Friday Fright Night News

Updated 8/11 @ 10:41 PM:

• TheHill.com | Gordon Brown for president:

  "Effective today, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is the leader of the free world and the voice of hope and change that offers the first true answer of freedom to the heinous crimes of Sept. 11, 2001...."

• Secret call log at heart of wiretap challenge:

  Paul Elias reports for The Associated Press, "The Document, described by those who have seen it as a National Security Administration log of calls intercepted between an Islamic charity and its American lawyers, is at the heart of what legal experts say may be the strongest case against the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program...."

• Economy Goes From Bad to Worse:

  Dean Baker writes for Truthout: "The fact productivity growth has now slowed is a very bad sign. It means the economy is not doing well by any measure. The argument for conservative economic policy was always that by giving people more incentive to work and invest, productivity would grow more rapidly, and that this would benefit everyone in the long run. It turns out, even with the massive upward redistribution of income over the last quarter century, productivity is now growing at its slowest pace in the post-war period...."

• Truthdig | Beyond Disaster:

  Chris Hedges writes for Truthdig: "The war in Iraq is about to get worse-much worse. The Democrats' decision to let the war run its course, while they frantically wash their hands of responsibility, means that it will sputter and stagger forward until the mission collapses. This will be sudden. The security of the Green Zone, our imperial city, will be increasingly breached. Command and control will disintegrate. And we will back out of Iraq humiliated and defeated. But this will not be the end of the conflict. It will, in fact, signal a phase of the war far deadlier and more dangerous to American interests...."

• AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: How Bush Gained the Power to Spy on You without Security Justifications

  "The Bush Administration has successfully forced on Congress a law that largely authorizes open-ended surveillance of Americans' overseas phone calls and e-mails. How did they do it? ..."

• The Last Days of American Democracy?

  "Elliot Cohen, author of The Last Days of Democracy, argues that the United States is in political and cultural decline, with media and telecommunications giants engaged in 'a well-organized effort to hijack America....'"

• The Iran Attack That Wasn't | The American Prospect:

  "How reporters trumped up a story about Iranians killing Americans in Iraq...."

• US Hegemony Spawns Russian-Chinese Military Alliance:

  "This week the Russian and Chinese militaries are conducting a joint military exercise involving large numbers of troops and combat vehicles. The former Soviet Republics of Tajikistan, Kyrgkyzstan, and Kazakstan are participating. Other countries appear ready to join the military alliance.
  
  This new potent military alliance is a real world response to neoconservative delusions about US hegemony. Neocons believe that the US is supreme in the world and can dictate its course. The neoconservative idiots have actually written papers, read by Russians and Chinese, about why the US must use its military superiority to assert hegemony over Russia and China...."

• Why Bush Won't Ax Gonzales - TIME:

  Four must-read "reasons why Bush can't afford to let Gonzales go...."

• The Fear of Fear Itself - New York Times:

  "It was appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress -- now led by Democrats-- caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush's powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of national security, but the only security at play was their job security...."

• Selective Prosecution - New York Times:

  "One part of the Justice Department mess that requires more scrutiny is the growing evidence that the department may have singled out people for criminal prosecution to help Republicans win elections. The House Judiciary Committee has begun investigating several cases that raise serious questions. The panel should determine what role politics played in all of them...."

• A Reporter at Large: The Black Sites: The New Yorker:

  Jane Mayer writes for The New Yorker: "Soon after Mohammed's arrest, sources say, his American captors told him, 'We're not going to kill you. But we're going to take you to the very brink of your death and back.' He was first taken to a secret U.S.-run prison in Afghanistan. According to a Human Rights Watch report released two years ago, there was a C.I.A.-affiliated black site in Afghanistan by 2002: an underground prison near Kabul International Airport. Distinctive for its absolute lack of light, it was referred to by detainees as the Dark Prison. Another detention facility was reportedly a former brick factory, just north of Kabul, known as the Salt Pit. The latter became infamous for the 2002 death of a detainee, reportedly from hypothermia, after prison officials stripped him naked and chained him to the floor of his concrete cell, in freezing temperatures...."