Today's Stories

July 26 / 27, 2008

Joseph Nevins
Death as a Way of Life on the Borderlands

July 25, 2008

Harvey Wasserman
NRC: New Nukes Not Ready for Prime Time

Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for the Facts About Israel?

Alan Farago
Where's the Outrage?

Paul D'Amato
The Arrest of Radovan Karadzic and the Selective Prosecution of War Crimes

Gary Leupp
War With Iran? State Dept. Realists vs. Cheney's Ultras

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Eyes Wide Shut in India

Mike Whitney
Obama Dazzles Old Europe, While McCain Cries, "No Mas!"

Paul Krassner
Inside Camp Mogul

Mike Roselle
All Hail Nero!

Website of the Day
Pressing Starbucks

July 24, 2008

Greg Moses
Who Killed Azem Hajdari?

Andy Worthington
Folly and Injustice: Salim Hamdan's Guantanamo Trial

James Bovard
Daniel Ellsberg's Lessons for Our Time

Joe Bageant
Life in the Post-Political Age

George Wuerthner
Boondoggle in the Fields

DC Larson
Shutting Out Ralph Nader

William Willers
The Forest Products Industry in Public Education

David Macaray
On the Prospects for a SAG Strike

Website of the Day
Pacifica Radio Archive of 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago

July 23, 2008

Winslow T. Wheeler
An Air Force in Free Fall

Paul Craig Roberts
The Mother of All Messes

Ralph Nader
Pavlov's America

Mike Whitney
Visualizing Dow 6,000

Susie Day
Senator Sicko: Jesse Helms and the Theatre of the Depraved

Website of the Day
"A Kinder and Gentler Machine-Gun Hand..."

July 22, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Ten Years On, Bolivarian Revolution at Crossroads

Patrick Cockburn
Boost for Obama Over Iraq Withdrawal

Soldz, Olson, Reisner Arrigo and Welch
Torture After Dark

Moshe Adler
Everyone Must Share, Not Just Charlie Rangel

Martha Rosenberg
Protecting Bones from Drugs that Protect Bones

Dan Bacher
Bechtel and the Big Dig

Harvey Wasserman
Is Gore Inching Toward Solartopia?

Anthony Papa
A Slugger's Drug Redemption

Binoy Kampmark
Mad Over Benedict

Website of the Day
Hiroshima: A-Bombed Objects

July 21, 2008

Ishmael Reed
Remnick's Latest Blunder

Mike Whitney
The Democrats are the Real Problem

Andy Worthington
Dictatorial Powers Upheld: the Meaning of the Al-Marri Decision

Scott Pellegrino
Should "Meet the Press" Desegregate?

John Ross
McCain Crosses the Border, Gets No Satisfaction

Robert Weitzel
Blowback Through the Looking Glass

Mike Stark
I was Spied on by the Maryland Police

Website of the Day
Pinky Solves the Illegal Immigration Crisis

July 19 / 20, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
It's a Dull Race

Jeffrey St. Clair
How to Beat a Mining Company: Why a Gold Goliath Threw in the Towel

Dave Lindorff
I Was a Victim of the TSA

Saul Landau
Obits for Opposites: Carlin and Helms

Ron Jacobs
Why Afghanistan is Not the Good War

Uri Avnery
Different Planet:the Israel / Hezbollah Prisoner Swap

Neve Gordon
The Untold Story of Ni'lin

Roane Carey
Dr. Benny and Mr. Morris

Robert Fantina
Ashcroft, Torture and the U. S.

Christopher Brauchli
The General Lied

Fred Gardner
Cannabinoid Researchers Won’t Take the High Road

David Macaray
Labor Unions and the Courts

Richard L. Hutto
The Ecology of Severely Burned Forests

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Mother's Milk of Politics Turns Sour

Ronnie Cummins
Netroots Nation or Nation of Sheep?

David Yearsley
Opera and Globalization

Alison McKenna
A Close Call for Medicare

Wajahat Ali
The Dark Knight Ascends

Poets' Basement
Ko Un

Website of the Day
What If Edward Said Had Told This Joke?

July 18, 2008

Corey D. B. Walker
A Kinder, Gentler Imperialism?

Mike Whitney
Swan Song for Fanny Mae

Robert Bryce
Iran Rising

Mike Roselle
Ed's Chicken: Fighting King Coal in Appalachia

Bouthaina Shaaban
U. S. to Mandela: Happy 90th and You're No Longer a Terrorist

Eve Spangler
The Deaths of Children

Website of the Day
Lowbagger Needs Your Help

July 17, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Airport Gestapo

James G. Abourezk
Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

Ralph Nader
D. C. Socialists Save Crashing Capitalists

Allan J. Lichtman
Conservative Denial

Andy Worthington"Screwed Up" and"Abused": Omar Khadr's Interrogations at Gitmo

Ronnie Cummins
Move Over MoveOn

July 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Star Whores: How John McCain Doomed Mt. Graham

Paul Craig Roberts
War Crimes Paradox

Conn Hallinan
To the Edge in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Torture for Torturers?

William S. Lind
Running the Narrows in Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Sweepstakes Politics

Website of the Day
History of Iraqi Art

July 15, 2008

Michael Hudson
Why the Bail Out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is Bad Economic Policy

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Missile Tests

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Militia May Live to Fight Another Day

John Ross
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil

Howard Lisnoff
When Torture Was Practiced on U. S. Soil

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament

July 14, 2008

Uri Avnery
Will Israel and / or the US Attack Iran?

Paul Craig Roberts
Enabling Tyranny

Trish Schuh
Talking to Iran's Only Jewish Member of Parliament: an Interview with Morris Motamed

Patrick Cockburn
Immunity in Iraq

Mike Whitney
Betancourt Unbound

Alan Farago
Will Miami's Cubans Vote Blue?

Seth Sandronsky
Taxing U. S. Stocks and Bonds

Phyllis Pollack
Stones Paint It Black

Website of the Day
Our Pal in Butte, Jackie Corr, RIP

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Origins of the Western Greens

James Abourezk
Talking World War III Blues: From Dylan to Iran

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Ron Jacobs
They Call Me the Seeker

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Kim Nicolini
Angelina Jolie's Wanted: Taking the M-Fers Down with Guns and Exploding Rats

Poets' Basement
Wright, Fleming, Solomon and Birnbaum

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on"Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be"Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U. S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N. D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on"Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

Weekend Edition
July 26 / 27, 2008

Politics and Injustice in Philadelphia

TV Damsel's Rights Trump Death Row Inmate's

By LINN WASHINGTON, Jr.

Larry Mendte and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

These are two names you won’t see in the same sentence in most newspapers for obvious reasons.

One is a disgraced TV news anchor in Philadelphia and the other is a death row inmate from the same city – seemingly different as left-&-right, black-&-white, and…well, you get the point.

Yet, in a strange but true way, Mendte and Mumia share different sides of a similar coin beyond both Philadelphia journalists being in the news during the same week in July 2008.

On July 21, federal prosecutors in Philadelphia indicted Mendte for illegally hacking into email accounts of his one-time co-anchor at Philadelphia’s CBS3 television station, Alycia Lane – a now former ‘news reader’ as Europeans more accurately identify the position Americans call anchor persons.

Beyond the alleged US Crime Code violation of intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization – 537 emails invasions during just one few month period – something particular put federal prosecutors into a peculiar froth about Mendte’s mendacious efforts to dig dirt on a declared rival.

Mendte’s [alleged] invasion of Lane’s email accounts included piercing something lawyers deem important: privacy of attorney-client communication.

Mendte’s [alleged] invasion pried into communications Lane’s lawyers sent her via email in civil and criminal matters. Mendte not only personally perused these private attorney-client communications – he [allegedly] leaked the contents of the pilfered emails to a local reporter who published the information.

According to the federal indictment, these attorney-client emails involved matters related to Lane suing CBS3 for wrongfully firing her months ago…after a series of headline generating scandal incidents by her including fighting with a New York City policewoman where she [allegedly] slurred that cop with a derogatory sexual-orientation reference.

These attorney-client emails, the indictment states, involved matters related to a sweet-heart plea deal NYC prosecutors gave Lane arising from that December 2006 arrest where Lane [allegedly] scuffled with that NYPD policewoman. And these emails Mendte [allegedly] read and leaked involved legal action Lane planned against NYC for that arrest…where she received an arrest record-clearing, wrist-slap six months probation program for [alleged] conduct that has led NYPD officers to kill non-whites.

Concerning email leaks related to that plea deal, the federal indictment of Mendte declared, “it was important to the completion of those negotiations that the discussions…remain confidential.”

One news account of the press conference announcing Mendte’s indictment noted that a top federal prosecutor referenced the importance of privacy protections for attorney-client communications four times in the first four minutes of her presentation.

Three cheers for the feds standing up for safeguards under-girding the legal system.

However, there’s a not so small problem here.

For some people, authorities willfully toss aside legal safeguards like the sanctity of attorney-client privacy when advancing schemes to sabotage legal rights. And designated protectors of the legal system – like prosecutors and judges – turn blind eyes to these assaults.

Enter Mumia Abu-Jamal – a case that provokes criticisms internationally because it is riddled with sabotage schemes by police, prosecutors and judges.

Shortly before a critical 1995 court proceeding for Abu-Jamal, a bevy of Pennsylvania authorities including ranking members of the Pa Governor’s Office willfully violated his attorney-client privacy right by illegally opening mail from his lawyers.

This improper mail opening alerted then Gov. Tom Ridge to the date lawyers planned to file an appeal thus enabling Ridge to use this improperly obtained information to issue a death warrant a few days before that filing.

Ridge’s warrant torpedoed the legal safeguard of fairness in that appeal proceeding by, among many things, forcing Abu-Jamal’s lawyers to fight the sand-bagging execution date instead of focusing solely on finalizing preparations for that important hearing.

That warrant enabled a notoriously pro-prosecution judge to further decimate Abu-Jamal’s rights by unnecessarily rushing the hearing – claiming he had to expedite the hearing because of the pending execution warrant. (The warrant itself was illegal because Pa law permits death row inmates to exhaust all appeals before an execution can take place.)

That ’95 appeal hearing ended with that bigoted judge rejecting all of Abu-Jamal’s evidence – incredible proof destroying core elements of the prosecution’s case.

An August 1998 Third Circuit federal appeals court ruling declared Pa authorities invaded “the privacy” of Abu-Jamal’s protected legal mail “thus directly” interfering with his ability to “communicate with” his lawyers.

Unlike the Larry Mendte email invasion, however, no prosecutor or judge took any action against Ridge or offending Pa state lawyers for violating Abu-Jamal’s attorney-client privacy rights.

Remember, attorney/client privacy violations against Abu-Jamal occurred during a death penalty case – not some ego spat between pampered, highly paid TV personalities. Apparently, federal prosecutors are more moved by privacy invasions against a self-destroyed damsel than invasions against a self-declared radical facing the death penalty.

When the Third Circuit upheld Abu-Jamal’s murder conviction earlier this year, that ruling blithely brushed off numerous instances of outrageous skullduggery during that 1995 appeal hearing as lawful grounds for a new hearing.

The day after Mendte’s indictment – July 22 – the Third Circuit rejected a request to reconsider its rejection of Abu-Jamal’s request for a new hearing. That earlier rejection chucked existing legal standards by creating new, stricter standards exceeding those ordered by even the US Supreme Court.

That initial rejection, for example, faulted Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial attorney for not following legal standards that the US Supreme Court did not create until 1986 – four full years after that trial. That rejection faulted Abu-Jamal’s 1995 lawyers for not presenting certain evidence of jury selection discrimination that the ’95 hearing judge blocked lawyers from presenting even to the point of briefly jailing one lawyer for objecting to this judge’s obstruction.

Interestingly, the Third Circuit recently ordered a new hearing for a member of a murderous drug gang that robbed drug dealers to buy guns to rob other drug dealers. This new hearing resulted from that Circuit Court scrupulously adhering to legal standards…which courts are supposed to do.

But hey, courts’ scrupulously adhering to legal standards except in the case of Abu-Jamal is the ‘standard’ in the Abu-Jamal case. And, perhaps a further wrinkle here, the murder victims of this gang were not whites like the policeman in the Abu-Jamal case

Abu-Jamal’s attorney, Robert R. Bryan, commenting on the Third Circuit’s rejection said it’s “naïve not to realize that this case continues to reek of politics and injustice.”

Now before contending that combining Mendte and Mumia is mixing apples-&-oranges, consider some double standards of justice issues.

Consider the fact that federal prosecutors in Philadelphia quickly indicted a young man earlier this year weeks after Philadelphia police badly beat this man in an unprovoked attacked. The police who brutalized this young man claimed he had a gun – a charge he and eyewitnesses deny. The feds indicted this young man as a convicted felon illegally possessing a gun using the specious hook of this young man’s year-old conviction for a minor gun related incident that netted him a probationary term...a term he was serving successfully.

The prison time faced by Larry Mendte – who is expected to plead guilty – is far less that the mandatory five-year sentences federal courts routinely uphold for non-violent/first-time offenders convicted of simply smoking crack cocaine. Mendte faces only six months in prison for cracking into Alycia Lane’s email – not once but more than 500 times…and perhaps more but the feds could not reliably document those additional invasions.

Note that standard practice leans towards Mendte never seeing a prison cell for his [alleged] offense...but if Mendte was Mookie from down-the-way, well…

Linn Washington Jr. is a Yale Law Journalism Fellowship graduate who is a columnist for The Philadelphia Tribune newspaper.

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