The Syrian regime bombed its own people again on Thursday, this time sending fighter jets to bombard the old district of Deraa in the south. The bombings killed 18 persons. It wasn’t the first time the regime has deployed aerial bombardment against civilian cities, but it was the first such strike at Deraa (the place […]
Hagel with a Smear or, the Senate Republicans as HS Mean Girls (Jon Stewart’s Daily Show)
Jon Stewart at the Daily Show skewers Senate Republicans, especially Lindsey Graham and John McCain for holding up the confirmation of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense over petty partisan politics. He points to their hypocrisy in having been uninterested in an investigation of the Iraq War fiasco but their odd conspiracy theories on the […]
What Future for the Women’s Movement? (Rosen)
Ruth Rosen writes at Tomdispatch.com: In 1968, the Phillip Morris Company launched a memorable campaign to sell Virginia Slims, a new brand of cigarettes targeting women, itself a new phenomenon. It had a brand-new slogan: “You’ve come a long way, baby.” The company plastered it on billboards nationwide and put it in TV ads that featured […]
Tunisian Democracy Challenged as Prime Minister Resigns
The resignation of Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali in Tunisia has created a political crisis that the elected government will have to deal with. Jebali is a politician of the Muslim religious right, from the Ennahda Party, and had led an Ennahda-dominated cabinet in coalition with two smaller secular parties, Moncef Marzouki’s social democratic Congress for […]
WaPo says Gasoline Price Increase Mysterious, Ignores US blockade of Iran Oil!
The Washington Post is surprised by the ‘mysterious’ high cost of gasoline in the US but does not mention in this article that the US government, at the insistence of the Israel lobbies, reduced Iran’s petroleum exports by 40% in 2012 by strong-arming countries to leave it in the ground and not import it on […]
Surprise! Talking to Iran just Might Work this Time (Jahanpour)
Farhang Jahanpour* writes at the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research Room for optimism in Iran and the P5-plus-1 talks Iran and the P5-plus-1, which includes the United States, will meet again on 26 February in Kazakhstan. This is the first time that the two sides will meet in an atmosphere of continuing mutual […]
Palestinian child in the Cross-hairs (Israeli soldier photo on Instagram)
An Israeli soldier posted on Instagram a picture of a Palestinian child in the crosshairs. The soldier said that he found the picture on the internet. Palestinians said it exemplified the brutality of the occupation regime. Given right wing Israeli discourse, as with Avigdor Lieberman, of the ‘demographic threat’ of Palestinians to Israel’s continuance as […]
Minimum Wage: Beggaring Workers does not Help Employment (Infographics)
There is no place in the United States where a minimum wage worker working 40 hours a week can afford rent on a two-bedroom apartment. h/t The Century Foundation. Where the state’s minimum wage is lower than that of the Federal government, or where there is no minimum wage, workers get the Federal minimum wage. […]
Why there Were no CIA Torture Black Sites in Latin America (Grandin)
Greg Grandin writes at Tomdispatch.com: The map tells the story. To illustrate a damning new report, “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detentions and Extraordinary Rendition,” recently published by the Open Society Institute, the Washington Post put together an equally damning graphic: it’s soaked in red, as if with blood, showing that in the years after 9/11, […]