The headlines this week were full of stories from the Muslim world about Muslims attacking the Muslim religious Right, whether the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or the Jama’at-i Islami in Bangladesh. The rise of the religious Right in politics is producing a backlash throughout the region. Part of the backlash comes from secularists of Muslim […]
How the US Decides Drone-kill People when it Doesn’t Know Who they Are (Currier)
Cora Currier writes at ProPublica Earlier this week, we wrote about a significant but often overlooked aspect of the drone wars in Pakistan and Yemen: so-called signature strikes, in which the U.S. kills people whose identities aren’t confirmed. While President Obama and administration officials have framed the drone program as targeting particular members of Al […]
Taking on Creeping Creationism in Public Schools (Moyers Video)
Bill Moyers interviews Zack Kopplin on keeping the teaching of Creationism in public-funded public schools. US students are not making the gains in science and math learning that students in other countries are, which isn’t surprising since their teachers are being mandated by fanatic ignoramuses in state legislatures to tell them that Jesus rode a […]
After Benedict: Religions have to Democratize if they are to Survive
The US television news coverage of Benedict XVI’s last day in office was extremely annoying because it mostly wasn’t good journalism. CNN kept talking about “pageantry.” We “witnessed history,” we were told. I don’t know what that means. We witness history every day. History is the record of the past. Almost no sharp questions were […]
New Light on the CIA Coup in Iran on its 60th Anniversary: Why “Argo” Needs a Prequel (Sternfeld)
Lior Sternfeld writes in a guest column for Informed Comment 2013 marks the sixtieth anniversary to the most atrocious intervention of the US in the Middle East. On August 19, 1953 the CIA conspired with the British MI6 to overthrow the popular and democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq, and to impose instead a […]
How the British Gov’t Stripped Alleged Militants of Citizenship before they were Droned to Death (Woods & Ross)
Chris Woods and Alice K Ross write at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism The government has secretly ramped up a controversial programme that strips people of their British citizenship on national security grounds – two of whom have been subsequently killed by US drone attacks. An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and published […]
Harlem Shake as Protest in Tunis
Hard line Salafi fundamentalists (who are small fringe in Tunis) showed up at a language school in Tunisia’s capital on Wednesday to attempt to stop the filming of a video clip of the Harlem Shake, electronic-music performer Baauer’s internet sensation in the Trap genre. One of the Salafis had on military khakis and carried a […]
Why Scalia is Wrong about Voting as “Racial Entitlement”: Texas’ Long History of Minority Vote Supression (Beckett & Lee)
Lois Beckett and Suevon Lee have updated their earlier article at ProPublica. Although published earlier, it inadvertently serves as a canny intervention in the debate kicked off by Justice Antonin Scalia’s snarky comment that the Voting Rights Act extends ‘racial entitlement.’ Scalia is attempting to erase the history of voter suppression in the South. Oral […]
Hagel Confirmed, but Bloodied by American Nationalists Seeking Wars & World Dominance
The GOP senators have their own foreign policy, and it isn’t the same as that of President Obama or Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. For them, the US is a 900 pound behemoth that can boss the world around with its high-tech military at will. Their foreign policy is to shoot first and ask questions […]
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