August 2012
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“According to the most recent SIGIR report, the Department of State has 1,235...”
– Peter Van Buren
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Bureau of Land Management’s Divided Mission | NYT →
In the nine years that [Bill] Stringer has been the top [Bureau of Land Management] official in Vernal, [Utah], the field office has approved an average of 555 new oil and gas wells a year, nearly three times the number in the previous decade. Agency records show that his office, where employees often shuttle between business and government, rarely issues drilling-related fines for...
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US Drone Pilot: 'I Feel No Emotional Attachment' →
In a profile piece in the New York Times on Monday, interviews with military operators of US drones operating in the skies over Afghanistan and Pakistan reveal a class of pilots who remotely control the targeted killings of human beings thousands of miles away.
“I see mothers with children, I see fathers with children, I see fathers with mothers, I see kids playing soccer,” says Colonel...
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Inspector General: State Department Wasted $200... →
U.S. auditors have concluded that more than $200 million was wasted by the State Department on a training program for Iraqi police that Baghdad says is neither needed nor wanted.
The Police Development Program— which was drawn up to be the single largest State Department program in the world — was envisioned as a five-year, multibillion-dollar push to train security forces after the U.S....
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“A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of advertisement and...”
– Søren Kierkegaard, Present Age (via humanformat)
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“You may not know the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association, but its members...”
– Michele Simon: Fighting GMO Labeling in California Is Food Lobby’s “Highest Priority”
Just like i called it. They will fight this to the bitter end. And if by some bizarre chance the people win - they will be shocked here in the USA to see how many of their foods contain GMO. SHOCKED.
(via...
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“Amidst ongoing efforts to tie Iran to international terrorism, the U.S.-led...”
– Iran Diplomacy Runs into Sanctions-Happy US Congress
Come on! There’s only a maximum of six degrees of separation between these things, right? You can gin up something. Just keep the sanctions up and you’ll “tie Iran to international terrorism” somehow.
Wait, if the MeK...
July 2012
Chicago: Aurora all the time | Murtaza Hussain →
While the Colorado shooting captured the attention of the entire country, in the days immediately afterward Chicago was rocked by a wave of shootings that barely registered in the national consciousness. Any given night may see reports of multiple casualties from violence in the city, and the week directly after the Colorado massacre was no different. On June 24, six people were shot in a single...
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New Iran sanctions hit banks in China, Iraq | CNN →
President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced new U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s oil industry as well as banks in China and Iraq, warning that Tehran faces “growing consequences” for refusing to answer international questions about its nuclear program.
Obama said China’s Bank of Kunlun and the Elaf Islamic Bank in Iraq “facilitated transactions worth millions of...
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“Sadly, we have an entire profession — the public relations profession — whose...”
– Matt Bruenig
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Romney on Iran is just like Obama | Blake... →
… Noting that the United States should “do everything we can” to prevent the Islamic republic from getting a nuclear capability, [Romney advisor Dan] Senor then went further.
“And if Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision,” he said.
That would represent a real departure from the last two...
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The Associated Press: Bombs kill 21, underlining... →
BAGHDAD (AP) — A double bombing struck at an upscale neighborhood Iraq’s capital Tuesday, killing at least 21 even though police stopped three attackers storming a counterterror unit, as the government strained to control al-Qaida-based chaos gripping the country.
The bloody explosions came on the same day that Iraq’s government discussed security issues with Iran, a measure of...
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“One does not need to delve too deeply into the idea of discourse ethics to...”
– Matt Bruenig, The American Dream and other attacks on deliberative democracy
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Dear Mr. Romney: Palestinians are Poor Because You... →
Mitt Romney, a privileged white man worth a quarter of a billion dollars who has sheltered his money from taxes in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, and who never misses a square meal, stooped to a new obscene low in blaming the victim on Monday by slamming the Palestinians for not being richer. Palestinian politician Saeb Erekat characterized Romney’s remarks as “racist,” but even...
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“House and Senate leaders have reached a deal to keep federal agencies running...”
– Government funding deal reached
Our courageous congresscritters kick the “Bush Tax Cut” can past the election:
If Congress agrees to pass a continuing resolution, it would eliminate one looming issue in the pile of unfinished business in the “fiscal cliff” facing lawmakers, including...
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Extremism normalized | Glenn Greenwald →
Remember when, in the wake of the 9/11 attack, the Patriot Act was controversial, held up as the symbolic face of Bush/Cheney radicalism and widely lamented as a threat to core American liberties and restraints on federal surveillance and detention powers? Yet now, the Patriot Act is quietly renewed every four years by overwhelming majorities in both parties (despite substantial evidence of...
“The U.S. [economic] situation … is much like that of Britain under Labour...”
– Michael Hudson
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Dianne Feinstein Undermines John Cornyn’s Effort... →
The Senate Intelligence Committee just passed the language that–DiFi promised–would address the issue [of oversight for Obama’s “Kill List” program]. And it still leaves the Administration leeway to do what it has been doing for two years–withholding the actual memo from the committees that oversee it.
That’s because the legislation passed as part of the Intelligence...
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The Weaponization of Economic Theory (2) | Michael... →
The term “neoliberalism” misrepresents and even inverts the classical liberal idea of free markets. It is a weaponization of economic theory, kidnapping the original liberal ethic that sought to defend against special privilege and unearned income. To classical economists, a free market meant one free of unearned income, defined as land rent, natural resource rent, monopoly rent and...
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“The February 20th Movement was undoubtedly a formidable force in opposition to...”
– Dissent in Morocco: Not All for One via Jadaliyya
My latest piece.
(via sharquaouia)
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The Official Government Logo For Drone Attacks →
Uh…
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The Weaponization of Economic Theory (1) | Michael... →
What can Europe learn from the United States?
First, the United States – like Canada, England and China – have central banks that do what central banks outside of Europe were created to do: finance the budget deficit directly.
I have found that it is hard to explain to continental Europe just how different the English-speaking countries are in this respect. There is a prejudice here that...
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“When it was Bush, it was much easier to get [legislators] to demand public...”
– Chris Anders, legislative counsel for the ACLU, Congress Wants to See Obama’s “License to Kill”
BREAKING NEWS
thepoliticalfreakshow:
India’s northern and eastern power grids have failed, leaving about half the country without power, officials say - @AP
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Congress Wants to See Obama's "License to Kill" |... →
“More oversight, though, is not enough, [Chris Anders, legislative counsel for the ACLU] says—regular Americans should know what kind of conduct could lead to them being blown up by a deadly flying robot.”
Congress is finally standing up to President Barack Obama on targeted killing. Almost a year after three American citizens were killed in US drone strikes, legislators are pushing...
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jonprins replied to your link: Romney Aide Curses At Press in Poland
Any idea where in warsaw they were when this happened?
Near Poland’s “tomb of the unknown soldier” according to the piece…
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Yemen: Sanaa, battle in front of interior... →
(AGI) Sanaa - Eight people have been killed in the battle between government forces and tribal militia in front of the Yemen interior ministry in Sanaa. Tribal leaders faithful to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh tried to assault the seat of the interior ministry. Medical sources have confirmed the above. According to medical sources there are a number of injured people…
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nickturse:
“Imagine for a moment that almost once a week for the last six months somebody somewhere in this country had burst, well-armed, into a movie theater showing a superhero film and fired into the audience. That would get your attention, wouldn’t it? James Holmes times 21? It would dominate the news. We would certainly be consulting experts, trying to make sense of the pattern, groping...
Romney Aide Curses At Press in Poland →
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“The vital human resource of water is being privatized and marketed all over the...”
– Privatization: The Big Joke That Isn’t Funny
“‘Public good’ and ‘profit motive’ don’t mix. It’s a cruel joke to put them...”
– Paul Buchheit | Privatization: The Big Joke That Isn’t Funny
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New low for Politico | Glenn Greenwald →
First the garbage from Mr. Newt (Grima) Gingrich (brace yourself, this is bile):
The underlying driving force behind this desperate desire to stop unpleasant questions is the elite’s fear that an honest discussion of radical Islamism will spin out of control. They fear if Americans fully understood how serious radical Islamists are, they would demand a more confrontational strategy.
Former...
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the whole presidency. That face.
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“…Every president I worked for, at some point in his presidency, would get so...”
– Robert Gates in a July 2000 interview
What ‘unshakeable commitment’ to Israel really means | Stephen M. Walt
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“In addition to Franco’s work with RTA, his administration has also allowed...”
– Paraguay’s Bitter Harvest: Monsanto and Rio Tinto Reap Benefits From Coup Government
So, I’ll ask the question, did they also invest in the coup?
(via stopkillingourworld)
All signs point to yes.
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For Greece there is an alternative to austerity –... →
[If Greece exits the EU, the] period of transition [to a new currency] will cause enormous economic disruption and pain, but once the new currency is in place, Greece’s economy can return to a healthy growth path. In the case of Argentina, another country that defaulted and broke the supposedly unbreakable tie of its currency with the dollar, the transition period was less than six months. It...
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Bahrain Protests Intensify Amid Allegations of... →
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azspot:
“Most intelligent people are aware that natural resources are finite, including the environment’s ability to absorb the wastes or pollution from productive activities (see for example, Jared Diamond, Collapse, 2005). But few economists are aware, because economists assume that man-made capital is a perfect substitute for nature’s capital. This assumption implies that there are no finite...
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Déjà Vu All Over Again: Iraq’s Escalating... →
At first glance, the current Iraqi political crisis looks like just one more predictable bump in the long road from dictatorship to democracy. Every two years or so, the political class experiences a prolonged stalemate; just as regularly, it is overcome. So, one might think, it will be this time around. But look closer and the picture changes. The tug of war over Prime Minister Nouri...
