The report saying that security was inadequate at the compound that the US had adopted as its ad hoc consulate in Benghazi, Libya, dominates today’s headlines. That conclusion is obvious. The “consulate” was just a private residence taken over for this purpose by the US in the city. It was not constructed to be a […]
ALEC, NRA Lobby the American Deep State on Behalf of Semi-Automatic Weapons Sales (Democracy Now)
Democracy Now! reports on how the gun lobby, the NRA, is outspending the gun control advocates by 10 to 1 on Capitol Hill. And Lisa Graves explains that ALEC isn’t just trying to destroy unions or spread disinformation about climate change, it is also behind legislation to keep military weapons in civilian hands. This is […]
TSA Commission will Look at Health Effects of Backscatter X-Ray Scanners (Grabell)
Michael Grabell writes at ProPublica Following months of congressional pressure, the Transportation Security Administration has agreed to contract with the National Academy of Sciences to study the health effects of the agency’s X-ray body scanners. But it is unclear if the academy will conduct its own tests of the scanners or merely review previous studies. […]
Deaths by Firearms across the World – America among the Worst
and from this site:
American Torture, America’s Soul (van Buren)
Peter van Buren writes at Tomdispatch.com An All-American Nightmare Why Zero Dark Thirty Won’t Settle the Torture Question or Purge Torture From the American System If you look backward you see a nightmare. If you look forward you become the nightmare. There’s one particular nightmare that Americans need to face: in the first decade of […]
Top Ten Most Popular Informed Comment Postings, 2012
It has been an incredible year, with the Republican presidential primary, the mass shootings in Aurora, Wisconsin and at Newtown, Mass.; the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya; and the fall presidential campaign. Informed Comment was there at every step of the way. These are the pieces that went viral in the past […]
7 Ways States have Undermined Gun Control Laws (Lee)
Suevon Lee writes at ProPublica: Friday’s deadly rampage at a Connecticut elementary school marked the 13th mass shooting in the United States this year. Among the 11 deadliest shootings in U.S. history, more than half took place in the last five years. During the same period, states have often relaxed their gun laws, making it […]
As Jews, with our own Painful History of Oppression… [South African Jewish Statement on Palestinians]
I got this by email and thought it worth sharing. It further makes the point, signalled by Peter Beinart and others, that the Likud, Israel Beitenu and Shas and similar parties in Israel and their policies toward the Palestinians are morally objectionable to many of the world’s Jews. Dear Friends and Comrades, In the spirit […]
How America is Filling up itself and the World With Guns
The American obsession with guns and violence is not unique, but it is distinctive. The US ranks 12th in the world for rate of firearm-related deaths. El Salvador, Colombia, Swaziland, Brazil, South Africa, the Philippines and some others are worse. But that is the company the US is in– not, say, relatively peaceful places like […]
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