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Congressional GOP Did Not Want to Explain (Port) Sale to Public
For the past two campaign cycles, Karl Rove has successfully painted Democrats as soft on national security. The Dubai sale offered them a golden opportunity for payback, report Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe and White House Correspondent Holly Bailey in the current issue of Newsweek. Dubai Ports World already works closely with the U.S., shutting down its commercial traffic whenever the Navy sails in. So when it first approached the Feds about a takeover in mid-October, there were no red flags. They finished their formal review in mid-January with no public fanfare and no extended inquiry, write Wolffe and Bailey who, in the March 6 issue (on newsstands Monday, February 27), reconstruct the events of the port sale and explain how an obscure maritime takeover turned into a political shipwreck.

When you follow the money, the ports sale makes sense
The ocean-cargo industry consolidation that Colgan cited gained momentum in 1999, when CSX Corp., then headed by John W. Snow, now U.S. Treasury secretary, sold its large ocean-cargo unit to Maersk, the Danish ocean-cargo carrier, for $800 million.

CSX badly needed cash because its bidding war with Norfolk Southern Corp. had raised the price of Conrail Inc., the Philadelphia freight railroad, from $91 a share to $115. The two Southern railroads fought to a stalemate, and jointly bought and broke up Conrail.

In 2004, CSX sold its Hong Kong and South American port operations to Dubai Ports World for $1.15 billion.

As Treasury secretary, Snow chairs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which approved the Dubai deal. The panel includes the secretaries of state and homeland security and other administration officials.

RELATED: Bush's War Rhetoric Blows Back in Port Furor
At the core of Bush's case for invading Iraq was the contention that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks changed the burden of proof in evaluating potential threats. Bush justified the war, despite inconclusive intelligence about whether Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, largely on the grounds that after Sept. 11, waiting for definitive evidence of danger was itself too risky.

Whistleblower Charged With Three Felonies for Exposing Diebold's Crimes
A whistleblower in Los Angeles is in legal trouble and needs our help. Stephen Heller is alleged to have exposed documents in Jan. & Feb. 2004 which provided smoking gun evidence that Diebold was using illegal, uncertified software in California voting machines. The docs also showed that Diebold's California attorneys (the powerful international law firm Jones Day) had told them they were in breach of the law for using uncertified software, but Diebold continued to use the uncertified software anyway.

Lawyers dissect Bush's argument; show he doesn't have unchecked authority
Why the President's Defense of Executive Power to Wiretap Without Warrants Can't Succeed in the Strict Constructionist Court He Wants

Report: Pentagon Warned on Torture, Abuse
The Navy's former general counsel warned Pentagon officials two years before the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that circumventing international agreements on torture and detainees' treatment would invite abuse, according to a published report. Legal theories granting the president the right to authorize abuse in spite of the Geneva conventions were unlawful, dangerous and erroneous, Alberto J. Mora advised officials in a secret memo. The 22-page document was obtained by The New Yorker for a story in its Feb. 27 issue.

RELATED: Never-before-released Abu Ghraib photos published by Salon

A Letter From The Troops
A first-ever survey of U.S. troops on the ground fighting in Iraq was released February 28, 2006. The findings are surprising, particularly the fact that an overwhelming majority of 72 percent of American troops in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year.

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/13984316.htm
A Mississippi House committee voted Tuesday to ban most abortions in the state. The only exception would be if the life of the pregnant woman were in danger. There would be no abortions allowed in cases of pregnancy caused by rape or incest.

MEDIA

Vargas's interview of Bush on ABC contained false statements, missed opportunities
Summary: During an exclusive interview with President Bush on the February 28 broadcast of ABC's World News Tonight, co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas repeated White House distortions and uncritically accepted Bush's answers -- even though some were demonstrably false.

Only on Fox: "All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?"
Summary: Fox News featured two onscreen captions during a segment on escalating violence in Iraq that read: " 'Upside' To Civil War?" and "All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?"