Alice K. Ross writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism: A report by a UN expert urges the US to ‘release its own data on the level of civilian casualties’ caused by drone strikes and attacks the lack of transparency surrounding CIA and US special forces drone operations. Ben Emmerson, a British barrister and UN […]
Top 10 Ways Ted Cruz & the Tea Party Weakened America with Shutdown
1. The Cruz/Tea Party shut down of the US government cost the US economy $24 billion 2. As a result of the shutdown, fourth quarter growth will be only 2.4% instead of the expected 3% 3. 250,000 jobs will likely have been lost 4. Communist China took advantage of the crisis to push for a […]
The American Genocide Against Iraq: 4% of Population Dead as result of US sanctions, wars
A new household survey of Iraqis has projected the civilian death toll from the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq at roughly 450,000. Passive information-gathering techniques like logging deaths in the Western press have produced estimates closer to 150,000, but such techniques have been proven to miss a lot of people. (To my knowledge […]
Clown Capitol (Jamiol Cartoon)
courtesy Jamiol’s World
Top Ten Ways the US and Iran could avoid a Catastrophic War
On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, presented his government’s proposals for ending the international stand-off over Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Iran maintains that the program is for the production of fuel for the country’s nuclear reactors. The US, Western Europe, Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council oil monarchies are convinced that Iran is […]
Celebrating Dirty Gas & Oil is Our Planet’s Funeral (Klare)
Michael T. Klare writes at Tomdispatch.com For years, energy analysts had been anticipating an imminent decline in global oil supplies. Suddenly, they’re singing a new song: Fossil fuels growing scarce? Don’t even think about it! The news couldn’t be better: fossil fuels will become ever more abundant. And all that talk about climate change? Don’t […]
Now the NSA has your Little Black Book
Before the internet, we used to keep the names and telephone numbers of our friends and acquaintances in a little address book. Young people who dated a lot had a ‘little black book’ with telephone numbers of past and potential dinner partners. Nowadays the equivalent is an iPhone address list, often kept in the cloud, […]
Rep. Van Hollen on House Rule Change on Shutdown Vote: “Democracy has been Suspended!”
Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) went viral in a YouTube video he released of his parliamentary inquiries on a change in House rules that forbade individual members to initiate a motion to open the Federal government. Only the Speaker of the House can now do so, in a highly undemocratic step. Here is the Van […]
Arms Industries have Washington lift Restrictions on Weapons Exports (Currier)
Cora Currier writes for ProPublica The United States is loosening controls over military exports, in a shift that former U.S. officials and human rights advocates say could increase the flow of American-made military parts to the world’s conflicts and make it harder to enforce arms sanctions. Come tomorrow, thousands of parts of military aircraft, such […]