US politics

By Cory Doctorow via Boing Boing In a shocking story on the German site Tagesschau (Google translate), Lena Kampf, Jacob Appelbaum and John Goetz report on the rules used by the NSA to decide who is a “target” for surveillance. Since the start of the Snowden story in 2013, the NSA has stressed that while […]

Barack Obama

As Hundreds of US Troops are Sent to Iraq, Fears of Mission Creep

contributors

By Lauren McCauley Lawmakers and anti-war groups raise flags about additional troop deployments and calls for executive "flexibility" As the number of American troops sent to Iraq nearly doubled on Monday and the White House continues to flex its executive privilege to make unilateral military decisions, citizens and lawmakers alike are raising concerns and objections […]

Dissent

Not War on Poverty but War on the Poor: Washington’s Real Foreign Policy Aims

Juan Cole

By Noam Chomsky via Tomdispatch The question of how foreign policy is determined is a crucial one in world affairs. In these comments, I can only provide a few hints as to how I think the subject can be productively explored, keeping to the United States for several reasons. First, the U.S. is unmatched in […]

Bill of Rights

Police: No Searching Journalists’ Cellphones w/out a Warrant, Either (SCOTUS Decision)

contributors

By Josh Stearns According to the Supreme Court, police need a warrant to search the cellphones of people they arrest. The unanimous decision, which was handed down this week, is being heralded as a major victory for privacy rights and a landmark case with implications far beyond cellphones. The New York Times reports, “The ruling […]

Bill of Rights

SCOTUS: Corporate “Persons” have Religions, can Deny You Birth Control Coverage

contributors

By Mindy Fischer On Monday the Supreme Court handed down its ruling on the Hobby Lobby case. They ruled in a 5-4 decision that corporations who have religious objections to birth control no longer have to pay for insurance coverage of those contraceptives, as mandated under Obamacare. This decision actually marks the first time that […]

Bush

Blackwater: Nice State Dept. you have here, shame if Anything happened to It

contributors

State Department official documented in memo that mercenary threatened him just weeks before Nisour Square massacre By Jon Queally As the trial continues against Blackwater mercenaries accused of a bloody massacre that took place in Iraq in 2007 and left seventeen civilians dead, new documents reveal that just weeks prior to that incident a State […]

Barack Obama

Katrina to arch-Neocon Bill Kristol: Be Accountable, Enlist in the Iraqi Army

contributors

“Katrina vanden Heuvel [editor of The Nation] and Bill Kristol tussled over Iraq on ABC’s This Week today when vanden Heuvel lumped in Kristol with the Iraq “architects of catastrophe” and suggested he enlist in the Iraqi army if he’s so serious about fixing the region. Vanden Heuvel said there should be some accountability for […]

Bush

Hyenas vs. Rhinos: Who could the NYT get to write an Op-ed on Iraq? Hmm…

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan did a quick study and found that critics of the paper of record over its preference for Iraq War hawks as sources and commentators in the past two weeks are justified in their feeling that Iraq War critics have been slighted. This lack of balance […]

Banking

UN to Detroit: Denial of Water to Thousands 'Violates Human Rights'

contributors

By Sarah Lazare Experts slam city's aggressive drive to disconnect water from residents who are unable to pay United Nations experts declared Wednesday that the city of Detroit's shut-off of water to thousands of residents who are unable to pay their bills "constitutes a violation of the human right to water" and may be discriminatory […]