Stygian Pits and Child Forfeiture
April 23, 2015
The eloquent Will Grigg in an outstanding interview with Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams, discussing his article Protecting the Vicious, Punishing the Virtuous: Marijuana Prohibition and Idaho’s Prison-Industrial Complex. My favorite coinages from the interview: Will referring to the CCA-run Idaho State Correctional Center as a “Stygian pit of abuse and despair” and Ron referring to CPS’s abduction of marijuana activist […]
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To Send a Message, Judge Sentences David Petraeus to 75% of One Speaking Fee
April 23, 2015
Former CIA Director David Petraeus just got sentenced to two years of probation for leaking highly sensitive information to his mistress and then lying to the FBI about it. Petraeus had asked to enter the court room via a backdoor, so he would not be photographed, but he was forced to enter the courthouse in […]
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Israel Junkets Pump Disinformation Into Congress
April 23, 2015
An American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF) briefing book (PDF) from a December 2014 congressional staff junket to Israel may be the first piece of “educational” information ever to leak out of the captive AIPAC shell organization to the public. AIEF was incorporated in 1988 to promote a more “balanced and realistic” understanding of American interests […]
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DOJ Claims Grossly Disparate Treatment Will ‘Promote Respect for the Law’
April 21, 2015
On Thursday, David Petraeus will be sentenced in North Carolina. If all goes as his lawyers and the government have arranged, he will get a year of probation for leaking some of this country’s most sensitive secrets to his mistress. On May 11 (the date has been postponed from this week), Jeffrey Sterling will be […]
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Grave of the Fireflies
April 20, 2015
Take this inoculation against warmongering. Think of Madeline Albright’s “price was worth it” quote, the US blockade of Iran, and the Israeli blockade of Gaza, then watch the autobiography-based Studio Ghibli anime Grave of the Fireflies in which a 5 year old girl slowly dies of malnutrition after her mother is napalmed to death by Curtis […]
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Official Leaks: ‘These Senior People Do Whatever They Want’
April 20, 2015
When asked whether he would have supported working with the producers of Zero Dark Thirty, Department of Defense’s Director of Entertainment Media said he would not have recommended working with screenwriter Mark Boal and director Katherine Bigelow, because he was not happy with the way their movie Hurt Locker had presented the military. But he […]
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Will the US Get Serious Now About Eliminating Its Own Nukes?
April 18, 2015
A few years ago, a plucky contestant on Dancing with the Stars popularized a terrific phrase when asked about her daring routine late in the contest. It was time, she quipped, for her to “go big or go home.” We’d like to see that can-do attitude manifested at the upcoming UN review conference on the […]
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The Boston Marathon Two Years Later – A Policeman’s Delight
April 15, 2015
With the second anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing approaching, NPR is running a series called “The Road Ahead”. In its daily segments, NPR examines how everyday lives have been affected by the horrific event two years ago. One unfortunate but seemingly inevitable part of that road entails law enforcement’s stepped-up abuse of its citizens. […]
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The Neocons: First in War, Last in Peace
April 14, 2015
I was hired in 1972 by the American Jewish Committee to serve as editor of a new magazine I named Present Tense. My vague assignment was to be more “Jewish” than the well-established and influential Commentary magazine, which, while also parented by the AJC, had shifted its primary attention to more worldly interests under Norman […]
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Biden Wrongly Claims ISIS War Unified Iraq
April 9, 2015
Suggesting he neither understands what happened to Iraq in 2014 or what is happening in Iraq right now, Vice President Joe Biden claimed the ISIS war is going very well, and that it had ultimately been a net positive that “unified” the country against a common enemy. The claim was made in spite of increasingly […]
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