland security contractors, some of which he encouraged to create jobs in his district.

December 26, 2005
John Yoo Stands by his pro torture memos
Civil liberties advocates were appalled by a memo he helped draft on torture. The State Department's chief legal adviser at the time called his analysis of the Geneva Conventions "seriously flawed." Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, in a critique of administration views espoused by Yoo, "a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens."

December 25, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Why Bush decided to bypass court in ordering wiretaps
Washington -- Government records show that the Bush administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of U.S.-based terror suspects without the court's approval.

December 24, 2005
NIH Whistleblower Reinstated
The National Institutes of Health's reinstatement of Dr. Jonathan Fishbein settles a two-year battle that prompted investigations into allegations of scientific misconduct and sexual harassment in federal AIDS research.

December 25, 2005
Officials Want to Expand Review of Domestic Spying
"As far as Congressional investigations are concerned," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, "these new revelations can only multiply and intensify the growing list of questions and concerns about the warrantless surveillance of Americans."

December 25, 2005
Powell to Bush: Get warrents first
"My own judgment is that it didn't seem to me, anyway, that it would have been that hard to go get the warrants. And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it."

December 26, 2005
Bush tells Post, Times to withhold stories
The efforts have failed, but the rare White House sessions with the executive editors of The Washington Post and New York Times are an indication of how seriously the president takes the recent reporting that has raised questions about the administration's anti-terror tactics.

December 23, 2005
AP ignored Bush's flip-flop on Patriot Act
An Associated Press article on the temporary five-week extension of the USA Patriot Act failed to note that the White House had indicated that President Bush supported only a permanent extension of the act and would not sign "any short-term renewal."

December 23, 2005
Top 12 media myths on the spying scandal
4: Clinton, Carter also authorized warrantless searches of U.S. citizens: Subsequent reports by NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell and The Washington Post also debunked the conservative talking point while noting that the claim was highlighted in the December 21 RNC press release.

December 23, 2005
Media Matters has documented and corrected 1,531 instances of conservative misinformation
Since January 1, Media Matters has documented and corrected 1,531 instances of conservative misinformation -- and more than 2,834 since we launched in May 2004. Here's a look at the year's highlights.

December 23, 2005
Analysis: U.S. Preparing for Iraq Exit
"U.S. and coalition military leadership is trying to seek the proper balance between having a military footprint large enough to help the Iraqis win their fight against terrorists," Rumsfeld said in Fallujah on Friday. "But not a footprint so large or so intrusive as to antagonize a proud and patriotic people, or to discourage the Iraqi people from taking initiative to run their own country for themselves."

December 23, 2005
Beyond the imperial presidency
But when the Supreme Court said Yasser Hamdi was entitled to a hearing where he could present evidence on his behalf, the administration decided that was way too much trouble. It freed him and put him on a plane back to Saudi Arabia, where he may plot jihad to his heart's content. Try to follow this logic: Hamdi was too dangerous to put on trial but not too dangerous to release.

December 19, 2005
Editorial boards criticize secret wiretapping authorized by Bush
Summary: A review of the Nexis database of major U.S. newspapers -- consisting of 87 publications -- turned up 12 editorials that criticized President Bush's decision to allow secret wiretapping of U.S. citizens without a warrant, and none in support. Only the New York Post, which is not in the "major newspapers" database, wrote in favor of Bush's actions.

December 25, 2005
U.S.: No Handover of Jails to Iraq
The U.S. military will not hand over jails or individual detainees to Iraqi authorities until they demonstrate higher standards of care,(read: no more torture) an American official said Sunday, two weeks after the discovery of 120 abused Iraqi prisoners.

December 24, 2005
US commander: Iraqis want US out as soon as possible
The top US military commander admitted Sunday that Iraqis wanted US and other foreign troops to leave the country "as soon as possible," and said US troop levels in Iraq were now being re-assessed on a monthly basis.<

December 15, 2005
Bob Novak would be 'amazed' if Bush didn't know leak source
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Columnist Bob Novak, who first published the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, says he is confident that President Bush knows who leaked Plame's name. Novak said that "I'd be amazed" if the president didn't know the source's identity and that the public should "bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is."

December 25, 2005
GOP cuts funds for heating aid
The government's home heating supplement now stands at a half or less of what the poor will need if predictions of a harsh winter pan out and fuel bills increase 25 percent. Various studies have established that, in a pinch, the poor scrimp on food purchases in order to meet heating bills.

December 23, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Wiretaps said to sift all overseas contacts
WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency, in carrying out President Bush's order to intercept the international phone calls and e-mails of Americans suspected of links to Al Qaeda, has probably been using computers to monitor all other Americans' international communications as well, according to specialists familiar with the workings of the NSA.

December 24, 2005
Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove
The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

December 23, 2005
Chris Matthews: 2005's Misinformer of the Year
Broadcast journalist, former newspaper bureau chief, former presidential speechwriter, and best-selling author Chris Matthews has earned the title of 2005's "Misinformer of the Year." Matthews praised Bush speech as "brilliant" even before it was delivered. Before Bush had even delivered his November 30 speech at the U.S. Naval Academy, Matthews used variations of the word "brilliant" twice to describe it, while deriding Democratic critics of the Iraq war as "carpers and complainers." [MSNBC live coverage, 11/30/05]

December 23, 2005
Most outrageous statements of 2005

• Former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett: "[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."
• Radio host Glenn Beck: "[Y]ou know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year."

December 22, 2005
Ex-Clinton official Schmidt's defense of warrantless wiretaps rife with inaccuracy, empty arguments, and unwarranted credulity
In defense of his argument, however, Schmidt falsely claimed that Jamie Gorelick, as deputy attorney general under Clinton, testified that the president has the authority to "go beyond" the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Schmidt also offered a number of empty and irrelevant arguments in defense of Bush.

December 22, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Nuclear Monitoring of Muslim Americans Done Without Search Warrants
In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned.

December 23, 2005
Power We Didn't Grant
As Senate majority leader at the time, I helped negotiate that law with the White House counsel's office over two harried days. I can state categorically that the subject of warrantless wiretaps of American citizens never came up. I did not and never would have supported giving authority to the president for such wiretaps. I am also confident that the 98 senators who voted in favor of authorization of force against al Qaeda did not believe that they were also voting for warrantless domestic surveillance.

December 22, 2005
A Time to Impeach
But Bush had plenty of bipartisan help from Democratic co-conspirators in keeping knowledge of this illegal spying from reaching the American public. It began in November 2001, in the wake of 9/11, and -- from the very first briefing for Congressional leaders by Dick Cheney until today -- Democrats on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees were told about it. Those witting and complicit in hiding the crime included Democratic Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, former chairman and later ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, former ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee. They knew it was a crime -- Rockefeller, for example, warned the administration against it -- and yet did not make it public. They were frightened by polls showing security hysteria at its height.

December 22, 2005
2005: The year of vanished credibility
Start with Bush. Never at ease before the cameras, he now has the hunted blink and compulsive nasolabial twitch of the mad dictator, a cornered rat with nowhere left to run. Nixon looked the same in his last White House days, and so did Hitler, according to those present in the Fuhrerbunker. As Hitler did before him, Bush raves on about imagined victories.

December 21, 2005
ACLU Letter Requesting the Appointment of Outside Special Counsel
Due to the severe constitutional crisis created by these actions, it is essential that such a counsel be appointed immediately. Such crimes are serious felonies and they need to be fully and independently investigated.

December 23, 2005
Congress said no on war powers: Daschle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress rejected the Bush administration's request for war-making authority in talks on a resolution passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks, former Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle said in Friday's edition of The Washington Post.

December 23, 2005
Deceit over spying -- prelude to long-term lame-duck president
The president's evasion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was bad enough, but in his statement to the public, his blatant omission of the fact that the act gave him the emergency power for wiretaps may have done incalculable damage to the dwindling faith of Americans in their government, a loss of faith that could be seriously detrimental to the president's goals during the remaining three years of his term of office.

December 21, 2005
Wiretap case called throwback to Nixon
While careful not to criticize the president, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Damon Keith said he thought the case bearing his name and unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court had put an end to eavesdropping without a warrant.

December 23, 2005
Frist's Setbacks as Senate Leader Imperil His Presidential Bid
The Dec. 21 defeat capped a year of setbacks for Frist, whose leadership has been weakened by a series of missteps, divisions within his own Senate Republican caucus and a probe of his stock trades by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Most Capitol Hill observers now regard Frist as "the weakest majority leader in perhaps 50 years," said Charles Cook, editor of the Washington-based Cook Political Report.

December 22, 2005
Santorum Breaks Ties With Religious Law Center
Sen. Rick Santorum on Thursday withdrew his affiliation from the Christian-rights law center that defended a school district's policy mandating the teaching of "intelligent design."

December 23, 2005
Alito Said Attorneys General Can't Be Sued for Illegal Wiretaps
Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito wrote in a 1984 memo that U.S. attorneys general should be immune from being sued for ordering illegal wiretaps.

December 22, 2005
Gonzales, general lay out defense for spying
Responding to bipartisan concern about possible abuse of presidential power, the White House laid out a two-pronged argument Monday that President Bush has legal and constitutional authority to order electronic surveillance on domestic targets without court permission.

December 22, 2005
Wiretap Furor Widens Republican Divide
On one side is the national-security camp, made even more numerous by loyalty to a wartime president. On the other are the small-government civil libertarians who have long held a privileged place within the Republican Party but whose ranks have ebbed since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

December 20, 2005
Hagel seeks hearings on domestic spying
Allegations of potential abuse by the Bush administration involving domestic spying is a "very serious issue," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Wednesday.

December 22, 2005
'Impeachment' Talk, Pro and Con, Appears in Media at Last
A smattering of polls (some commissioned by partisan groups) has found considerable, if often qualified, support for impeachment. But Frank Newport, the director of the Gallup Poll, told E&P recently that he would only run a poll on the subject if the idea really started to gain mainstream political traction, and not until then. He noted that he had been besieged with emails calling for such a survey, but felt that was a "well-organized" action.

December 21, 2005
Spying, the Constitution — and the 'I-word'
They will respond by calling him Nixon 2.0 and have already hauled forth no less an authority than John Dean to testify to the president's dictatorial perfidy. The "I-word" is out there, and, I predict, you are going to hear more of it next year — much more.

December 21, 2005
Censure and Impeachment
If we succeed in censuring Bush and/or Cheney, impeachment is next. The one does not cancel the other. The public will not allow it to. Censure will not satisfy those demands. It will, however, help move Congress and the media in the direction of listening to the public demand for accountability.

December 22, 2005
Judges on Surveillance Court To Be Briefed on Spy Program
The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges to address their concerns about the legality of President Bush's domestic spying program, according to several intelligence and government sources.

December 23, 2005
The return of Democratic clout
"Republicans worked very hard and gambled on being able to basically intimidate the Democrats on the Patriot Act and the ANWR provision in the Defense appropriations bill, and it didn't work," says Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.