On Christmas eve, Bush retracted the pardon of “Isaac Toussie, a Brooklyn developer convicted of fraud and making false statements to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development”
Toussie’s father had donated $28, 500 to the Republican Party in April, apparently the first donation he had ever made, and right before the pardon petition. The [...]

In Arizona, sheriff turns county meetings into an exercise in fascism…how would you like to live in a place where law enforcement actually arrests you for applauding briefly at a public county council meeting? Where they threaten and intimidate you just for showing up in the first place?

Biden not ‘ruling out’ Bush prosecution…US Vice President-elect [...]

My initial reaction to Obama’s Rick Warren announcement was horror. …Censure Obama over Warren–directly, sincerely, viscerally–and move on.

Police: ‘Southside Slayer’ likely four men…At least four men are likely responsible for the deaths of up to 80 women in Los Angeles attributed to the so-called “Southside Slayer,” police said.

‘Zimbabwe is mine,’ declares Mugabe…President Robert Mugabe declared [...]

http://rawstory.com…
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Friday December 19, 2008
As the departing Bush administration frantically attempts to shore up its place in history, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann stands ready to kick the props out from under it again. A renewed claim that “no one could have anticipated” the attacks of 9/11 attracted his scorn in particular on [...]

By Environment News Service
Posted on December 17, 2008, Printed on December 17, 2008
http://www.alternet.org…
The results of a Congressional investigation released today detail the collapse of the Clean Water Act enforcement program in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that clouded the question of whether rivers, streams and wetlands remain protected from pollution and development.

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com…
Shakes by Melissa McEwan
Fucking hell:
The brother of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush has said that the reporter has been beaten in custody.
Muntadar al-Zaidi has suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury, his older brother, Dargham, told the BBC.

http://rawstory.com…
John Byrne
“A day after President Bush was nearly struck in the head by flying footwear at a Baghdad news conference, U.S. Secret Service officials faced questions Monday about how an Iraqi television reporter was able to hurl not one but two shoes at the president without the agents responsible for protecting him being able to [...]

Shoe-gate continues …“There doesn’t appear to be any over-reaction” on the part of American agents, Donovan says, confirming the Secret Service agents who poured into the room did not draw their weapons… At the press conference, the head of the president’s security detail scrambled to the lectern but not until the second shoe [...]

http://crooksandliars.com…
Three years after the New York Times first revealed the Bush administration’s program of illegal domestic surveillance by the NSA, whistleblower Thomas Tamm has acknowledged his role in making public the President’s lawbreaking. In its expose Sunday, Newsweek details how the former Justice Department official came to discover the White House’s violations of the FISA [...]

http://patriotboy.blogspot.com…
Jesus’ General by Austin Cline
Everyone should have recognized that George W. Bush’s “ranch” in Crawford, Texas, was just a prop — window dressing to make him seem more folksy, down-to-earth, and of course manly. Unfortunately, many took this faux ranch at face value — just as Bush assumed ignorant Republicans would — and assumed that [...]