Archives for 2013

Not controversial: John Brennan: Served in CIA during the torture program, designed the current US drone program that has extra-judicially killed hundreds, including children and including at least 2 American citizens. Controversial: Chuck Hagel: Thinks war should be a last resort, doesn’t think an air strike on Iran would be effective, wants to do diplomacy […]

I doubt Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator from Nebraska, and I would agree about almost anything with regard to domestic US politics. Unless his views have changed, we certainly would not agree on gay rights. ( He says, at least, that his views have in fact changed and has apologized for remarks in the […]

Bill McKibben writes at Tomdispatch Change usually happens very slowly, even once all the serious people have decided there’s a problem. That’s because, in a country as big as the United States, public opinion moves in slow currents.  Since change by definition requires going up against powerful established interests, it can take decades for those […]

Beleagured President Bashar al-Assad addressed the nation on Sunday, in a “Baghdad Bob” moment, in which he more or less denied he has lost control of much of the country or that most of his countrymen consider him a monster. Meanwhile, the civil war had raged all around the country. A mortar landed in north […]

Joaquin Sapien writes at ProPublica: Following the mass shooting in Connecticut, the Obama administration and lawmakers around the country have promised to re-examine gun control in America. ProPublica decided to take a look at what’s happened legislatively in states where some of the worst shootings in recent U.S. history have occurred to see what effect, […]