There was a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee today on legislation proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein that would make clear that the U.S. government may not indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial, notwithstanding the language in NDAA...
When False Narratives Fade
Most of those in Washington pushing for direct intervention into Syria by, at least, supporting the opposition fighters with weapons and intelligence are still harping on the whole "humanitarian intervention" narrative. Like most of the garbage that comes out of the...
NYT and the Law that Dare Not Speak Its Name
An article today by Charlie Savage in the New York Times looks at President Obama's announcement of "waivers" related to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and its provisions related to the open-ended military detention of suspects. It is noteworthy in two...
Lies & Distortions From the Pentagon’s Afghanistan Press Conference
George Little, Pentagon Press Secretary and Captain John Kirby, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Media Operations spoke to reporters yesterday about the ruckus unleashed in Afghanistan after the U.S. military burned Muslim holy books. Massive protests have...
The Non-Issue: Agonizing, Incremental Israeli Expansion & Occupation
At Mondoweiss, Allison Deger informs us of pending Israeli legislation that would allow Israeli settlers in the West Bank to construct unpaved roads without a permit. Essentially, "settlers would be given a quick and cheap holding tactic, to confiscate Palestinian...
Clinton on Arming Syria’s Opposition Fighters
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a very interesting exchange with Wyatt Andrews of CBS News yesterday. In it, Clinton suggested the opposition fighters in Syria are not a cohesive enough group to justify sending arms and that U.S. intervention on behalf of the...
Facts Are Powerless in the Hands of War Hawks on Iran
I wrote recently about how even the mainstream media is coming around to reporting the consensus within the U.S. intelligence community, that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and has demonstrated no intention of doing so. For example, the New York Times ran a...
Scahill on MSNBC Debating Syria, Yemen, Iran, etc.
Here's a nice, raucous, Sunday morning debate between Jeremy Scahill and Ann-Marie Slaughter on Up with Chris Hayes. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Iran and the High Cost of Lunch
The imposition of ever stricter sanctions on Iran over its civilian nuclear program has already spilled over in a big way against Iran's private economy, though it has largely spared the public sector that it supposedly targets. But we can add another side effect to...
Rick Santorum, Manchurian Candidate. Communism is in His Genes.
Rick Santorum has always seemed a little too good to be true. Michael Ledeen, for one, has fallen right into the trap, in his recent Wall St. Journal piece, “Santorum was right about Iran – When It was Unpopular.” But then one looks at Ledeen’s subtitle, “A...


