The disclosure of President Barack Obama’s decision to provide secret American aid to Syria’s rebel forces is a game changer. The presidential order, known as an “intelligence finding” in the world of espionage, authorizes the CIA to support armed groups fighting to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s government. But it threatens far more than the regime in Damascus.
Over the decades, Robert Parry has done yeoman service in exposing the vast criminality of the American state. From the foul bloodwork of American power in Central America to the treasonous machinations of the Iran-Contra scheme to the long, corrupt, murderous history of the Bush crime family, Parry has broken many important stories and brought much "lost history" -- the title of his best book -- to light. I have drawn on his work frequently, and learned a great deal from it.
The Penn State sexual abuse scandal was big news for a while, as it should have been. As it should be. Articleman presented here at Dagblog a long, well researched, well presented opinion piece which I felt made some good arguments. Others did as well. Respondents who disagreed with parts of A-man's argument made strong points as well.
TEL AVIV – Mitt Romney dropped by the Western Wall on Sunday, July 29, but one nearby landmark was conspicuously left off his Israel itinerary: the Jerusalem Center of Brigham Young University (BYU) -- or as locals call it with typical directness, "Mormon University."
The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in.
The incident, described by three former senior U.S. intelligence officials, might have been dismissed as just another cloak-and-dagger incident in the world of international espionage, except that the same thing had happened to the previous station chief in Israel.
The first systematic look at the New Yorkpolice department's response to Occupy Wall Street protests paints a damning picture of an out-of-control and aggressive organization that routinely acted beyond its powers.
Will Israelis cast the key votes determining who becomes the next U.S. president?
The campaign, ‘I Vote Israel,’ is trying to persuade as many American Israelis as possible to cast a vote for Israel in the 2012 elections:
“I’m an Israeli now,” you might be thinking… “Voting should be left to real Americans.” But actually, the next president and Congress will have a huge impact on your future and the security of Israel.
Bill Scher wrote an op-ed published in the NY Times and discusses and defends it here with his conservative Republican friend, Matt Lewis. Defenders of Obama's health care plan will like what he says. Detractors, not so much. The health-care bill and its associated politics is an issue I have never taken a stand on but other issues have made my initial default position to be one very skeptical of Obama's handling on any subject. Scher make a case I am glad to have heard.
This Libor-manipulation story grows crazier with each passing minute. We have officially disappeared now down the rabbit-hole of the international financial oligarchy.
The list of defense-related and other gifts the U.S. administration is willing to offer to Israel in exchange for three months of construction freeze in the settlements raises suspicions that someone has gone mad.
China is preparing to launch a program that will create the same complex debt-instruments that triggered the global financial crisis in 2008. The pilot program will allow banks to convert pools of loans into securities via off-balance sheet securities firms called Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) or Structured Investment Vehicles (SIV).
Roberto Unger, who has been a tenured professor at Harvard Law School since 1976 and taught Barack Obama — a student in his “Reinventing Democracy” class — says the president “has failed to advance the progressive cause in the United States.”
Documents in the Freedom of Information Act response (PDF) reference 32 pages of government agency deliberative communications and 37 pages of new communications between Pardon Attorney Ronald Rogers and Pollard’s legal team — all produced since July of 2011.
Iran’s ruling regime pays close attention to American politics in its own calculations about how to negotiate with Washington—and how to game the new diplomatic effort. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his inner circle, for example, believe that President Barack Obama needs to talk to Iran, but they also sense that the U.S. president will be unable to make any concessions because it might endanger his reelection bid.
A heart in love will decipher every squiggle in a letter as a kiss. In the final days of the 2008 campaign and in the opening ones of his administration, Obama and his top legal aides seemed to the eager ears of marijuana legalizers on the West Coast to be opening the door to a new, sensible era.
Why is it so hard for people in the anti-war movement to hold two ideas in their heads at the same time? Can't we want to end the war in Afghanistan and at the same time practice solidarity with its victims?
