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 Editorials | At Issue
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Nixon Wanted Lots of Dirt on Kennedy
 Calvin Woodward
President Richard Nixon considered Ted Kennedy such a threat that he tried to catch Kennedy cheating on his wife, even ordering aides to recruit Secret Service agents to spill secrets on the senator's behavior.
Files Prove Pentagon is Profiling Reporters
 Stars and Stripes
Contrary to the insistence of Pentagon officials this week that they are not rating the work of reporters covering U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Stars and Stripes has obtained documents that prove that reporters' coverage is being graded as "positive," "neutral" or "negative."
Obama's War Faces Hard Choices
 Dale McFeatters
A priority task confronting President Obama when he returns from vacation is stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan, which Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has described as 'serious and deteriorating.'
 The US Senate's Fighting Liberal
 Jack Newfield
Sen. Ted Kennedy passed away after a long battle with brain cancer on August 25, 2009. This 2002 profile by the late Jack Newfield captures the essence of what this legend meant to the progressive movement. This article appeared in the March 25, 2002, edition of The Nation.
New Documents Describe in Extraordinary Detail Process of US "Rendition," Torture
 Jason Leopold
Among the treasure trove of documents released on Monday related to the CIA's detention and torture program is a 20-page background paper that, for the first time, describes in extraordinary detail the process of "rendition" and the torture prisoners are then subjected to when they are flown to "black site" prisons.
Latin America Weighs Less Punitive Path to Curb Drug Use
 Alexei Barrionuevo
New laws and court decisions in the region reflect an urgent desire to reject decades of American prescriptions for distinctly Latin American challenges.
CIA Pushed the Limits of Sleep Deprivation
 Pamela Hess & Devlin Barrett
A year after the Bush administration abandoned its harshest interrogation methods, CIA operatives used severe sleep deprivation tactics against a terror detainee in late 2007, keeping him awake for six straight days with permission from government lawyers.
Mexico's New Drug Law May Set an Example
 Ioan Grillo
No dreadlocked revelers smoked celebratory reefers in the streets, no armies of conservatives protested, the Mexican media raised no hullabaloo. Quietly and with little ado, Mexico last week enacted a law to decriminalize possession of small amounts of all major narcotics.
Mexico's Drug War: A Cops and Choppers Story
 Tim Padgett
If the U.S. can help Mexico revamp its hopelessly venal and dysfunctional police forces — better vetting, training, pay and intelligence infrastructure — experts believe it will do much more in the long run to reduce the tons of drugs that flood the U.S. and the narcobloodshed that threatens to spill across the border as well.
Civil War in Mexico Rages On
 Michael Webster
In the trenches of both sides of the narco war in Mexico the fighters who form the front lines in that war are not only Mexican military but also para-military of the Mexican Drug Cartels.
Mexican Politicians Seek the Lost Island of Bermeja
 Allan Wall
The Mexican Congress has discussed various issues within the past few years. One of those issues is the whereabouts of the lost island of Bermeja. Mexican lawmakers have been seeking this island, but nobody can find it. So why does this make a difference? It has to do with oil.
Smugglers and Gangs Preying on Migrants
 Sandra Dibble
For $4,000, the smugglers said they would sneak Enrique and Alán Sánchez Vázquez from Mexico into the United States. But the two brothers from Mexico City ended up captives in their own country, and later were shot to death while being marched through rugged terrain east of Tecate.
How the CIA Ran Amuck
 Pamela Hess & Matt Apuzzo
With just two weeks of training, or about half the time it takes to become a truck driver, the CIA certified its spies as interrogation experts after 9/11 and handed them the keys to the most coercive tactics in the agency's arsenal.
Spreading the Word in the Sierra Madre
 Steve Fainaru & William Booth
In the village where Father Miguel López grew up, his lifelong neighbors were too afraid to unbolt their doors when they heard screams for help in the middle of the night - when an entire family, including four children, was kidnapped in June amid a clash between rival gangsters.
In Mexico, Ambivalence on a Drug Law
 Marc Lacey
Mexico's decriminalization effort, which many lawmakers endorsed with little enthusiasm, is intended to free up prison space for dangerous criminals and to better wean addicts away from drugs.
SATIRE: How Capital Punishment Can Be Fun For The Whole Family! [white families]
 Lee Camp
Troy Davis just earned a retrial of his wrongful execution sentence. Do you know the #1 determinant of whether the defendant in a murder trial gets executed? The answer may surprise you.
Mexico Violence is Actually Down, the Numbers Show
 Ken Ellingwood
A drug war is raging, but the Mexican attorney general points to statistics that indicate homicides have declined nationwide in the last 15 years. Critics dismiss his argument as so much spin.
Why Does the CIA Use So Many Contractors?
 Kevin Whitelaw
News that the CIA worked with a private contractor on a secret assassination program is the latest evidence of how much the agency has outsourced a range of its activities, including covert missions.
Top Mexican Drug Dealers Among Dozens Indicted in U.S., Officials Say
 Kristina Sherry
Federal authorities announced Thursday a dozen indictments against some of Mexico's most powerful organized crime groups for allegedly exporting tons of narcotics into the United States and distributing them to cities across the country.
Did Politics Control Terrorism Threat Warnings?
 Deb Riechmann & Eileen Sullivan
Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge claims in a new book that he was pressured by other members of President George W. Bush's Cabinet to raise the nation's terror alert level just before the 2004 presidential election.
Report: 52 Mexican Reporters Killed in Last Decade
 E. Eduardo Castillo
The head of Mexico's National Human Rights commission said Wednesday that 52 journalists or media workers have been killed in the last decade and that most of the slayings remain unsolved.
Lab Rat: 15 Seconds of Waterboard Torture
 Playboy.com
Playboy.com journalist Mike Guy underwent waterboarding by a trained member of the U.S. military in the site's new Lab Rat feature. Guy bet that he could endure 15 seconds of the interrogation technique used by the Bush administration on al Qaeda chief Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah. Watch the results.
Confidential Informants: A Double-Edged Sword
 Scott Stewart & Fred Burton
While confidential informants (CIs) can be incredibly valuable sources of information, running a CI is a delicate operation even under the best of circumstances, and poses a wide array of problems and pitfalls.
Jerry Brown Creating Public Phobia Regarding Marijuana
 Stewart A. Alexander
Recent statements by the leading candidates for California governor, regarding the legalization of marijuana is another indication that California Attorney General Jerry Brown, Steve Poizner, along with the other Democratic and Republican candidates, are going down a different road from California voters.
Obama's Compromise on Health Care Reform
 The Real News Network
Just before the congressional recess Progressive Democrats have come out with a statement that they will not vote for a bill unless it contains a robust public option. With the White House backing down on a public component, their statement will put to the test.
Mexico Working on Human Rights Issues
 William Booth
The Obama administration has concluded that Mexico is working hard to protect human rights while its army and police battle the drug cartels, paving the way for the release of millions of dollars in additional federal aid.
DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show
 Andrew Pollack
Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases.
Militarization of Swine Flu Preparations
 Alex Newman
The increasing militarization of preparations for an outbreak of swine flu is proceeding rapidly and without very much public debate, despite the relatively mild nature of the disease so far and the fact that many experts believe the panic has been overblown.
 Colombia: The Embera Struggle to Save a Sacred Mountain
 Kate Warburton
Conflicts between multinational corporations and indigenous groups are not only confined to legal debates over property rights. For the Embera in Choco, a fight against a controversial mining project in the region isn't just a conflict about their legal ownership of the land. This project threatens to completely wipe out their ancient culture.
Mexico Cartels Go From Drugs to Full-Scale Mafias
 Mark Stevenson
Mexico's drug cartels are becoming true mafias, branching out into large-scale extortion and protection rackets, demanding money from everybody from junkyard owners to town mayors and forcing many businesses in northern border states to close down.
Concentration of Wealth in Hands of Rich Greatest On Record
 Daniel Tencer
The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans now have a larger share of total income than they ever have in records going back nearly a century — an even larger amount than during the Roaring Twenties, the last time the US saw such similar disparities in wealth.
Fox News Feeds on US Public Anger
 David Bauder
South Carolina Republican Bob Inglis, frustrated by a restive crowd at a recent forum to discuss health care reform, suggested people turn off the TV when Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck came on. Big mistake.
Mexico Nabs Gas Thieves; US Refineries Implicated
 Martha Mendoza & John Porretto
Drug cartel members and other criminals bleed the fuel lines just about anywhere, sucking millions of dollars of Mexican petroleum from makeshift taps hidden in sheds or on remote desert stretches, with thousands of gallons ending up in U.S. refineries.
El Salvador: The Mysterious Death of Marcelo Rivera
 Cyril Mychalejko
Jamie Moffett, a Philadelphia based independent filmmaker, traveled to El Salvador in July to finish work on a documentary, Return to El Salvador, which examines how that Central American country is still struggling with the aftermath of its bloody 12-year-long civil war, which ended in 1992.
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