UPDATE

Following CNN anchor Rick Sanchez’s angry rebuttal of Fox News’ claims in a newspaper ad that the other news networks didn’t cover the 912 Tea Party protests, CNN has launched a 15-second ad clip in which it says of the rival network: “Fox News — distorting, not reporting.”

Watch the ad below.

The following video was posted to the Internet by MediaMatters on Friday, September 18, 2009:

ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES BELOW

When Fox News ran a full-page ad in the Washington Post — as well as in two newspapers owned by Fox’s parent company — claiming that it had been the only network to cover the 9.12 tea party rally in Washington, DC, it was more than one CNN anchor was willing to take.

“I usually don’t suffer fools gladly,” CNN’s Rick Sanchez began. “Especially when it comes to the fools who perpetuate falsehoods. Well, today thousands of you flipped through the pages of the Washington Post, only to come up a lie so bold and so upsetting that frankly I’m just not going to sit here in silence and allow my craft or my news operation to be unfairly maligned.”

Over a large photo of the rally, the ad asks, “How Did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN Miss This Story?”

“Enough is enough,” Sanchez went on, sounding as though he had been taking lessons in righteous indignation from Keith Olbermann. “And yes, I’m talking to you, Fox News. You, who claim to be fair and balanced. At what, I wonder? … They are saying we did not cover this story. They are using a lie to try and divide people into camps. … That’s an offense to myself and my colleagues, who risked their lives in Iran and Afghanistan and around the world to bring the news.”

Sanchez then backed up his charges against Fox with clips of several different CNN reporters covering various aspects of the rally and even played a clip of Fox’s Bill O’Reilly saying smugly, “CNN, as we mentioned, covered the anti-Obama protests, of course.”

“Here’s the fact,” Sanchez summed up. “We do cover the news, and we did extensively cover this event. We didn’t promote the event. That’s not what real news organizations are supposed to do. … ‘Cover’ is kind of like a ‘fair and balanced’ way of doing things. You get it? You might want to look into that.”

“Let me address the Fox News Network now,” concluded Sanchez, “perhaps the most current way that I can — by quoting somebody who recently used a very pithy phrase. Two words, that’s all I need. ‘You lie.’”

According to a story which ran in the New York Times following Sanchez’s remarks, “A senior CNN executive acknowledged that the network had never before confronted Fox so openly. Later Friday CNN ran its own promotional ad on the air saying ‘Fox News: Distorting Not Reporting.’”

An ABC News spokesman also called the ad “demonstrably false” and expressed outrage at the Post for running it. The Post responded that it had accepted the ad after deciding that Fox was simply “expressing its opinion” of its competitors in the ad and not making false claims.

Post columnist Howard Kurtz added a few more details, writing that “Fox’s view is that the ad refers to the other networks’ missing the larger story, not failing to cover the demonstration itself — although the photos suggest that the headline refers to the protest. … There is no evidence that The Post asked Fox for any substantiation.”

(Thanks to BradBlog for drawing our attention to this story)

This video appeared on CNN on Friday, September 18, 2009.

On the evening of September 11, DePauw University hosted a debate between former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

Rove came across as the more accomplished debater, aggressively pressing home his points, while Dean appeared at times to be taking an unnecessarily defensive position, or perhaps to be caught between defending the Obama administration and stating his own beliefs.

There were also a couple of occasions on which it appeared that the unscreened questions, most of them from DePauw students and faculty, were being deliberately tailored to cater to Rove’s pet issues.

Overall, however, the debate was notable for a high degree of civility and even a willingness to find some common ground. The two most interesting and least partisan exchanges were, surprisingly, on the subjects of illegal immigration and health care reform.

Dean started off with an opening statement in which he told the students that “you need to stay involved in politics” because “democracy is like everything else created by human beings. If it isn’t fed and nourished, it dies”

Rove, in contrast, began by praising the hospitality he had received from DePauw’s president, but also warned, “Don’t go swimming in his pool. I plucked a dead mouse out of it.”

In response to the first question, which was about budget deficits, Rove insisted that President Bush had “worked very hard to ratchet down government spending.” He also told the students that Social Security was going to go broke, saying somewhat flippantly, “I’m okay, you’re not going to be okay. … Best of luck to you.”

A student then brought up the question of illegal immigration, asking if there was any way the US could “get a handle on this issue.”

Rove replied that it’s easy to talk about just rounding up all the illegal immigrants and deporting them, but “I want you to think about the spiritual cost.” He went on to say that the financial cost alone would amount to a prohibitive $150 billion and suggested that illigal immigrants should instead be forced to come forward and earn the right to remain here by proving their ability to be honest and hard-working over a period of years.

“I agree,” Dean replied, noting that “the hardest working people who are willing to work their butts off” are the only ones who are prepared to take the risks involved in becoming immigrants. “Immigration is how America became a great nation,” Dean concluded.

Both Dean and Rove appeared at times to be actively avoiding some of the most contentious issues A question about the current “lack of civility” led only to low-level wrangling over the Fairness Doctrine. One about how to respond to a “crisis of confidence” in our government led to Rove suggesting that Obama may have insulted Republicans by telling them they had fallen for “lies” about health care reform and Dean responding, “I don’t know how you say it nicely. … One thing about the American people — they’re blunt and they like blunt presidents.”

The most raw-nerved moment came in response to a question about homeland security. Dean praised the Bush administration for tightening up border security and airport screening, but Rove launched into suggesting that he’s “really worried” about attempts to hold the CIA accountable for illegal torture.

“To be the great nation we are,” Dean retorted, “means setting a higher standard. I don’t believe that Americans should be engaged in torture. … We don’t want to lose that moral authority.”

“We did not torture,” Rove insisted, briefly channeling Dick Cheney. “For us to look back is going to have a chilling impact.” He then stated repeatedly, “It kept us safe,” bringing mingled applause and boos from the audience.

In the final series of exchanges on health care, Rove took a strong position against a public option or even any kind of mandate, proposing instead a free-market solution of tax credits, allowing people to buy health insurance across state lines, and curbing “junk and frivolous lawsuits.”

Dean, in contrast, praised the idea of Medicare For All, an proposal which Rove attacked with standard arguments about government bureaucracy.

Although they disagreed strongly about the solutions, however, both men shared a concern that, as Dean put it, “the incentives are really screwed up” in the present system. Doctors are encouraged to order unnecessary procedures and patients have little real awareness of the cost of their treatment or even, in the case of employer-provided insurance, of the insurance itself.

“I think the American people deserve a choice,” Dean concluded as his final argument for a public option.

Rove, however, stood firm by his claim that a lot of people wouldn’t have that choice, because many small businesses would find it more economical to pay a fine and “dump” their employees into a public plan, rather than continue to provide private insurance.

This video is from Depauw University, broadcast Sept. 11, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

UPDATE

The California Republican state legislator caught divulging lurid details on a live microphone about his affair with a lobbyist has resigned, the Los Angeles Times reports.

“I am deeply saddened that my inappropriate comments have become a major distraction for my colleagues in the Assembly, who are working hard on the very serious problems facing our state,” Michael Duvall (R-Yorba Linda) stated on his Web site. “I have come to the conclusion that it would not be fair to my family, my constituents or to my friends on both sides of the aisle to remain in office. Therefore, I have decided to resign my office, effective immediately, so that the Assembly can get back to work.”

ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES BELOW

News sources in California have recently learned that a conservative Republican member of that state’s Assembly was recorded without his knowledge earlier this summer describing lurid details of his affair with a lobbyist.

Orange County Assemblyman Michael D. Duvall apparently didn’t realize that his mic had gone live just before a committee hearing. At the time, he was telling a Republican colleague, “We had made love Wednesday — a lot! And so she’ll, she’s all, ‘I am going up and down the stairs, and you’re dripping out of me!’ So messy!”

“So, I am getting into spanking her,” Duvall continued. “Yeah, I like it. I like spanking her. She goes, ‘I know you like spanking me.’ I said, ‘Yeah! Because you’re such a bad girl!’”

Duvall, a former president of the Yorba Linda Chamber of Commerce, is married with two children. According to R. Scott Moxley of OC Weekly, his paramour, with whom he has frequently been seen at restaurants and even at fund-raising events, is Heidi DeJong Barsuglia, a “hot blonde” 18 years his junior. Barsugla was hired last spring to lobby for a major energy company soon after Duvall became vice-chairman of the Utilities and Commerce Committee.

Duvall’s recorded comments reveal, however, that he is even cheating on Barsuglia. “She is hot!” Duvall said of this other woman, who is also a lobbyist. “I go, ‘You know about the other one [Barsuglia] but she doesn’t know about you.”

Moxley wrote on Tuesday, “Repeatedly asked to explain his recorded sexual boasting, a red-faced Duvall fled me and another reporter, Dave Lopez of KCBS in Los Angeles, three times this afternoon in capitol hallways. He also ignored three handwritten interview requests that were delivered to him on the floor of the assembly. Said one assembly employee who witnessed the scene, ‘It definitely looks like he is afraid of you guys.’”

In his own tv segment on the story, Lopez noted that sources told him Duvall “loves to talk about his ’sexual conquests.’ The source goes on to say, ‘It makes us all feel very uncormfortable, but it’s very difficult to get him to change the subject.’”

According to Lopez, Duvall even told this source at one point, “You know, you’ve got to be real careful what you say up here, because they could have microphones hidden in a salt shaker.”

Duvall has a reputation as a vocal opponent of gay marriage and announced last spring that he was working to protect “California families” from “constant assault in Sacramento.”

On that occasion, the president of the conservative Capitol Resource Institute — which was a major backer of the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 — said of Duvall, “For the last two years, he has voted time and time again to protect and preserve family values in California. We are grateful for his support of California families.’”

This video is from KCAL 9 News in Los Angeles, broadcast September 8, 2009. It can also be viewed here.

In a Friday press release, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) condemned a NATO airstrike which killed 95 people, including much of the population of a small Afghan village, and renewed his call for the United States to withdraw its forces from both Afghanistan and Iraq.

“News reports covering today’s attack by the U.S. command southwest of Kunduz province show that the good intentions of NATO forces in Afghanistan are not sufficient,” Kucinich stated. “If we want to avoid killing innocent civilians, we must end the war.”

The incident occurred after Taliban fighters hijacked two oil tankers and drove them to a village under their control, where they became stuck in the mud. The local villagers then emerged to try to siphon off the fuel. Meanwhile, the hijacking was reported to German troops, who called for an airstrike. The fireball when the trucks were hit killed or badly burned many of the villagers along with some Taliban.

According to the independent, “Western forces were engulfed in bitter controversy yesterday” as the extent of the carnage became apparent. “Nato initially insisted that all the dead were Taliban insurgents. Later, after angry protests from local residents and officials, they acknowledged there had been civilian deaths.”

General Stanley McChrystal, who commands NATO forces in Afghanistan, is now facing questions over why the attack was authorized, given his prior orders forbidding any airstrikes with a prospect of civilian casualties unless allied forces are in imminent danger.

“The attack … could not have come at a more volatile time in Afghanistan,” the Independent article continues, “with intense anger over civilian casualties and an intensifying clash between President Hamid Karzai and Washington over the disputed national election.”

Public support for the Afghan War is declining in both the United States and Europe. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is under particular pressure at the moment, following the unanticipated resignation of an aide to the UK’s Defence Secretary in protest over the war.

Kucinich’s press release concludes, “There is little hope for a truly independent investigation because the Karzai Government is compromised and NATO forces are digging in for the long term based on the Administration’s policy. The war in Afghanistan is quickly developing into a tragedy of monumental proportions. It is time for the U.S. to end this war and bring our troops home.”

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) believes that President Obama is bent on turning the United States into a totalitarian state and already has all the tools he needs for the purpose.

“He has the three things that are necessary to establish an authoritarian government,” Broun told a meeting of local Georgia Republicans on Wednesday, citing the creation of a private army, a ban on gun ownership, and complete control of the press.

The threat of Democratic Party totalitarianism appears to be an issue very close to Broun’s heart. Last month, he described President Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as “a socialistic elite” and responded to a question about swine flu preparations by warning, “They’re trying to develop an environment where they can take over.”

Broun bases his claim that Obama intends to set up a private army on a speech during last year’s presidential campaign in which the then-candidate called for the establishment of “a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the military.

Broun referred to the same speech last fall, in a statement a few days after Obama’s election, when he warned direly, “We may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism. … History shows that ‘civilian national security forces’ bode ill for citizens.”

“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun’s statement continued. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”

An Obama spokesman explained at the time that the candidate had simply been endorsing the creation of a civilian corps to handle postwar reconstruction effects.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “The flap has been watched with particular interest inside the State Department, which already is building a civilian corps similar to the one Obama described in a campaign speech. The Civilian Response Corps, as it is called, was launched two years ago by the Bush administration, after a bipartisan vote by Congress and the urging of Republicans, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell.”

Broun, who was elected to the House of Representatives in 2007 by less than 400 votes, has recently taken other high-profile positions. In May, he raised a firestorm by proposing that 2010 be declared “The Year of the Bible.” In June, he voted against climate change legislation, calling global warming a “hoax … perpetrated out of the scientific community.”

At this week’s meeting, Brown described health care reform as yet another attempt to control peoples lives and suggests that health care costs could be brought down by repealing consumer protections and enacting tax credits for doctors to take on charity cases.

In an interview with Fox News to be aired this Sunday, former Vice President Dick Cheney said he is “OK” with CIA interrogations that violated Justice Department guidelines and condemned the prospect of any investigation of abuses as potentially “devastating” to morale.

The 2004 Inspector General’s report released on Monday cited numerous cases of possible violations of the felony torture statute, which prohibits both “the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering” and “the threat of imminent death.”

Beginning on page 69 of the report (pdf) is a list of “Specific Unauthorized or Undocumented Techniques,” in some of which the facts “warranted criminal investigations.” Among the cases cited are one in which a CIA officer repeatedly choked a shackled prisoner until he almost passed out and several examples of mock executions. These are the cases that Cheney is now defending.

“The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, ‘How did you do it? What were the keys to keeping this country safe over that period of time?’” Cheney stated. “Instead, they’re out there now threatening to disbar the lawyers who gave us the legal opinions.”

Calling the extreme interrogation techniques “absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives,” Cheney insisted, “It was good policy, it was properly carried out, it worked very, very well.”

Cheney has consistently asserted that when reports on the interrogations are released, they will show that torture of detainees worked. However, recently declassified documents show no such thing.

For example, Cheney’s claim that “the individuals subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided the bulk of the intelligence we gained about Al Qaeda” does not necessarily mean that any usable intelligence resulted from the use of torture on those individuals rather than more conventional techniques.

As Raw Story reported two days ago, even a former homeland security adviser to President Bush has admitted that “it’s very difficult to draw a cause and effect, because it’s not clear when techniques were applied versus when that information was received.”

Cheney further described Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to proceed with a probe of detainee abuse as an “outrageous political act.” He blamed President Obama for “trying to duck the responsibility of what’s going on here” when he indicated that the decision was the attorney general’s to make.

A story in Friday’s Washington Post, in contrast, describes Holder’s decision to proceed with the investigation of detainee abuse as signaling a “new dynamic.”

“In this and other big battles,” the Post writes, “including the decision to release memos this year by Bush administration officials giving the green light to harsh interrogation tactics, Holder and his Justice Department have prevailed over strong objections from the CIA and the intelligence community.”

“The victory signals a dynamic that could play out on a range of sensitive issues that will come to define the Obama administration and its differences from the Bush era, including the detention of terrorism suspects and the protection of state secrets.”

In an interview with Fox News to be aired this Sunday, former Vice President Dick Cheney said he is “OK” with CIA interrogations that violated Justice Department guidelines and condemned the prospect of any investigation of abuses as potentially “devastating” to morale.

“The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, ‘How did you do it? What were the keys to keeping this country safe over that period of time?’” Cheney stated. “Instead, they’re out there now threatening to disbar the lawyers who gave us the legal opinions.”

Calling the extreme interrogation techniques “absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives,” Cheney insisted, “It was good policy, it was properly carried out, it worked very, very well.”

Cheney has consistently asserted that when reports on the interrogations are released, they will show that torture of detainees worked. However, recently declassified documents show no such thing.

For example, Cheney’s claim that “the individuals subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided the bulk of the intelligence we gained about Al Qaeda” does not necessarily mean that any usable intelligence resulted from the use of torture on those individuals rather than more conventional techniques.

As Raw Story reported two days ago, even a former homeland security adviser to President Bush has admitted that “it’s very difficult to draw a cause and effect, because it’s not clear when techniques were applied versus when that information was received.”

Cheney further described Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to proceed with a probe of detainee abuse as an “outrageous political act.” He blamed President Obama for “trying to duck the responsibility of what’s going on here” when he indicated that the decision was the attorney general’s to make.

A story in Friday’s Washington Post, in contrast, describes Holder’s decision to proceed with the investigation of detainee abuse as signaling a “new dynamic.”

“In this and other big battles,” the Post writes, “including the decision to release memos this year by Bush administration officials giving the green light to harsh interrogation tactics, Holder and his Justice Department have prevailed over strong objections from the CIA and the intelligence community.”

“The victory signals a dynamic that could play out on a range of sensitive issues that will come to define the Obama administration and its differences from the Bush era, including the detention of terrorism suspects and the protection of state secrets.”

Two GOP leaders in California have been accused by a group of Republicans in San Diego County of abusing the power of their offices, and one now faces a state probe.

The charges were brought against San Diego County Republican Party Chair Tony Krvaric and California Republican Party Chair Ron Nehring. According to the San Diego News Network, disgruntled Republicans have accused the two men of “dodging campaign finance violation fines, using party resources for personal gain, ignoring party bylaws and State Election Code and harassing and intimidating other party members.”

The accusations focus on Krvaric, who is now being investigated by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). According to two San Diego Republican Party members, whose names were not revealed by SDNN, Krvaric is believed to have “conspired with candidates for the Republican Central Committee to stack slate mailers with people he considered ‘team players,’ and excluded other party members from the mailers.”

The problem with the slate mailers arose during last year’s election for members of the San Diego Republican Central Committee. The mailers did not have room for the names of all the candidates, and some incumbents whose names were left off failed to be reelected. Krvaric was suspected even at the time of having deliberately chosen which names should left out, and some local Republicans described him as having “difficulty tolerating dissent.”

Central Committee member Laura Sumrall told the San Diego Reader, “The people who got thrown off were not the deadwood. … They were the activists who were doing things, the people with clout, and I’m guessing that the committee chairman was threatened by that.”

One longtime activist, who said she had been on the Central Committee at least six years, noted with a laugh that after her name was omitted from the mailer, she was defeated for re-election by the 21-year-old daughter of Congressman Brian Bilbray.

Raw Story’s investigation of Krvaric

Just over a month prior to that election, in April 2008, a Raw Story article by award-winning journalist Miriam Raftery had revealed Krvaric’s past as one of the leaders of a notorious software piracy group known as Fairlight.

The Raw Story investigation established that Krvaric co-founded Fairlight when he was a high school student in Sweden in the 1980’s and then set up a United States arm of the organization when he migrated to Southern California in 1992. He also had a business selling devices of a sort that were widely used for unauthorized copying of video games, getting out of that business only in 1997, when the Digital Millenium Copyright Act proposed to make such devices illegal.

Krvaric obtained US citizenship in 2003 and quickly joined the Republican Party. He became a protege of Ron Nehring, who was then the San Diego GOP chair, and assumed that position himself in 2007 when Nehring moved on to become chair of the California Republican Party.

In an email obtained by Raw Story, Krvaric attempted to downplay his past, telling Republican committee members, “Apparently there’s a hit piece floating around on me, ‘exposing’ my wild high school, teenage years where I was in a computer club where we swapped Commodore 64 games. … I graduated high school, grew up and started my own business, and then in 1992 I came to this country, continuing the same business (selling computer and video game chips and accessories.)”

An anonymous comment following the current SDNN story on Krvaric uses very similar language to blast the author of the Raw Story expose. “This entire story is nothing but hot air,” the commenter writes, “just like the hit piece trying to accuse Tony of software piracy which was written by one of the farthest left democrats in San Diego, Miriam ‘communism is great’ Raftery.”

Raftery was awarded third place by San Diego Press Club in 2008″ in the “daily newspapers and websites investigative reporting” category for her article on Krvaric.

Although Krvaric attempted to make light of the Raw Story expose, it may have been what provoked his alleged manipulation of the June voting. According to the current SDNN story, “A source said after the Fairlight ties were made public, Krvaric became ‘really heavy handed with the [Central] Committee.’”

Krvaric won reelection to the county chairmanship last December, but he “had a potential challenger, and when some candidates for the Republican Central Committee declined to give Krvaric an early endorsement, he turned on them.”

According to SDNN’s sources, “Krvaric likes to think of himself as the ‘godfather of politics in San Diego’ and runs the party like a ‘mafia.’ They say the chair has created a culture of fear and intimidation among party members, going so far as to threaten some. … One source said he would like to take a vote of no confidence in Krvaric, which could lead to the chair’s ouster. But, he said, it’s difficult to rally support for a vote because party members fear Krvaric’s wrath.”

Krvaric’s mentor, Ron Nehring

An affidavit filed by one Republican Party member in support of the FPPC complaint against Krvaric also includes allegations concerning Krvaric’s mentor, California Republican Party Chair Ron Nehring. The affidavit charges that Nehring has engaged in heavy-handed tactics along with Krvaric and has benefitted financially from his party position.

In a followup to Raw Story’s initial expose of Krvaric in April 2008, Raftery went on to discuss questions that had been raised about Nehring’s dubious appointsments, financial unaccountability, and failures of leadership as head of the California GOP.

Miriam Raftery and Larisa Alexandrovna had previously reported for Raw Story in 2006 on Nehring’s extensive ties with movement conservatives like Grover Norquist and his push for privatization of an entire school district in San Diego. Shortly after that article appeared, Nehring was named by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as co-chair of an education coalition, provoking an angry response from defenders of the public school system.

Nehring is now said to have hopes of replacing Michael Steele as RNC chairman

Update (at bottom): Reporter says revelations coming Monday will be ‘pretty explosive’

The long-delayed release of a CIA inspector general’s report has been scooped by Newsweek, which obtained details from one source who has read a draft of the report and another who was briefed on its contents.

A version of the report with newly declassified details is expected to be released on Monday.

According to Newsweek’s sources, the report will reveal that the CIA interrogators of suspected USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri brandished a gun in front of him in an attempt to make him believe he was going to be shot — thus violating a federal law against threatening a detainee with “imminent death” — and also threatened him with a power drill.

In other cases, mock executions were staged, including one case in which a gun was fired in an adjoining room to make a suspect believe another prisoner had been shot.

The report was commissioned by then-CIA Director George Tenet in 2004, as CIA officials attempted to determine whether the use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques had followed official guidelines. It was shared at the time with the Justice Department and with selected members of the Congressional oversight committees and was shown to the committees as a whole in 2006, but has been kept secret from the public.

The government is now required to turn the report over on Monday as a result of an ACLU Freedom of Information lawsuit. Related documents are to be revealed a week later.

It is not clear to what extent the report will be released intact. Last year, a version was released from which the sections on both waterboarding and the ultimate effectiveness of extreme interrogation techniques had both been redacted. It is expected that the report and other documents will say that the use of extreme interrogation techniques did produce some valid intelligence, further fueling the debate over the use of those techniques.

Attorney General Eric Holder is also expected to announce his decision on a possible investigation into the use of torture under the Bush administration. A group of Republican senators has already sent Holder a letter warning that any investigation “could have a number of serious consequences, not just for the honorable members of the intelligence community, but also for the security of all Americans.”

Update: Reporter says revelations coming Monday will be ‘pretty explosive’

Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, appearing on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show on Friday night, explained that revelations from the CIA Inspector General’s report will be “pretty explosive,” even though the public version will be significantly redacted.

“About half of the report, I’m told, will still be redacted,” he said. “But, what’s in the half that’s going to be publicly released is going to be pretty explosive.”

The IG report is said to be the most extensive look yet at the Bush administration’s torture programs. RAW STORY will have more details when the report is released to the public.

This video was broadcast by MSNBC on August 21, 2009.

Stephen C. Webster contributed to this report.

A one-time aide to former Congressman Dick Armey has been indicted on five felony counts related to charges that he defrauded the government in exchange for favors from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

According to Politico, “The indictment alleges that Cooper took from Abramoff and his associates more than $5,000 in tickets to sporting events and concerts between 1998 and 2001 while working for Armey.”

As early as 1996, Cooper and two other top aides to Armey had been among the first Congressional staffers to travel to the Marianas Islands on Abramoff’s dime, along with an adviser to then-Rep. Tom DeLay and the then-chief of staff to Rep. John Boehner.

Abramoff subsequently arranged for Armey and DeLay themselves to go on Marianas junkets, where, according to Salon, “they played golf, snorkled and made whirlwind visits to factories especially spiffed up for the occasion.”

Following their tour, “In 1998 DeLay co-authored a letter with House Majority Leader Dick Army (R-TX). The two men, writing to the islands’ governor, expressed how ‘impressed’ they were with the Marianas’ ‘commitment to advancing the principles of free markets, enterprise, tax reform and other innovative approaches to governance.’”

During this same period, Cooper, who had a reputation as a black conservative, was a member of Project 21, a fake African American think-tank founded by the National Center for Public Policy Research to oppose affirmative action and lobby for the tobacco industry. NCPPR was the nominal sponsor of many of Abramoff’s overseas junkets.

Cooper became chief of staff at the Voice of America in 2001 and then worked in the Department of Labor’s Employment Standards Administration until 2005. During that period, he received another $9,000 in tickets, along with free meals at Abramoff’s restaurant, Signatures and a free Super Bowl party thrown for him and 25 friends at Abramoff’s deli, Stacks. (Stacks is also remembered as the restaurant where Rep. Eric Cantor had a sandwich named after him.)

According to the indictment, while he was with the Voice of America, Cooper helped Abramoff get between $10 and $15 million from the State Department for his attempt to start a television production business. At the Labor Department, he offered to help “fix” a problem that an Abramoff client, a garment firm in the Marianas, was having with a federal investigation.

After leaving the Labor Department, Cooper became a professor of constitutional law at George Mason University and an expert on “the excesses of America’s tort system.”

Cooper’s lawyer has proclaimed his client’s innocence.