There are several things that need to be understood regarding Gates’ career at the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, and the Department of Defense.

Tomorrow from noon to 1pm, the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, is hosting a panel about the VC’s own book, A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case.

Corey Robin:

Fair warning: it is a fairly narrow discussion. We were not considering the pros and cons of the boycott or where justice lies in the current Israel-Palestine conflict. We were simply trying to figure out whether and how the boycott violates academic freedom, which has become one of the standard arguments against it.

To get oriented, you might want to read this helpful Q and A from the ASA, which clarifies what the boycott does and does not entail.  

A short film about Sagan and Annie Druyan and the love letter they sent to the stars.

Jay Rosen writes:

Today Pierre Omidyar announced some details about how his new venture in news will be organized.

It would seem the CIA has gone back into their archives, blown the dust off the Phoenix Program, and put it into play again as the “Drone War.” The similarities with the Drone War are readily evident to anyone old enough to know of the Phoenix Program.

Friday, federal judge Clark Waddoups delivered a ruling that essentially decriminalizes polygamy in Utah. It's still illegal to have more than one marriage license, but Waddoups overturned the part of the law that made it a 3rd degree felony to cohabit with someone while legally married to another person.  Attorney for the plaintiffs, the polygamist Brown family of Sister Wives fame, called this a victory for privacy in America. Monday, we're talking about the ruling and what it says about what makes a family. [Audible]

Hillel is one of the rabbis in the Jewish tradition most associated with the spirit of questioning, argument, and debate. Indeed, so intense and multiple were his disagreements with Shammai that a saying emerged from their disputes: “The one law has become two.”

So it seems entire appropriate for the Jewish students of the Swarthmore College Hillel to have adopted the following resolution,

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warns of a "Islamic emirate" in Syria, former US diplomat Ryan Crocker suggests a channel to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Israeli President Shimon Peres says he would be willing to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

A month ago Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, wrote about CIA analysts who threatened to resign over the Obama administration allegations about the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the Syrian government:

Below is the closing argument given by Jeremy Hammond’s Attorney, Sarah Kunstler, in Jeremy’s court case last week:

I have a personal announcement.

I am joining up with the new venture in news that Pierre Omidyar, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill are creating, along with Liliana Segura, Dan Froomkin, Eric Bates and others who are coming on board to give shape to

Actual title: Chomsky’s right: The New York Times’ latest big lie

Never before have I written a column concerning nothing more than a pair of quotation marks. Then again, never until now have I seen the power of punctuation so perniciously deployed.

After the Aug. 21 chemical weapons incident in Syria, a number of senior U.S. intelligence analysts disagreed with the Obama administration’s rush to judgment blaming the Syrian government, but their dissent on this question of war or peace was concealed from the American people.

The negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program held in Geneva, Nov. 7–9, made unprecedented progress toward an agreement. US Secretary of State John Kerry announced at the conclusion of the talks, “We came to Geneva to narrow the differences, and I can tell you without any reservations, we made significant progress.

Did the Obama Administration ever spy on Mitt Romney during the recent presidential contest? Alex Tabarrok, who raised the question at the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution, acknowledges that it is provocative. Until recently, he would've regarded it as a "loony" question, he writes, and he doesn't think that President Obama ordered the NSA to spy on Romney for political gain.

Back in 2005, a member organization of the Chamber of Commerce in Owensboro, Kentucky asked the Chamber if it could stop paying dues to the Chamber yet still get the benefits. This is what the Chamber said: