Former FBI Director, J Edgar Hoover had a plan in the nineteen-fifties to arrest twelve thousand people in the US who were considered a threat to national security.
The papers, classified until, now also detail how Hoover pushed for the suspension of habeas corpus.
Tell The Truthiness ; We of course know that President Bush has taken on, pretty much all of Hoover's mantle, with warrant-less wiretapping, the optional Geneva Convention and the suspension of habeas corpus. Hoover would feel like what he was planning was unambitious compared to the current president.
Keith Olbermann's video reminds us of the extraordinary unconstitutional actions of this presidency.
A snugly dropped bombshell into the public domain on this weekend, just before Christmas, the CIA has taken out the trash.
Back when the 9/11 commission were requesting information to compile their very watery report in 2003, repeated requests were made to the CIA on interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects.
This footage is the same footage that was later revealed to exist, but was then reported to have been erased. So for about the eight-hundredth time in the last four years, public confidence in the CIA is shattered and the flawed commission report has another swiss cheese-like hole shot through it's authority which is big enough to fly a plane through.
Tell The Truthiness ; Once again, the real news is 'dumped' at a time of year when it will get the least coverage and analysis by the papers and networks. Take out the trash, sounds like something out of The West Wing, oh, it is, click here.
For Mitt Romney, the Concord Monitor has staked it's claim against the GOP hopeful, Christmas could come as a welcome relief. They made it pretty clear, "Romney should not be the next President."
For Rudy 'we love him because we don't know what he will do next' Giuliani reality struck, not once, but twice. Firstly, his campaign plane had to return to the airport when he complained of severe headaches. Secondly, having been released from hospital, he's now be struck a second blow. A review of the records concerning his expenses has partially exonerated the former mayor, but not many media outlets have been as loud about this as about condoning him.
Mike 'the family favourite fire and brimstone' Huckabee is trying to subliminally become more religious through his famed campaign video with the white cross shelving behind him by Southern Baptists and Ikea.
The same people who analyze terrorist video tapes are trying to discover if there's a one second frame of Huckabee dressed like Roddy McDowell in Fright Night sprinkling holy water over Hillary Clinton in it...
Plus Barack Obama will be pleased this Christmas with a new poll that puts him two percent over Hillary Clinton's twenty-eight percent in New Hampshire.
Hillary Clinton's fortunes are mixed with the Des Moines Register endorsing her (plus John McCain) because of her "readiness", but some in her camp are worried it's only a matter of time before the Republicans make use of Mr and Mrs Clinton's Secret Service records. As part of the service detail, records are kept of where they go and who they meet with. Though these are secret, the Clintons have received tip-offs that those details are regularly given to senior Republicans.
Tell The Truthiness : And the one wish all the candidates have for Christmas? That's easy, they all wish they had Ron Paul's money and his military 'money bombs' as his supporters call them.
PS If only Bush had dropped money bombs in Iraq in 2003, how different the World could be.
He may have suffered a faltering attempt to stand for President and be off air while the writer's strike drags on, but the father of twenty-first century news comment has been acclaimed.
Stephen Colbert has been named by the Associated Press as their Celebrity of the Year.
The man who speaks not his mind, but his gut on all things news, has done it again.
Tell The Truthiness ; A merry American Christmas to our celebrity of the year, Stephen Colbert.
There doesn't seem to be a single person who believes there was any sense accompanying the decision to have Chuck Norris feature in campaign videos for Mike Huckabee.
You can't really blame Mike Huckabee, as he's doing as much as possible to keep people from writing about him being the biggest card-carrying Christian in the campaign. To any waivering voters in Iowa who believe he is reasonable, please pay close attention if you're listening to him. You might suddenly be distracted, look back and hear him saying the planet is only six thousand years old (as shown by the video below) and that he called abortion a "holocaust."
Don't look into his eyes!
Tell The Truthiness ; Get ready for the negative ads post-Christmas, of Mike Huckabee threatening you to vote Republican and go to heaven, or vote Democrat and die. Hey, other GOPers did it at the midterms.
A report into the voting machines due to be used in Ohio for the general election in November has found them open to tampering. A federally funded study found investigators could remove memory cards and put extra votes into the machine count.
Interestingly, Secretary Of State Jennifer Brunner called for replacement machines to be optical scan machines, which involve manually filled out paper ballots.
Tell The Truthiness ; Florida is also scrapping touch-screen machines. Maybe November's election may have an accurate result, unlike the previous two.
As pro-waterboarders try to justify the torture method from the apparent thirty-five seconds it took before the confession of an alleged al-Qaeda member, the President has once again had to search for his veto stamp.
The 222-199 vote in the House, sends the bill to the Senate for consideration to ban waterboarding. Despite the Democrats and some Republicans involved, if the President is going to veto anyway, shouldn't there be another way of overruling Mr Bush?
Tell The Truthiness ; This has happened with the war funding bill and now with this. There's only so many times you can keep slamming your head against a wall before it cracks open all together. Come on Pelosi, you must have some other ideas?
Sherri Shepherd is quickly becoming the daytime version of Rudy Giuliani with her priceless comments.
After blasting us with the news that the Earth is flat and that she didn't think anything happened before the Christians arrived, she's gone one better.
Whoopi Goldberg tried her best to save Sherri and the discussion on sexual stereotypes and transgender children. However Sherri said she would stop her son from playing dress-up at school if he was allowed to put on a dress.
Tell The Truthiness ; Why did they hire Sherri Shepherd of all people?
We know a bit more know on the process of the release of info on the 'Iran stopped it's nuclear programme'. George Bush was told there was new information on Iran's nuclear programme several months ago.
However, it's then said that he didn't know what the information was. Plus it's not been confirmed whether the Director Of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell told the President that all previous intelligence could be considered invalid.
Tell The Truthiness ; So, did the President know? If he did, how long ago did he know? If the intelligence was faulty, was Mr Bush told this, or did he choose to continue ratcheting up the non-story on Iran in absence of any valid information? Mr Bush, you couldn't stop talking on Monday, want to talk out the answers to these questions? We're ready to listen.
In an intriguing and bizzare story, Osama Bin Laden may have been found.
Found by a documentary film maker, the man behind 'Super Size Me', Morgan Spurlock. His new film, 'Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?' , Spurlock went to try and seek the big man and it's rumoured, he's found him.
The film is to be shown at the Sundance Festival in January, we'll find out then.
Tell The Truthiness ; You just never know, could he really?
President Bush went on TV this morning and decided to say that nothing has changed and that instead Iran is still a threat.
Despite the National Intelligence Estimate, parts of which were made public yesterday indicates that Iran shut down, of it's own accord, it's nuclear weapons programme.
So spin has taken over and the President has done his own revisionism of current events and has ignored yesterday's report.
Tell The Truthiness ; Have they been telling us the truth, or has the President and administration been determined to go into Iran as long as they've had the same wish about Iraq? So is the President lying, again?
One thing seems to have been missed in all the protests and riots in Pakistan recently. Yes, the application of power by President Musharraf has been questioned. The real motives about the return of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have been talked about.
But on one, visually stunning aspect of this uprising, never seems to get a mention.
The people who have been protesting have been wearing suits.
Yes, like those hippies and young people against the Vietnam war, or the masked protesters during the 'Battle For Seattle' in 1999, these people have their own 'First.'
Television and print media has shown people in suits and business attire protesting and rioting. Lawyers.
Tell The Truthiness ; When middle class, mild mannered, well tailored lawyers take to the streets, you know there is something very wrong with your country.
In an effort to give the US a view of what the young people of Pakistan think about current affairs, Good Morning America conducted an interview with four such people.
Well done GMA and ABC?
Not really.
When the folks interviewed said that the majority of Pakistanis do not believe that Osama Bin Laden is real, simply being a character conveniently created for the United States own ends, ABC didn't want people finding out.
So the video was pulled from ABC's website.
Just like the Fox News thing the other day, we're proud to show a viewpoint. So here it is.
Tell The Truthiness ; Not everyone has the same opinion, ABC and the rest of the mainstream media needs to show that. Even if some might not like that view or find it comfortable.
A pro-constitution advert has been denied airtime by Fox News. The advert is critical of George Bush's interpretation of the law post-9/11, especially regarding torture and rendition.
Tell The Truthiness ; Since we are not Fox News and we believe in freedom of speech, we here, post that advert.
You can't make a statement like Karl Rove's from last week and expect people to agree with you. Especially when it's personally thought to be a joke by some and known widely to be a lie by everyone else.
Taking a leaf out of Mr Bush's book and trying a bit of revisionist history by laying the push for the Iraq invasion at the door of the Congress and not the administration was greeted as a joke by Tom Daschle. But it's also members of Bush's inner circle that have backed away from Rove's comments. Andy Card and Ari Fleischer both were critical of what he said.
Tell The Truthiness ; We know that when something like this comes from George Bush, it's not surprising since he isn't recognised for being smart generally. But when it comes from someone who's nickname includes the word 'brain', it does seem like Karl Rove doesn't know what he's talking about.
A US intelligence report has today poured cold water on the chance that Iran has, is about to, or has stashed somewhere, nuclear weapons.
The National Intelligence Estimate says that Tehran stopped it's nuclear weapons program in 2003. Furthermore, if they did decide to restart work today, it would be 2009 before they gained anything worth lobbing to pierce anyone's armour.
Of course, the Bush administration had very little choice but to say the NIE was "positive", but they also stated how dangerous it would be if Iran got hold of a nuclear weapon. You know, in the same way you'd think about a five year old getting their fingers stuck in a wall socket.
Tell The Truthiness ; In both cases, the chance is there, but it's very small. So stop trying to stick the nation's fingers in the nearest socket Mr Bush.
If the lax attitude to the advantages of democracy you thought had been reached by the US government, think again.
At the Court Of Appeal in London, a lawyer for the US government said that kidnapping of UK citizens is legal.
That's right. You may be the United States greatest ally. You may have stood by our shoulder on 9/11. You may have gone into Afghanistan and illegally into Iraq at our behest.
But we will kidnap your own citizens on your soil, if we like.
Because it's now law. Indeed, it's been law since the 1860s.
You would expect the US government then to calm fears by issuing a statement saying it needs amending and in the meantime it is doubtful it would be used?
Tell The Truthiness : However, the US Department Of Justice declined to comment. Typical.
