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The New York Times | Editorial
John Roberts failed to live up to the worst fears of his critics in his confirmation hearings last week. But in many important areas where senators wanted to be reassured that he would be a careful guardian of Americans’ rights, he refused to give any solid indication of his legal approach. That makes it difficult to decide whether he should be confirmed. Weighing the pluses and minuses and the many, many unanswered questions, and considering some of the (…)

By DAVE LINDORFF
Three cheers for Maureen Dowd for exposing the sham of President’ Bush’s Jackson Square speech to the nation announcing his "recovery plan" for New Orleans, and a big fat raspberry for the electronic media-and for Dowd’s own New York Times-for failing to mention it in their "hard-news" coverage of the speech.
For those who missed it, Bush, dressed in a pressed, blue, open-collar dress shirt (not "badly tailored" this time), was backed by a beautifully blue-lit St. Louis (…)

The Neo-Cons’ Unfettered Access to America’s Secrets
By Wayne Madsen
During the Cold War, if the United States suffered a massive compromise of its own cryptographic security and, at the same, time experienced a thorough penetration of its communications intelligence yielding the sensitive sources and methods whereby the U.S. intelligence community tapped and decrypted the communications of its adversaries, the Soviet Union would have been able to dictate surrender terms for America and (…)

Now that most Americans recognize the war in Iraq was initiated with lies, it’s important to reconsider President Bush’s military record.
By Phil Vargas
I know, I know, it’s all been said before. But maybe it hasn’t. And it may be worthwhile to revisit our President’s military record in view of the deaths and maiming of thousands of Americans and the billions we have paid and are paying for his war in Iraq.
It is nearly two and a half years since our military invaded and occupied a (…)

By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 - Richard L. Lambert, the F.B.I. inspector in charge of the investigation of the deadly anthrax letters of 2001, testified under oath for five hours last month about the case.
But Mr. Lambert was not testifying in a criminal trial. He and his teams of F.B.I. agents and postal inspectors have not found the culprit. Instead, he and six other F.B.I. and Justice Department officials have been forced to give depositions in a suit over news media leaks filed (…)

By Christopher Bollyn
The Pentagon’s duplicity about the dangers of depleted uranium has been exposed by a government-funded study confirming that radiation causes cancer. LIVERMORE, California - The U.S. government’s duplicity about the harmful effects of depleted uranium appears to have no limits. While the Pentagon tells U.S. military personnel that the health risks from inhaling depleted uranium are low, a study - sponsored by the Dept. of Defense - confirms that even low-level (…)

By Del Quentin Wilber
D.C. police have canceled days off and are planning to deploy several hundred officers during an antiwar demonstration next weekend that will include a march near the White House, but officials said they expect no trouble.
Saturday’s rally, part of a weekend of protests and counter-protests, will be the first demonstration allowed to surround the White House in more than a decade. It is the first major rally to occur since a D.C. law that requires police to give (…)

By ROBERT BURNS, WASHINGTON
President Bush’s push to give the military a bigger role in responding to major disasters like Hurricane Katrina could lead to a loosening of legal limits on the use of federal troops on U.S. soil.
Pentagon officials are reviewing that possibility, and some in Congress agree it needs to be considered.
Bush did not define the wider role he envisions for the military. But in his speech to the nation from New Orleans on Thursday, he alluded to the unmatched (…)

by Miriam Raftery
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Kenyon International to set up a mobile morgue for handling bodies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, RAW STORY has learned.
Kenyon is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), a scandal-ridden Texas-based company operated by a friend of the Bush family. Recently, SCI subsidiaries have been implicated in illegally discarding and desecrating corpses.
Louisiana governor Katherine Blanco (…)

Breach of a myth
By Sidney Blumenthal
Bush’s America is gone with the wind. It lasted just short of four years, from Sept. 11, 2001, to Aug. 29, 2005. The devastation of New Orleans was the watery equivalent of a dirty bomb, but Hurricane Katrina approached the homeland with advance warnings, scientific anticipation and a personal briefing of the president by the director of the National Hurricane Center, alerting him about a possible breaching of the levees. It was as predictable as (…)