Think Progress

TORTURE -- CIA DIRECTOR ADMITS TO WATERBOARDING: In congressional testimony yesterday, CIA director Michael Hayden gave the first public admission that his agency had used the harsh interrogation technique of waterboarding on three Al Qaeda suspects. Appearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hayden testified that "only" three detainees were ever subjected to the method: "Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks; Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda operative tied to the Sept. 11 plot; and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi suspected of playing a key role in the bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000." Hayden claimed that the CIA has not used waterboarding in the last five years, and that the "circumstances under which we are operating...are frankly, different than they were in late 2001 and early 2002." In response to Hayden's testimony, advocacy group Human Rights Watch issued a statement saying, "Waterboarding is torture, and torture is a crime." Also yesterday, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) demanded a criminal investigation, calling on the Justice Department to look into whether past use of waterboarding violated any law.

ADMINISTRATION -- BUSH TO PASS ECONOMIC WOES ONTO SUCCESSOR: Just before his 2004 re-election, President Bush asserted that "the job of a President is to confront problems, not to pass them on to future Presidents and future generations." Yet with Bush's $3.1 trillion budget proposal, "the next president will inherit a deficit of about $400 billion, and maybe more." While the projected deficits "will push the cumulative federal debt past $12 trillion in the next five years," Bush's successor "will need to spend far more" for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than the new budget allows. Bush included $70 billion for both wars in his budget, but that money is "designed to last [only] until Jan. 20, when he leaves office." As Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin noted, Bush "will have created problems that he then passed on to his successors unresolved. Exhibit A is, of course, Iraq. But Exhibit B may well be the budget."

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS -- BUSH CUTS FUNDING TO KEY FOREIGN ASSISTANCE PROGRAM: In 2002, President Bush announced the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account to "expand our fight against AIDS" and aid democracy in developing nations. He promised that the program would receive $5 billion a year beginning in FY 2006 and beyond. However, in his budget proposal for FY 2006, President Bush failed to meet his pledge of $5 billion a year to the Millennium Challenge Account, budgeting only $3 billion. The same amount was budgeted for FY 2007 and again for FY 2008. The Wall Street Journal reported in Jan. 2007 that "President Bush's signature foreign-assistance program is likely to run out of money this year, leaving in the lurch several poor countries that have labored to meet its strict eligibility standards." Although Congress has repeatedly underfunded the program, Bush's requests for the program have never come close to $5 billion. Funding levels for FY 2009, however, fall to a new low of $2.225 billion. Twenty-four countries are eligible for Millennium Challenge Account compact funding, but the President's budget allocates only "enough to provide packages to Ukraine, Moldova, Jordan, Timor-Leste and Malawi.

In the "biggest day of U.S. presidential voting before the November 4 election to succeed President George W. Bush," Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) won 13 states and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) took eight. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) "won nine contests, including victories in California and the Northeast, to take a commanding lead in the Republican race." See the results here.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testified yesterday that a failure to provide legal immunity in FISA legislation to telecom companies "will have far-reaching consequences" and "severely degrade the capabilities" of intelligence agencies to protect the country.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said yesterday that "Al Qaeda is gaining in strength from its refuge in Pakistan and is steadily improving its ability to recruit, train and position operatives capable of carrying out attacks inside the United States."

In prepared testimony, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "says U.S. forces are "significantly stressed' by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan." "The pace of ongoing operations," says Mullen, "impacts our ability to be ready to counter future threats."

Facing a "draconian" budget that would "cut in half the $400 million allocated in advance by Congress for fiscal year 2009 and cut $220 million from the $420 million already planned for 2010," public broadcasters are "scrambling" to secure federal funding for their programs. 

The subprime crisis has brought "boarded-up homes and broken dreams to thousands of minority families inner cities." Reuters reports that urban renewal will need to be at the top of the next president's "to do" list.

Cases of racial harassment filed with the EEOC increased 24 percent last year, "a time of racial turmoil that included the Jena Six controversy and an outbreak of noose displays." The number of filings increased from 5,646 in 2006 to 6,977 in 2007 while "the annual figure has more than doubled since 1991."

The AFL-CIO has filed a lawsuit against Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, claiming that new Labor Department disclosure rules "should be held unlawful and set aside." In a report last year, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Scott Lilly described how the new rules are part of an effort "to undermine the reputation of the labor union movement."

Republican leaders continue to squabble about how to deal with earmarks. The Hill notes that Reps. John Boehner (R-OH), Adam Putnam (R-FL) and Eric Cantor (R-VA) are "the only Republican leaders who have voted for more than half of the anti-earmark amendments offered on the House floor since the 2006 election."

And finally: Right-wing pundit Glenn Beck took a shot at Keith Olbermann, stating, "If I saw Olbermann standing on the subway [platform], I might think for a moment about pushing him, but I wouldn't." Olbermann responded: "The subway remark summarizes who Glenn is. If he (or anybody else) fell in front of a train, I hope I'd have the courage to emulate Wesley Autry and try to save him."