Why We Should Get Rid of West Point  —  Want to trim the federal budget and improve the military at the same time?  Shut down West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, and use some of the savings to expand ROTC scholarships.  —  After covering the U.S. military for nearly two decades …

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Waterboarded 183 Times in One Month  —  I've put this detail in a series of posts, but it really deserves a full post.  According to the May 30, 2005 Bradbury memo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002.

The Long Arm of the Law  —  A looming battle over the role foreign judges should play in U.S. courts.  —  From the magazine issue dated Apr 27, 2009  —  Harold Hongju Koh is a tweedy, brainy legal scholar who writes brilliant law-review articles that are carefully reasoned, if more or less impenetrable to non-lawyers.

Arguing the size of the “tea party” protest  —  In any case, experts see it as democracy in action, and that's a good thing.  —  ATLANTA -  —  How big was the Tea Party?  —  By some estimates, over half a million Americans took to the streets last Wednesday to protest taxes and Washington spending …

CNN the Latest Corporate Thug to Use Copyright As a Weapon to Eliminate Embarrassing Clips from YouTube  —  I'm sick of people knocking embarrassing videos off YouTube with bogus copyright violation claims.  —  The latest culprit is CNN, a network that was recently embarrassed by a video …

Army More Selective as Economy Lags  —  The Army last month stopped accepting felons and recent drug abusers into its ranks as the nation's economic downturn helped its recruiting, allowing it to reverse a decline in recruiting standards that had alarmed some officers.

Obama Endures Ortega Diatribe  —  Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega lashes out at a century of what he called terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America.  —  FOXNews.com  —  PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — President Obama endured a 50-minute diatribe from socialist Nicaraguan …

Summit: What a Difference a Day Makes  —  Yesterday's banner headline on Trinidad and Tobago's daily Guardian (see below) was “Chávez vs. Obama.”  —  Today's is above.  —  Ponder that for a moment.  —  Also today, the Venezuelan President said aloud he wants to restore …

It might already be too late for the right-wing blogs  —  The Daily Beast's Benjamin Sarlin follows up on a trend we've been noting at CF for the last couple week; far right bloggers who are calling out Fox News for the doomsday hate speech that's become Murdoch's programming anchor.

Makeover debate fires up over ‘Idol’ sensation Susan Boyle  —  Susan Boyle's ‘makeover’  —  Once people stopped marveling at Susan Boyle's voice, they started talking about her look, including her caterpillar-like eyebrows.  Let the makeover debate begin.

Tea Party animals not boiling over  —  Media portrayals of protesters as right-wing kooks are overheated.  —  Recommend  —  Our lesson today comes from the old British novelty song:  —  “I like A Nice Cup Of Tea in the morning Just to start the day, you see And at half-past-eleven My idea of heaven Is A Nice Cup Of Tea ...”