US politics

President Obama on funnyordie.com plugging the Affordable Health Care Act: Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: President Barack Obama from President Barack Obama —– Related video: The Young Turks: “Anger Over Obama Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis” )

Domestic Surveillance

When it is Feinstein being Spied on, Suddenly she Squawks

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) took to the senate floor on Tuesday to denounce the Central Intelligence Agency for spying on her staff as it undertook an investigation into the CIA torture program conducted under the Bush administration. The corporate media in the US refer to it as an “interrogation” program, often playing […]

Featured

Bill O’Reilly says Muslims will Diss Hillary; but 8 Muslim Countries Chose Female Leaders

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Bill O’Reilly maintains that one downside of having a woman president is that Muslims won’t respect her. For Mr. O’Reilly’s information, here are the women leaders of Muslim-majority countries, most of them freely elected by Muslim publics and all of them respected by the latter: Tansu Çiller, elected prime minister of Turkey, […]

CIA

CIA: Only Spied On Senate Because They Took Documents Proving We Lied

Juan Cole

Earlier this week, we wrote about the accusations that the CIA was spying on Senate staffers on the Senate Intelligence Committee as they were working on a massive $40 million 6,300 pages report condemning the CIA’s torture program. The DOJ is apparently…

military

The Tea Party Congress Slashed Childrens’ Food Stamps but secretly Protected Pentagon Budget

contributors

(By Mattea Kramer) Washington is pushing the panic button, claiming austerity is hollowing out our armed forces and our national security is at risk. That was the message Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel delivered last week when he announced that the Army would shrink to levels not seen since before World War II. Headlines about […]

Economy

The Tea Party Just Turned Five — Is it Winning its War on Workers and Minorities?

Juan Cole

Some date the advent of the tea party to 2007, when then-presidential candidate Ron Paul held a “tax day tea party” fundraiser to fill his campaign coffers. But the broader movement began five years ago last week — shortly after Barack Obama was…

CIA

Rachel Maddow: CIA spying on Congress ‘is death of the Republic stuff’

Juan Cole

A dispute between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Senate Intelligence Committee may have spilled into dangerous territory, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said on Wednesday, following a New York Times report that agency operatives gained access…

Barack Obama

Least Transparent Administration Ever: A New Front in Obama’s War on Whistleblowers

contributors

(By Peter Van Buren) The Obama administration has just opened a new front in its ongoing war on whistleblowers. It’s taking its case against one man, former Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Air Marshal Robert MacLean, all the way to the Supreme Court. So hold on, because we’re going back down the rabbit hole with the Most […]

Barack Obama

McCain’s Mind-Boggling Hypocrisy on Crimea at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Conference

Juan Cole

John Hickman, author of Selling Guantanamo, writes in a guest column for Informed Comment That the Crimean Crisis would be exploited by Republican Congressional leaders to criticize President Obama was inevitable. Politics hasn’t stopped at the water’s edge in the United States for a very long time. What wasn’t inevitable was the shamelessness of Senator […]