By Patrick Vandenburgh
It is time for a new Christian revolutionary war. It is time for Christians all over the United States to stand up for our Judeo-Christian heritage. Our nation has slowly turned its back on God. We have forsaken our call as a nation, which is to be a light to all other nations. We have allowed a few in the secular minority to rob our freedoms, which came by the blood of many brave men and women throughout history.

Full story here: The Journal-Standard

The museum argues, among other things, that war, famine and natural disasters are to blame on belief in evolution.
For a group of paleontologists, a tour of the Creation Museum seemed like a great tongue-in-cheek way to cap off a serious conference. But while there were a few laughs and some clowning for the camera, most left more offended than amused by the frightening way in which evolution -- and their life's work -- was attacked. "It's sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn't it?" said Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology and evolution at University of California, Berkeley.

Full story here: AlterNet

As ThinkProgress has repeatedly pointed out, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has been bragging about the fact that she plans not to answer Census questions this year, which is a violation of federal law punishable with a fine up to $5,000.

Deep-Packet Inspection in U.S. Scrutinized Following Iran Surveillance Net Politics -Wired News - Mon, 06/29/2009 - 22:54

Following a report last week that Iran is spying on domestic internet users with western-supplied technology, advocacy groups are pressuring federal lawmakers to scrutinize the use of the same technology in the U.S.

The Open Internet Coalition sent a letter to all members of the House and Senate urging them to launch hearings aimed at examining and possibly regulating the so-called deep-packet inspection technology.

By BOB HERBERT
Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House. One of the most disappointing aspects of the early months of the Obama administration has been its unwillingness to end many of the mind-numbing abuses linked to the so-called war on terror and to establish a legal and moral framework designed to prevent those abuses from ever occurring again.

Full story here: New York Times

By David Swanson
In May 2005 we launched AfterDowningStreet.org to publicize the Downing Street Minutes. By June we'd had great, if fleeting, success. During the following months and years, mountains of new memos and statements emerged on the Iraq War lies, many of them more damaging than the Downing Street documents. But increasingly nobody cared, because evidence of crimes was less interesting once Congress had dropped the pretense that it might take action. The single most powerful, and yet largely ignored, document yet to emerge, might, now in 2009, finally, produce results. And, of course, it is our friends over in England who are, as always, two steps ahead of us.

Full story here: Let's Try Democracy

By Jon Soltz
Co-Founder of VoteVets.org
Let me get this straight. The latest polls say three-quarters of the American people want a public option in health care, yet it's in question. But, Congress is about to throw $369 million (on a down-payment of $2 billion) for a dozen F-22 fighter jets that even the Pentagon doesn't want. Oh, and the money for it? It's coming out of funds that were set aside to clean up dangerous nuclear waste in the U.S.

Full story here: Huffington Post

By STEPHEN C. WEBSTER
The American Civil Liberties Union may have just earned itself a few more Republican admirers. Announcing a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration for the “illegal” detention of the Campaign for Liberty’s treasurer in April at a St. Louis airport, the ACLU damned what it called a “troubling pattern” of aggressive invasions of privacy by the TSA. Steve Bierfeldt, the man at the center of the controversy, recorded his confrontation with the airport security agents on his phone.

Full story here: Raw Story

By Jeremy Scahill
Over the past few days, we reported on how the White House and Democratic Congressional Leadership waged a dirty campaign to scare up votes to support another $106 billion in funds for their wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now, several of the so-called anti-war Democrats who left their principles at the House coat check on their way in to vote Tuesday are trying to explain away their hypocritical votes.

Full story here: Rebel Reports

By John Aravosis
Team Obama keeps telling lesbian and gay Americans like me to be patient. If we just wait a little longer, administration officials whisper to us lovingly (and out of earshot of the media), after the White House finishes with healthcare reform and getting the troops out of Iraq, your time will come. In the meantime, cheer up -- we put a gay band in the inaugural parade! Everyone loves a parade, but we don't like being betrayed.

Full story here: Salon

By Brandon Keim
President Barack Obama has said all the right things about safeguarding the oceans. While campaigning, he promised to improve their management and research. Last Friday, he gave an Ocean Policy Task Force 90 days to develop a comprehensive oceans policy. Of course, it was just four-and-a-half years ago that the bipartisan Commission on Ocean Policy presented its sweeping recommendations to President Bush, who responded by creating a Cabinet-level Committee on Ocean Policy. The committee is now defunct.

Full story here: Wired

By Stephen Zunes
The only people happier than the Iranian elites over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's apparently stolen election win Friday, were the neoconservatives and other hawks eager to block any efforts by the Obama administration to moderate U.S. policy toward the Islamic republic. Since he was elected president in 2005, Ahmadinejad has filled a certain niche in the American psyche formerly filled by the likes of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi as the Middle Eastern leader we most love to hate.

Full story here: AlterNet

Former US president Jimmy Carter on Tuesday met Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in the Gaza Strip, where he called for a lifting of Israel’s blockade, saying Palestinians are being treated “like animals.” Following the talks, Carter called for an end of “all violence” against both Israelis and Palestinians.

Full story here: Raw Story

The Obama administration has denied requests from both reporters and government watchdogs to reveal the names of White House guests, echoing Bush administration policy. MSNBC.com reports that their attempt to get visitor logs was denied.

Full story here: Huffington Post

One week after declaring that the United States “cannot afford” the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq “financially or spiritually,” Ohio’s Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a staunch anti-war crusader, took aim at Congress for not taking a more active role in any of the war on terror fronts. “We are destroying our nation’s moral and fiscal integrity with this war supplemental,” Kucinich argued on the House floor Tuesday.

Full story here: Raw Story

By Frank Rich
When a Fox News anchor, reacting to his own network’s surging e-mail traffic, warns urgently on-camera of a rise in hate-filled, “amped up” Americans who are “taking the extra step and getting the gun out,” maybe we should listen. ...What is this fury about? In his scant 145 days in office, the new president has not remotely matched the Bush record in deficit creation. Nor has he repealed the right to bear arms or exacerbated the wars he inherited. He has tried more than his predecessor ever did to reach across the aisle. But none of that seems to matter. A sizable minority of Americans is irrationally fearful of the fast-moving generational, cultural and racial turnover Obama embodies — indeed, of the 21st century itself.

Full story here: New York Times

By Joan Walsh
I was surprised when so many people I respect told me not to appear on "The O'Reilly Factor." I'd attacked Bill O'Reilly for his jihad against Dr. George Tiller, and he asked me on to discuss my "accusations." I thought that was fair. I could explain my point of view to his face; to say no felt like being a punk. ...Well, it was so not fine. I think the high or low point was when he shrieked at me, "You have blood on your hands!" ...It was a kaleidoscopic nightmare, a TV acid trip, and I don't do acid. It almost seems like O'Reilly does, but I don't think so. The man is driven by demons. God bless him and save him.

Full story here: Salon

By Bill Moyers & Michael Winship
There is much talk about hate talk; hate crimes against blacks, whites, immigrants, Muslims, Jews; about violence committed in the name of bigotry or religion. But why don't we talk about guns? We're arming ourselves to death. Even as gunshots ricocheted around the country, an amendment allowing concealed weapons in national parks snuck into the popular credit card reform bill. Another victory for the gun lobby, to sounds of silence from the White House.

Full story here: Common Dreams

By Marc Ambinder
In the words of ACLU attorney Ben Wizner, a lead counsel on behalf of the five detainees suing Jeppesen Dataplan, President Obama now "owns the state secrets privilege." Wizner is correct. Remember precisely what it is that the government wants the 9th circuit to decide: that the U.S. government can dismiss any federal or civil case before it reaches the phase of discovery simply because the government asserts that the national security interests of the United States would be compromised if the case proceeds.

Full story here: The Atlantic

Partial transcript of interview by Alan Colmes with Pastor Wiley Drake:
Colmes: ...you then said, I asked for whom else are you praying in that fashion and you said President Obama. Are you praying for his death?
Drake: Yes.
Colmes: So you're praying for the death of the president of the United States?
Drake: Yes.

To hear the interview, click here: Crooks and Liars

By MURIEL KANE
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and other civil liberties groups are charging the government with having used a “back door wiretap” to obtain six months worth of a defendant’s emails without a warrant. According to EFF, the act under which the emails were obtained “is only supposed to be used for obtaining emails already in storage with a provider.” Instead, the Justice Department ordered suspect Steven Warshak’s email provider to prospectively “preserve” copies of his future emails, which would otherwise have been deleted as they were downloaded.

Full story here: Raw Story