The Surveillance State Is ‘A Gigantic Beast’ That Values Self-Preservation, Not National Security
October 29, 2013
Jay Stanley over at the ACLU blog posts an illustrative table that gets to the heart of the NSA controversies these days. As he makes note, when defenders of the NSA’s surveillance state are confronted with allegations of unlawfulness, overreach, or scandal as a result of Edward Snowden’s leaks, they like to emphasize their deep […]
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One Area the NSA And I Can Agree: Obama Is A Cowardly, If Shrewd, Politician
October 29, 2013
The actual details of the NSA’s expansive surveillance programs are infuriating enough on their own. Civil libertarians and ordinary Americans are and should be angry at the NSA’s disrespect for the law, the Fourth Amendment, and privacy rights in general. It’s interesting to juxtapose this anger and frustration felt throughout the population with the anger […]
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Cheney’s Delusional Answer to ‘What Did We Get Out of Iraq?’
October 29, 2013
The U.S. benefit from the war in Iraq was that we eliminated the potential for al-Qaeda to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein, according to Dick Cheney…weapons he did not have to begin with. “…That was the threat after 9/11 and when we took down Saddam Hussein we eliminated Iraq as […]
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Congressional Briefing on Drones: Watch the Video
October 29, 2013
Rafiq ur Rahman – a teacher at a primary school in North Waziristan, Pakistan – appeared at a briefing called by Representative Alan Grayson (FL-09), along with his children Nabila and Zubair, who were both injured in a drone attack in October 2012, Robert Greenwald, president of Brave New Foundation, and Jennifer Gibson, staff attorney […]
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That’s Embarrassing…America, Her Allies, and Global Executions
October 28, 2013
In U.S. foreign policy, there are bogeymen and allies. Bogeymen are evil tyrants who oppose freedom. Allies are stable international partners. What one realizes (once they stop watching cable news) is that whether the U.S. considers you a bogeyman or an ally is entirely independent of how those regimes treat their own people. Here’s a […]
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Nice Try, But Ron Paul’s Foreign Policy Views Haven’t Changed
October 28, 2013
David Adesnik over at the hawkish conservative think tank AEI asks, “why has the isolationism of Ron Paul and his admirers taken such a sharp turn toward amoral realism?” I cannot, for the life of me, yet again explain to a right wing hawk the difference between isolationism and non-interventionism, so we’ll leave that to the side. […]
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NSA Chief is Frustrated By Journalism
October 28, 2013
NSA chief General Keith Alexander’s comments last week that he wants to “make it stop,” where “it” is the journalism resulting from Edward Snowden’s leaks, were widely reported and commented on. Here is the actual video clip of him saying it. Alexander is very frustrated, it seems, that journalism is protected unequivocally by the First […]
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Battle of the Titans: China Haters versus Israel Firsters, as John V. Walsh sees it.
October 27, 2013
Today the NYT runs a front page article headlined “(Susan) Rice Offers A More Modest Strategy for the Middle East.” It should be headlined “Battle of the Titans: Israel Firsters versus China Haters.” It tells of a policy review of the U.S. Empire’s bloody strategy in the Middle East. But it goes well beyond that. […]
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Photos from today’s Stop Watching Us Rally in DC
October 26, 2013
Hundreds of folks turned out today in DC to protest NSA surveillance. The sign makers outdid themselves for this worthy cause — [[ on Twitter – @jimbovard ]] Marching from Union Station to the base of Capitol Hill… Plenty of “Thank You Snowden” signs in today’s crowd… Kelley Vlahos, the only journalist […]
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Daily Show: Everybody Hates U.S.
October 25, 2013
Let’s face it, with rising public criticism of the Obama administration’s drone war, embarrassing political posturing and shutdown politics on the domestic side, and unprecedented worldwide outrage over NSA spying, the U.S. government has seen better days (something worthy of celebration, in my opinion). Jon Stewart sums it up well:
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