[multiple]
Israel attacks Gaza, and Pakistan moves troops toward Indian border.

Happy holidays!

[Guardian.co.uk]
Seasonal forgiveness has a limit. Bush and his cronies must face a reckoning. Heinous crimes are now synonymous with this U.S. administration. If it isn't held to account, what does that say about us?

[The New York Times]
We don’t just need a bailout. We need a reboot. We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover.

[The Washington Post]
The Environmental Protection Agency ruled yesterday that new power plants are not required to install technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

[The New York Times]
Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services. Now, a bipartisan report by the Senate Armed Services Committee has made what amounts to a strong case for bringing criminal charges against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; his legal counsel, William J. Haynes; and potentially other top officials, including the former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and David Addington, Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.

[Newsweek]
The United States, like many countries, has a bad habit of committing wartime excesses and an even worse record of accounting for them afterward. But a remarkable string of recent events suggests that may finally be changing—and that top Bush administration officials could soon face legal jeopardy for prisoner abuse committed under their watch in the war on terror.

[The Los Angeles Times]
Dick Cheney says that he was directly involved in approving severe interrogation methods used by the CIA, and that the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should remain open indefinitely.

[The New York Times]
An unpublished 513-page federal history of the American-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure.

[Fast Company]
In another nod to his alleged "free-market" principles, Bush has expressed disapproval of the free nationwide Wi-Fi proposal being considered by the FCC and Congress.

[The Los Angeles Times]
Administration officials get a memo from the White House suggesting what to say about the last eight years: President Bush upheld "the honor and the dignity of his office," for one.

[The Wall Street Journal]
Is it time to end drug prohibition?

[The Washington Post]
The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.