By Ariel Dorfman via Tomdispatch.com According to an Amnesty International Poll released in May, 45% of Americans believe that torture is “sometimes necessary and acceptable” in order to “gain information that may protect the public.” Twenty-nine percent of Britons “strongly or somewhat agreed” that torture was justified when asked the same question. For someone like me, […]
America Has Gained Almost 1 Million Healthcare Jobs Since Obamacare Was Passed
Ask any Republican about the link between the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and job growth in America and they’ll tell you that Obamacare is ruining our economy and robbing good people of jobs. Of course, that just isn’t true. According to Forbes…
Dear GOP: Captured Benghazi Suspect Says He Was Inspired By Video
Abu Khatalla, the captured suspected ringleader of the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attack, says it was the much-discussed video that inspired him to act. What he did in the period just before the attack has remained unclear. But Mr. Abu Khattala told…
Absolutely Nothing: A Veteran’s Savage Indictment of the Iraq War
Tragically, all we’ve fought for in Iraq, all that 4,500 American lives were shed to gain, is on the cusp, potentially, of vanishing. – Mitt Romney, “Ideas Summit,” 6/13/2014 All we fought for in Iraq. All we fought for in Iraq is on the cusp…
Opportunities Abound in Iraq to Reset US Middle East Policy
By Kirk J. Beattie The crisis induced by ISIL’s advances in Iraq presents tremendous opportunities for the United States, and the U.S. government should move quickly to take full advantage. ISIL represent the worst of the worst forces involved in the Iraqi imbroglio. Its members’ values are totally at odds with those of an enormous […]
Fracking Threatens US Water: AP
The Associated Press has been doing a bang-up job of covering fracking issues lately, and over the weekend they released a bombshell fracking report that set fire to the tubes. The new fracking report focuses on oil and gas fracking wells that are classified…
Why were Wall Street & Banking not Reformed after 2008? Congress!
Why haven’t any big bankers been prosecuted for their role in the housing crisis that led to the Great Recession? These finance executives took part in “scandals that violate the most basic ethical norms,” as the head of the IMF Christine Lagarde…
Americans’ Freedom of Speech has gone downhill since 9/11
By Peter Van Buren What We’ve Lost Since 9/11 Taking Down the First Amendment in Post-Constitutional America By Peter Van Buren America has entered its third great era: the post-constitutional one. In the first, in the colonial years, a unitary executive, the King of England, ruled without checks and balances, allowing no freedom of speech, […]
Why some Iraqis would rather try their luck under Sunni Extremists
ERBIL, Iraq — Five days after fleeing Mosul in northern Iraq, Ahmed says he’s now more nervous than ever. But it’s not the Al Qaeda-inspired extremists who took over his hometown that have him worried. No, he’s scared of what his own military might…
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