National Security State

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – The Obama administration got itself some headlines on Wednesday morning by pledging to send a few hundred more military trainers to Iraq and to create a new base in al-Anbar Province. But there is less to this announcement than meets the eye. The US has some 3000 […]

Bush

Donald Rumsfeld Blames Bush For Iraq Democracy Fail

contributors

Mark Sovel & Elliot Hill | (The Lip TV – Video) | – – “Donald Rumsfeld said George W. Bush was wrong about Iraq in a recent interview with British newspaper The Times where the former Secretary of Defense called the Bush administration’s efforts to push democracy on Iraq “unrealistic”. In the interview, Rumsfeld, a […]

Bill of Rights

Fighting for Privacy, Two Years After Snowden

contributors

By Richard Esguerra | (Electronic Frontier Foundation) | – – Two years ago today, Glenn Greenwald published in the Guardian a single document confirming a key piece of the NSA’s surveillance program, a document that fundamentally transformed EFF’s long-running battle for an end to unchecked government surveillance. To recap briefly, the document was a secret […]

Democracy

Surprise! Corporate Media declining to report on Big Money in Politics

contributors

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer | (Commondreams.org) | – – “Now more than ever before Americans deserve to know about the need for campaign finance reform,’ advocacy groups declare” As the U.S. heads into the 2016 election cycle, where spending by candidates and outside groups is poised to approach $10 billion, groups dedicated to campaign […]

Drone Warfare

The True Cost of America’s Ongoing Wars: Sebastian Junger, Spencer Ackerman et al.

contributors

Michael Moynihan, “The Business of Life” | VICE News Video | — “The AUMF (The “Authorization of the Use of Military Force”) was a bill passed in the immediate wake of 9/11 and authorized the President of the United States to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those who had aided the terrorists responsible […]

Iran

The “Bomb Iran!” Lobby Gears Up for 2016

contributors

By Sina Toossi | ( Foreign Policy in Focus) | – “A tight-knit group of neocon dead-enders is pushing Iran to the forefront of the GOP's foreign policy agenda.” In a recent TV ad, a van snakes its way through an American city. As the driver fiddles with the radio dial, dire warnings about the […]

Government surveillance

Wins and Losses for Liberty and Privacy in USA Freedom Act

contributors

By Cindy Cohn and Mark Jaycox | (Electronic Frontier Foundation) | – The Senate passed the USA Freedom Act today by 67-32, marking the first time in over thirty years that both houses of Congress have approved a bill placing real restrictions and oversight on the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers. The weakening amendments to […]

African-Americans

Going for Broke in Ponzi Scheme America

contributors

Tom Engelhardt | (Tomdispatch.com) | – [Note to TomDispatch Readers: I’ve long had a weakness for commencement addresses, or at least for what they might be rather than what they usually are, which is why, I suppose, I’ve written them relatively regularly myself. Since no actual college or graduating class has ever asked me to give […]

Bill of Rights

Why Rand Paul is right to Kill the So-Called PATRIOT Act: It was never about Terrorism

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has vowed to force the expiration of the so-called PATRIOT Act on Sunday. Paul is right that it is unconstitutional and in this regard he is a better constitutional scholar than Barack Obama, whose stance on this issue is, to say the least, […]