Tag Archives: congressmen

INTELLIGENCE: The CIA: Time to Come In From the Cold

Question: “Under what international law do we have a right to attempt to destabilize the constitutionally elected government of another country?” Answer: “l am not going to pass judgment on whether it is permitted or authorized under international law. It is a recognized fact that historically as well as presently, such actions are taken in the best interest of the countries involved.” That blunt response by President Gerald Ford at his press conference last week was either remarkably careless or remarkably candid

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Why the Controversy over Judge Sotomayor’s ‘Wise Latina’ Remark?

Washington politics may not be good at producing health-care reform, but it’s great at creating catchy new lingo. Getting “Borked.” “Hanging chads.” “Lipsticks on pit bulls.” The latest is “wise Latina,” two words that have been repeated ad nauseam since the middle of May, when conservatives started flogging the text of a 2001 speech given by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor at the University of California, Berkeley. In that talk — on the subject of a Latino presence in the American judiciary — Sotomayor now famously said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Since May 14, when the New York Times posted the full text of the speech online, a vaudevillian assortment of right-wing politicians and commentators have taken this remark as evidence that Sotomayor is a racist who will pursue an unknown agenda once ensconced in that great neoclassical retirement home known as the U.S

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