Constitutional crisis, agribusiness subsidies, intelligence outsourcing

Another ho-hum news day in George Bush's America

Some disturbing articles from a recent Truthout. The summaries give a good idea. The first one especially is a “must read” if at all possible. — Sister Gladys Schmitz, SSND

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Congress, Bush and the Real Constitutional Crisis | "America is in the midst of an authentic constitutional crisis, as the Bush administration moves to reduce Congress to little more than an irrelevant focus group and achieve what no US president has ever achieved: a true above-the-law presidency," writes Glenn W. Smith for Truthout.

Food Aid Rules Benefit US Agribusiness, Starve Poor Farmers | "As the United States Congress debates an omnibus farm bill, it is considering a small change that advocates say could make a big difference to the world's hungriest people: allowing the federal government to buy some food in Africa to feed the famished, rather than shipping it all overseas from America," reports Celia W. Dugger for The New York Times.

Bush Outsourcing Intelligence to Private Contractors | "Over the past six years, a quiet revolution has occurred in the intelligence community toward wide-scale outsourcing to corporations and away from the long-established practice of keeping operations in US government hands, with only select outsourcing of certain jobs to independently contracted experts.... The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) revealed in May that 70 percent of the intelligence budget goes to contractors," writes R.J. Hillhouse for The Nation.