Prosecutor In CIA Leak Case Casting A Wide Net (Washington Post) - “…special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame’s name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed.” Read more…

$1.5 BILLION GIVEAWAY Secretly Slipped into Energy Bill, Waxman Says - In a letter to Speaker Denny Hastert, Rep. Harry Waxman writes that after the energy legislation was closed to further amendment in the recently concluded conference, a $1.5 billion provision benefiting oil and gas companies, Halliburton, and Sugar Land, Texas, was mysteriously inserted in the text. Read more…

New Evidence Links Gitmo, Abu Ghraib Torture Tactics (Washington Post) - Military interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq learned about the use of military working dogs to intimidate detainees from a team of interrogators dispatched from the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court testimony yesterday. Read more…

House Republicans are cooking up a bill to expand opportunities in higher education — for student loan companies. (TomPaine.com) - Last week, the House Education Committee passed a new version of the Higher Education Act, which sets the rules for college financial aid. The committee also passed up an opportunity to give students struggling to pay for college a helping hand. Read more…

This post was written by Mary Mancini