Focus on the Family uses arguments from ‘torture memos’ author to blast Obama recess appointments

CitizenLink, the Focus on the Family Christian news site based in Colorado Springs, Colo., weighed in Thursday on the latest political controversy winging out of Washington, D.C. The site reported that, in using “recess appointments” to fill three seats on the National Labor Relations Board and to place Richard Cordray More…

Obama Administration Releases Plans to Lower Federal Government’s Energy Use

The Obama administration released today a series of “sustainability plans” meant to meet the requirements laid out in a Oct. 2009 executive order that called for improved energy efficiency and a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at government agencies.

Religious Leaders Press for Torture Commission

Political candidates often invoke God and spirituality on the campaign trail, but Rev. Richard Killmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign against Torture, would like more pols to live up to those professed beliefs once they’re in office. President Obama, for example, has spoken eloquently More…

Gitmo Closing May Be Delayed

The latest news on the Guantanamo front is that despite the president’s big promise in January to close Guantanamo Bay within a year, it turns out that just might not be possible, reports The Washington Post with ProPublica. Apparently, it’s been too hard to figure out what to More…

Why Some Civil Libertarians Support an Executive Order on Preventive Detention

So just who are those “civil liberties groups” that have encouraged the Obama administration to issue an executive order creating a system of prolonged preventive detention?

As Spencer wrote today, someone in the administration told ProPublica’s Dafna Linzner and The Washington Post’s Peter Finn that yes, civil liberties groups More…

Gibbs Appears to Shoot Down Executive Order on Preventive Detentions

Serves me right for not reading my White House briefing transcript until this morning, but here’s Robert Gibbs yesterday talking about what looked on Friday to be a forthcoming executive order authorizing preventive detentions:

I think the President addressed the notion and the very tough issue that the administration

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More on Civil Liberties Groups and That Detention Executive Order

I’m still trying to figure out how the Obama administration could believe that civil liberties groups gave it cover to issue an executive order authorizing “prolonged detention” of suspected terrorists, as Dafna Linzer and Peter Finn reported on Friday. Ginny Sloan, president of the Constitution Project — which More…

Uh, Which Civil Liberties Groups Want a ‘Prolonged Detention’ Executive Order?

Huge news from Dafna Linzer and Peter Finn. The Obama administration fears that congressional prerogative is going to get in the way of closing Guantanamo Bay by January. So its answer is to cut Congress out of the decision-making and set up a system of “prolonged detention” for an More…

Will House Dems Stand Up to Obama on Torture Photos?

The Weekly Standard and Greg Sargent are both reporting that the House Democratic leadership is boldly (my characterization, not the Standard’s) standing up to the White House and the Senate, which last week passed an amendment to the appropriations bill that would allow Obama to keep More…

Federal Court Rules Media Has Right to Information About Gitmo Detainees

In another slap to the government’s attempts to conceal information about the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, a federal judge ruled today that the Justice Department cannot simply deem unclassified information “protected” and thereby keep it from public view.

Noting that it’s the role of the court — not the More…