Dick Cheney is still upset at the Obama administration’s decision to stop using some of the overt torture techniques pioneered by the previous administration:

The death of Osama bin Laden was, and is, certainly newsworthy. There is obvious merit in examining the complex issues surrounding this historic event. However, our 24 hour a day reporting, Facebooking, Tweeting, blogging, got to keep talking about something society has a way of cheapening the worthiness of any story. Almost all news stories go from being something we need to know, to something we need to...

A statement reportedly posted on an Al Qaeda website now confirms it: terrorist CEO Osama bin Laden has been killed. The statement warns that American’s happiness will soon turn “to tears.” The news is now breaking on infooutlets everywhere. Here’s some of The Huffington Post’s report: Al-Qaida on Friday confirmed the killing of Osama bin Laden and warned of retaliation, saying...

Let me get one thing out of the way first: Obviously, the City University of New York has the legal right to give an award, deny an award, or rescind any award to anyone they please. But that does not make it right that a critically acclaimed playwright cannot criticize Israel’s policies toward Palestinians without forfeiting an honorary degree he was about to receive based solely on that criticism —...

by Walter Brasch It was a little before 9 a.m. I was chatting with two students. Another student came in, and asked if we had heard a plane had hit a building in New York City. We hadn’t, but I assumed it was a light private plane, and the pilot had mechanical difficulty or problems with wind turbulence. A minute or so later, another student came in. It was a passenger jet, she said. The first student...

A second extensive round-up from Watching America.com Al-Jazeera, Qatar Spain’s Osama Legacy “The bombing of Madrid was the most significant attack on the West since 9/11. In the immediate aftermath, it changed Spanish government policy. It also changed the way people felt about their security. Travellers around Atocha believe the death of bin Laden won’t change it back. ” Al-Jazeera,...

Here’s a sampling of English-language articles concerning Bin Laden’s death, from around the world, taken from Watching America.com, the aggregator and translator of foreign news and views about the USA. Watching America is starting to post at speed now, so check throughout the day. National Post, Canada Obama Strikes a Blow Against Duplicity in Pakistan “Time and time again, Obama has defied...

This, for one:

“The surgery was a success. We removed a large, cancerous tumor. Osama bin Laden is dead.” Did you get all the cancer? “No, but we did remove a substantial part. However, we know that there are other tumors, there are other cancerous cells still actively at work.” Will we be able to remove the rest of these cancerous cells? “Maybe, but we will have to use many different experimental, highly...

According to an AP report, it’s a match: the DNA test showed it was Osama bin Laden’s body to a 99.90 percent certainty.

Osama Bin Laden is found in a Pakistan mansion and killed as Americans at home spend an hour sweating out a “national security” announcement while watching “Celebrity Apprentice” or preparing for bed. For the old, anxiety arises with the memory of another Sunday night when President Kennedy interrupted TV schedules to reveal missiles in Cuba and that the U.S. would block all shipments...

Here’s the video and transcript of President Barack Obama’s announcement that Osbama bin Laden was killed — a milestone one L.A. radio newsman likened to finding out Adolf Hitler had died: And this is the transcript of an announcement many Americans had dreamed of hearing: Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an...

This is President Bush’s statement about President Obama’s call to him tonight: “Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001. I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They...

The apparent euphoria erupting throughout the United States tonight — a celebration of the death of Osama bin Laden — seems strangely misplaced. His life had nothing to do with our invasion of Iraq and has nothing directly to do with our presence in Afghanistan. His death is not V-Day, it does not end our military operations there. In fact, as the State Department announced via a press release: U.S....

On the tv news tonight, a fire fighter from New York on the scene at 9-11 says somberly and without joy, that ‘today is a good day. ‘A New Yorker elder at Ground Zero says in his Irish-tinged voice, ‘Thank the Lord this has happened though we still feel pity for the families’. Another New York firefighter who has joined the cheering crowds in New York, says, ’9-11 was an act of...

UPDATE: Government officials say that following Muslim ritual, the body of Osama bin Laden has been given to the sea. In Muslim faith, as in many other faiths’ rituals, burial is most often within 24 hours of death, after body is washed and ritually ministered to. Meanwhile on another front, apparently a small crew of Navy Seals had dropped from the sky and rappelled down the walls of the huge mansion...

The networks interrupted regular programming about a half hour ago. Pres. Obama is soon to make an announcement that Osama bin Laden has been killed and is in U.S. hands. According to CBS News, this story has been confirmed, and they are just waiting for Pres. Obama to make his announcement. CBS also reported that bin Laden was shot in the head, which obviously would indicate that he was killed at close range,...

In the LaLa Land for Historical Ignoramuses in which Michele Bachmann resides, the loss of six million Jewish lives — as well as millions of gypsies, homosexuals, Catholics, and many other disfavored groups –  is analogous to Americans’ (supposed) loss of “economic liberty” (defined by Bachmann as eliminating Medicare and Social Security for the elderly and disabled, and requiring...

In an unconfirmed Libyan government report, a NATO airstrike purportedly killed Moammar Gadhafi’s youngest son and grandchildren but the dictator himself survived. The attack came hours after Gadhafi had called for negotations, a call many increasingly distrust given his not-so-trusthworthy record. Reuters reports: The youngest son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and three of his grandchildren were killed...

The full statement is on her official website, but the site server is down at the moment (presumably it was overloaded by the mountains of angry protests that followed her comments in Oklahoma’s state house yesterday). Right Wing Watch quotes from her statement of “apology.”

I’m eagerly looking forward to being instructed on why this isn’t racist (emphasis is in original):

Terror in the south…. A spate of tornadoes ripping through the south has left a trail of 248 dead and so far uncalculated property destruction. The death toll is likely to rise. Nowhere is the terrorific scene captured more graphically than in this YouTube video of part of a live TV broadcast from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The anchors show feed of a tornado cloud starting to form and warn viewers to get in...

You can’t have a viable Palestinian state with the two major Palestinian political factions at each other’s throats. So my initial reaction to this is that it’s good news:

This is probably the most difficult article I have ever written for The Moderate Voice. The issue of whether Obama was a natural born citizen of the US has been around since the primary elections of 2008. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, this issue started to gain traction after Rev. Wright affair when Obama’s oppositions (I must say, spearheaded by Hillary Clinton) started questioning Obama’s love for the...

And so a political grassy knoll — for a large chunk of voters not in the political Twilight Zone or seeking to fabricate a political battering ram, at least — has now bit the dust: the White House has released President Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate after the issue was shoved from the fringe of American politics to the forefront by Donald Trump, a drumbeat by conservative pundits...