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The documents were heavily redacted. For example, the government blacked out 10 full pages of the 18-page August 2002 memo, written by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, before releasing it in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Most of the text on the remaining pages was similarly blacked out, but the released version of the Bybee memo does provide some insight. Bybee outlined the definition of torture in Section 2340A of the United States code, focusing in part on its caveat that an act be "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." Elaborating on his definition of the "specific intent" provision, Bybee narrows the definition to the point where it become functionally meaningless. All that is required to avoid prosecution is a CIA agent's "good faith belief" that his actions will not cause torturous pain and suffering. Such a belief "need not be reasonable," Bybee writes.

The housing crunch has caused anguish and anxiety for millions of Americans. For Carlene Balderrama, a 53-year-old wife and mother, the pressure was apparently too much to bear. Police say that Balderrama shot herself Tuesday afternoon 90 minutes before her foreclosed home on Duffy Drive was scheduled to be sold at auction. Chief Raymond O'Berg said that Balderrama faxed a letter to her mortgage company at 2:30 p.m., telling them that "by the time they foreclosed on the house today she'd be dead."

THE city of Los Angeles will ban plastic bags from retail stores from July 1, 2010, following similar regulations already enforced in San Francisco. Los Angeles, the second-largest US city behind New York, would ban plastic bagging in all supermarkets, grocery and retail stores, the Los Angeles City Council said.

Breaking: DataQuick reports today that foreclosures in California soared 33% from the first quarter to the second quarter of 2008, and are running 261% ahead of year-ago levels.

"The identity of the three hijacked aircraft has never been in question by the FBI, NTSB or FAA"

More than 500,000 people statewide received food stamps in April, a 67-percent increase from 2003 and 11 percent more than last year, according to state records. Food-stamp participation increased across the country between 2003 and 2008, with the exception of Hawaii and Wyoming. In New England, New Hampshire saw the next-fastest growth, with a 41-percent rise from five years ago, and Rhode Island saw the smallest change, with a 13-percent increase over that period. In Massachusetts, residents received about $48 million in food stamp benefits in April 2008, more than double the $22 million they received in April 2003. The figures reflect a drastic change for the state, which had the lowest food stamp participation in the country from 2000 to 2002.

Even more striking has been the rich diversity in religious and, yes, even political backgrounds. My survey has attracted fundamentalist Christians, as well as Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and those with more eclectic religious or spiritual leanings. In politics, respondents have in no way been limited to the ranks of Progressives, Greens, or Libertarians. I’ve compiled profiles from Independents, mainstream Democrats, and several Republicans, including those who, pre-catching the 9/11 truth wave, voted for Bush in 2000 and even ’04! If we’re all nuts, it’s one hell of a holiday variety pack. So the 9/11 truth crowd hasn’t come together because of something we are. Rather, we came to the same place through something that happened inside our psyches and spirits. That’s why I see this more as a 9/11 truth awakening. Beyond the basic questions of who really did it, and all the hows and whys that go with it, diving into 9/11 truth for many becomes a personal and even spiritual process. It stirs us to ask deep and profound questions: Who am I and what do I really believe? How do I know what I know? How would it change my life if I admit that “Dad” or any authority figure is really capable of the unthinkable? What does it mean to wake up and tell the truth every day -- to myself, first, and then to those around me who may ridicule me for what I say?

Recent developments in criminal justice indicate the emergence of a national movement in favor of treating, rather than incarcerating people charged with a nonviolent drug possession offense. These developments include drug courts, local policies which favor treatment, and statewide ballot initiatives that divert nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of incarceration. But instead of following this trend, the federal government continues to turn a blind eye toward this movement and steadfastly sticks to zero-tolerance when it comes to illegal drug use. Witness the get-tough policies of ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy) under the direction of John P. Walters. In fact, the ONDCP is so hell-bent on controlling the so-called drug plague that their policies have turned from overly intrusive to downright war-like at times. From suspicionless student drug testing to mandatory minimum sentencing laws that dish out extraordinarily long sentences for small amounts of drugs, the drug war continues be the government's national moral obsession. It is one thing to try to shield society from the harms associated with the drugs, but another when its solutions become worse than the original problems.

“Are we talking about creating a police state here? The U.S. Army alone has nearly 500,000 troops. That doesn’t count reserves or National Guard. In 2007, the U.S. Defense budget was $439 billion. Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that? If not, why did he say it? What did he mean?”

This case has the potential to put some of the most powerful people in the country in jail, according to Arnebeck, as he was joined by a well-respected, life-long Republican computer security expert who charged that the red flags seen during Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election would have been cause for "a fraud investigation in a bank, but it doesn't when it comes to our vote." "This entire system is being programmed in secret by programmers who have no oversight by anybody," the expert charged, as Arnebeck detailed allegations of complicity by a number of powerful GOP operatives and companies who had unique access both to the election results as reported in 2004, as well as to U.S. House and Senate computer networks even today.

What happened on 9/11 is, in the end, a matter of fact – whatever our worldview might incline us to consider plausible or possible. The true authorship of the attacks is as difficult to establish as anything else about the world of international terrorism and espionage. For myself, I have no idea what happened, because I have no more idea of how the business-intelligence-political nexus works than I have about what chess grandmasters are up to when they are staring at the board, looking all thoughtful.

The FBI had actually TRACED THE MONEY. Only they traced it a little too well, back to US ally Pakistan and to their intelligence service, the ISI.

Lady Liberty is walking very gingerly these days, and the path she treads is laden with traps and quicksand. The globalists have their handpicked puppets positioned to take up where The Three Amigos (George Bush I, Bill Clinton, and George Bush II) have left off. The pieces of the puzzle are almost all in place. 2010 just might be the year that Lady Liberty lowers her torch, folds her arms, and falls fast asleep. For what it is worth, however, I pledge no loyalty to this emerging New World Order. Neither will I let Lady Liberty die without a fight. I will say it again: the battle today is not between conservatives and liberals or Republicans and Democrats. It is a battle between Americans and globalists. And, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am an American!

What happened in the 39 minutes in between — during which Pikes was handcuffed by local police and shocked nine times with a Taser, while reportedly pleading for mercy —is now spawning fears of a political coverup in this backwoods Louisiana lumber town infamous for backroom dealings.

Iran’s Oil Minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari has announced the discovery of a new oilfield with in-place reserves of about 525 million barrels. The discovery was made near the southern port city of Assaluyeh in Bushehr province, he said. Nozari called the discovery unprecedented given that so far most of the discoveries in the Assaluyeh region have been gas fields.

Long thought of as nifty toys that happened to get you from Point A to Point B, mopeds are finally getting their due respect as gas-saving wunderkinds that motor up to 100 miles on a single gallon. But as more and more mopeds hit Boston's streets, it's becoming clear that the majority of owners don't know all there is to know about driving them. Police say that moped owners routinely break driving laws such as speeding (mopeds aren't supposed to exceed 25 miles per hour), passing illegally and not wearing appropriate helmets. Parking is a huge conundrum, as cities and towns, unprepared for the recent explosion in moped popularity, almost uniformly fail to mention them in parking rules and regulations. And as for safety training, it's virtually nonexistent.

Politicians and celebrities with an urge to see poverty only need to visit the Mississippi Delta or some of the neighborhoods in American cities. If they yearn for more exotic poverty, all they have to do is visit the Indian reservations that do not have casinos. Any disease they are hot to trot to cure can be found right here in the good old U.S.A. Depressed economic conditions? We have them. Crumbling infrastructure? We have that, too. Hunger? Yes, that too. Inflation and weak currency? Present right here. Corruption? Our politicians can hold their own in that dubious category. Orphans? There are plenty of those, too. There is simply no need to travel. Any bad or sad thing you wish to see you can see here in the U.S.

Today, CREW has released its newest study, Those Who Dared: 30 Who Stood Up for Our Country, recognizing the brave individuals who have acted and spoken out against unethical and dishonorable conduct in the Bush administration. The full report can be found here.

McKinney's goal: a full 5 percent of the vote. Checking in with her just before she won the nomination, NEWSWEEK's Katie Paul spoke with McKinney about her reasons for running and how her campaign might affect the election season. Excerpts:

A story in a New Jersey newspaper describes how physicians in Northern Jersey have begun following in the footsteps of "elite Manhattan doctors and are withdrawing from all insurance plans." The article compares fees with and without insurance. On the right, the fees that insurers typically pay for these services; on the left, the fees that Jersey doctors who don't take insurance charge:

Max Obuszewski is a seasoned, nonviolent peace activist in Maryland. But to the Maryland State Police, he is suspected of committing the "primary crime" of "terrorism -- anti-war protestors" and the "secondary crime" of "terrorism -- anti-govern." That is how the Maryland State Police designated him in internal documents that the ACLU of Maryland obtained through a lawsuit and released on July 17. The documents also show that the Maryland State Police entered his name into a database dealing with "high intensity drug activity." These documents reveal an elaborate undercover operation against peace groups and anti-capital-punishment groups.

Iran has sentenced eight women and one man convicted of adultery to death by stoning, activists said Sunday. A lawyer and women's rights activist, Shadi Sadr, said the nine, who are between 27 and 50 years old, were convicted of adultery in separate cases in different Iranian cities. Trial protocol was not applied properly in the cases, she said. Six of the nine were convicted based solely on judges' decisions with no witnesses or the presence of their lawyers during their confessions, said Sadr, who has been leading a campaign in Iran against stoning deaths.

The sense of pressing urgency conjured up by Bush administration folks to justify torture does not square with Coleen Rowley’s direct personal experience in the FBI. As some will remember, the FBI's joint terrorism task force in Minneapolis had detained Zacarias Moussaoui on Aug. 16, 2001. Flight school pilots acting as whistleblowers had notified the FBI, against the wishes of their airline employer, of detailed information making Moussaoui the most suspicious student they had ever encountered. French intelligence soon supplied further background confirming Moussaoui's fighting for a “foreign power” — Chechnyan rebels, whose leader was connected to al-Qaeda. By Aug. 23, the case was deemed so suspicious, it went all the way to the top of the intelligence community, to Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, in a PowerPoint presentation entitled: "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly.” As Rowley revealed in her letter of May 21, 2002, to FBI Director Robert Mueller, there was considerable frustration in her FBI unit in Minneapolis over the inability of FBI headquarters to get its act together and present these facts pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to obtain the secret FISA Court’s permission to search Moussaoui’s personal effects and laptop computer in the days before 9-11.

Built to accommodate a maximum number of passengers while using a minimum amount of gasoline, the diminutive green-and-black Fiat passenger van was a marvel for its era, featuring innovations like fold-into-the-floor rear seats decades before American minivan marketers claimed to have invented them. Just 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide with a 29 horsepower engine, the Multipla could carry six adults while getting more than 40 miles to the gallon. That was the good news. The bad news was that so much of that extra space was borrowed from the drivers' compartment that squeezing my 6-foot-2-inch frame behind the wheel required a series of movements that must have looked like interpretive dance performed by a rusty lawn chair. Once inside, I had to bend my neck forward and down just to see through the windshield, placing my forehead perilously close to the front of the Multipla's roof, and turning every clumsy gear change into its own Motrin moment.