Think Progress

TORTURE -- CIA TO CLOSE SECRET OVERSEAS PRISONS: Although the CIA stated yesterday that it will decommission overseas prisons where detainees were tortured, CIA Director Leon Panetta announced that he would not punish those who perpetrated the acts. He said officers who committed such acts "should not be investigated, let alone punished" because the Justice Department under President Bush had assured them that their actions were legal.  The New York Times writes that Panetta's move to close the prisons "underscored the new administration's sharp break with policies" from the Bush administration after 9/11. However, "a number of CIA officials implicated in the torture program not only remain at the highest levels of the agency, but are also advising Panetta," writes The Daily Beast's John Sifton. "Panetta's attempt to suppress the issue is making Bush's policy into the Obama administration's dirty laundry. Indeed, as Salon's Glen Greenwald writes, Panetta's stance reflects an administration "vigorously shielding criminals from all investigation and accountability." Meanwhile, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) insists he is still "continuing to explore" the idea of a truth commission-style torture investigation in congress even though he told several of his constituents last week that the political opposition from Republicans may be too great to overcome.

MEDIA -- EUGENE ROBINSON HITS GEORGE WILL FOR HIS INACCURATE GLOBAL WARMING COLUMN: On Feb. 15, Washington Post columnist George Will published a factually inaccurate and misleading column on climate change. His claims were promptly eviscerated by Brad Johnson at the Wonk Room, along with ClimateProgress, The Loom, TPM Muckraker, The Vine, Island of Doubt, and New Mexico Science. Although The Washington Post's editorial page editors repeatedly defended Will's misleading editorial, fellow columnist Eugene Robinson admitted on MSNBC Wednesday that he believed Will had "cross[ed] the line." "What George Will did was cherry-pick a sentence in a report, you know, be very persnickety in the way he parsed his sentences, and end up making it sound as if the report had said the exact opposite of what it actually said," Robinson quipped. "He was persnickety enough that his editors, who also happen to be my editors, felt he didn't quite cross the line. I thought he did." Robinson is the latest staffer at the Washington Post to take Will to task for his misleading column. Earlier this week, two Post writers reported on the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice, noting that the findings "contradicts data cited" by Will. Weeks after Will's column was printed, the Post's ombudsman acknowledged that when he reviewed the data Will cited to supposedly back up his claim about ice levels, he "reached a different conclusion." Even Post cartoonist Tom Toles joined the action, mocking Will in a recent online sketch.

ECONOMY -- REP. RYAN CLAIMS THE GOP TAX PLAN IS 'PROGRESSIVE': On April 1, the House Republicans released a budget plan fitting of the holiday, promising to revoke the stimulus, freeze all spending, and slash taxes for the wealthiest Americans and corporations. Last night on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the plan's lead author, declared that the GOP tax proposal was "progressive." "What we're proposing is we're going to give taxpayers a choice," said Ryan. "You can have the current tax code with all of its loopholes and bells and whistles, or if you want a simplified system that fits on a postcard, two rates, 10 percent and 25 percent. It's progressive." If by "progressive," Ryan means "overwhelmingly favoring the rich while hurting the middle class," then yes, the GOP plan is indeed "progressive." According to Citizens for Tax Justice, over a third of taxpayers, mostly low- and middle-income families, would pay more in taxes under the House GOP plan than they would under the House Democratic plan in 2010. Additionally, the richest one percent of taxpayers would pay $75,000 less, on average, in income taxes under the House GOP plan than they would under the Democratic plan in 2010. Indeed, the GOP's "progressive" plan would give the average CEO a $1.5 million tax break while the poorest Americans would be forced to pay more taxes under the GOP plan.

Yesterday, President Obama said that "his administration will create an electronic record for veterans that will 'contain their administrative and medical information from the day they first enlist to the day that they are laid to rest.'" "When a member of the armed forces separates from the military, he or she will no longer have to walk paperwork from a DOD duty station to a local VA health center," Obama explained.

President Obama has asked Congress "to act quickly on his $83.4 billion request for U.S. military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan." With a time line for withdrawal from Iraq in place, Democrats "are sure to pass his request." The Congressional Research Service notes that the measure "would push the cost of the two wars to almost $1 trillion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks."

Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, yesterday said that the U.S. military "will increase its presence near the Horn of Africa within 48 hours," as a hostage stand-off with Somali pirates continues. American ship captain Richard Phillips "tried to escape by jumping into the sea, but was quickly recaptured" by the four pirates who have been holding him.

"Economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey expect the recession to end in September, though most say it won't be until the second half of 2010 that the economy recovers enough to bring down unemployment." They predicted that unemployment will keep rising, reaching 9.5 percent by December.

"Slowly but surely," President Obama's $787 billion economic recovery package "is beginning to percolate nationwide, six weeks after" he signed the legislation. Some of the money is arriving quickly, such as $337 million for community health clinics, but "White House officials say the bulk of the money will start hitting the streets later this year and early next." The goal is to spend 70 percent of it by the summer of 2010.

"The ailing financial and retail sectors showed tentative signs of strength yesterday, as financial markets "surged" with the news that Wells Fargo had earned record profits from January to March. Though yesterday's data offers "some hope that the darkest days of the recession could be ending," the recession "remains severe, and economists stress that the worst for U.S. workers is still to come."

A new study by Environment America predicts that global warming "could rob the U.S. economy of $1.4 billion a year in lost corn production alone." The study, based on government and university data, "projects that warming temperatures will reduce yields of the nation's biggest crop by 3% in the Midwest and the South compared with projected yields without further global warming."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported yesterday that "[e]fforts to reduce the number of food-borne illnesses in the United States have stalled in the past three years, and some illnesses are on the upswing." The CDC found that "the rate of infection for several bacteria had been dropping until about 2004, when the numbers began rising again or leveled off."