Republican Party

By Anthony Elizondo via LiberalAmerica Image via Firebrand Progressives Last week the denial of climate change continued. This time in the form of Kentucky State Sen. Brandon Smith (R). In the continuing debate, or battle if you will, over climate change and new carbon emission regulations, the genius Kentucky Senator stated with complete […]

African-Americans

The Return of Jim Crow in North Carolina

contributors

By Lauren McCauley Rights Groups Call for Halt to 'Worst Since Jim Crow' Voting Law Hundreds of people were turned away outside of a packed courtroom in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on Monday where inside voting rights activists demanded a halt to what they said was the most restrictive voter suppression legislation since the Jim Crow […]

Counter-Terrorism

Not Serious re: Terrorism: GOP House Cut out funding for al-Qaeda, Iraq Records & Research

Juan Cole

Representatives on the Hill talk a good game about going back into Iraq or pursuing a global war on terror, but they aren’t actually very interested in all that. Exhibit A: they’ve applied the same austerity to the Conflict Records Research Center as they did to the working poor and Veterans on food stamps. This […]

Barack Obama

If you read Boing Boing, the NSA considers you a target for deep surveillance

contributors

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 […]

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 […]

Democracy

A Subtle Alchemy: US Finds it easier to Occupy Abroad than to Withdraw

contributors

By Alan McPherson In 2003, former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld infamously foresaw victory in Afghanistan and Iraq as demanding a “long, hard slog” and listed a multitude of unanswered questions. Over a decade later, as President Obama (slowly) fulfills his promise to pull all US troops from Afghanistan, a different set of questions emerges. […]