Americans Take Anti-Drone Stance Directly to Pakistan
There are questions our friends and relatives are asking as we embark on a delegation to Pakistan to protest the drone attacks that have killed so many innocent Pakistanis over the past 8 years.
Gloomy Prognosis: US Has Set Fuse for Prolonged Afghan Civil War
Adding to the pessimism is a just-released report by one of the most astute observers of the U.S. war, Gilles Dorronsoro, an Afghanistan expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), who, among other things, predicts that the regime in Kabul “will most probably collapse in a few years” given current trends.
100 Million Dead, Trillion of Dollars Lost from Climate Change by 2030, Estimates Study
A shocking new analysis warns that if the danger of climate change continues to be ignored by the world's governments, the encroaching disaster could claim the lives of 100 million people in the next two decades and lost economic prosperity to in world economies would be measured in the trillions of dollars.
Who Was the Most Religious President of All Time?
Insane Clown Posse Actually, Legitimately, Amazingly is Suing the FBI
Last October, the FBI's annual National Gang Threat Assessment report classified Juggalos, ICP's terrifically loyal fanbase best known for painting their faces like angry harlequins and spraying one another with sticky cola, "a criminal organization formed on the street" on par with the MS-13, Latin Kings, and the Aryan Brotherhood.
USA to Continue Wars As Long As Dollar Remains Reserve Currency
Pravda.Ru interviewed Paul Craig Roberts, an American economist, who served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and became a co-founder of Reaganomics - the economic policies promoted by the U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. We asked Mr. Roberts to share his views about the current state of affairs inside and outside the United States.
Amnesty et al. v. Clapper: FISA Amendment Act Challenge
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), enacted by Congress after the abuses of the 1960s and 70s, regulates the government’s conduct of intelligence surveillance inside the United States. It generally requires the government to seek warrants before monitoring Americans’ communications. In 2001, however, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to launch a warrantless wiretapping program, and in 2008 Congress ratified and expanded that program, giving the NSA almost unchecked power to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and emails.
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/amnesty-et-al-v-clapper
Drones Subject to GPS Spoofing, Privacy ‘Abuses,’ GAO Report Warns
The Government Accountability Office is warning Congress that its push for drones to become commonplace in U.S. airspace fails to take into account concerns surrounding privacy, security and even GPS jamming and spoofing.
The paradoxes of theological gullibility
Epicenter of the battle over public education
New York City teacher Peter Lamphere looks at the myths and realities surrounding a key issue in the Chicago teachers' strike--evaluations based on student testing.
A Yom Kippur Reflection: The Conflict Between Coexistence and the Destruction of Human Life
Let us acknowledge that ever since the Ground Zero Mosque controversy of 2010 and continuing until today, it has been open season on Muslims in this country. There is no conflict between Islam and the West. There is only conflict between those who embrace coexistence and those who seek to destroy human life.
How To Measure for a President
Entry 1: Suppose the presidential campaign was settled by a job interview. Here’s what we should look for.
America: A Corporate Police State?
Accommodation and cooperation occurs when the police informally rely on private security personnel to perform tasks they prefer not to do; in return, the public police provides needed services such as responding expeditiously to calls for assistance from the private security personnel. For example, private security companies are providing security and shelters for the homeless in New York City.
The Power of the Mormon Church Over Mitt Romney
The election of Mitt Romney as president of the United States would represent the culmination of a century-and-a-half quest by the Mormon Church for national political power in preparation for the Kingdom of God.
Intimidation, Assault, false arrest, NYPD's attack on the 4th estate during the weekend of S-17
The rights of journalists' have, for the course of this country's history, been one of the most sacred institutions. Even when everything else had gone wrong we were free to talk about, photograph, or video it. We may have been beaten and abused in a lot of ways; however, we did our jobs without fear of arrest, so long as we didn't legitimately break the law.
Homelessness: the Destruction of Lives
Research by the National Housing Federation has found that between January and March 2012 there were 3,960 families nationwide in the UK living in B&B accommodation, a jump of 44% over the same period in 2011. It is likely that these figures will rise even further as the scale of cuts and austerity bite deeper.
Obama Uses UN Speech To Threaten War Against Iran
The US president delivered an unmistakable threat that the US is preparing to launch yet another war of aggression, this time against Iran, with potentially far bloodier consequences than those it has carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade.
Money Makes The World Go Round? Dollar Hegemony: In The Empire Of The Damned
Once the world no longer accepts the dollar as world reserve currency, however, the US will no longer be able to continue to pay its way or to fund its wars by relying on a relatively valueless paper currency.
NYPD Footage of Zuccotti Park Raid Leaked
he presence of NYPD TARU (Technical Assistance Response Unit) officers at Occupy protests has long been a source of contention among occupiers and legal observers. The precise role and remit of the camera-wielding officers is ill-defined; the end product of their constant filming usually goes unseen by those featured in it.
New Yorkers Plaster 'Racist' Stickers Over Islamophobic Subway Ads
fter the anti-American protests erupted in the Middle East earlier this month, Pam Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) decided to re-up its anti-Muslim ad campaign in New York’s subway system. The ad, borrowing from an Ayn Rand quote, is meant to imply that Muslims are savages.
Woman, 83, ‘gunned down like an animal’ by police
Delma Towler, of Altavista, Virginia, was shot and killed by a police officer at around 10pm on Wednesday after calling 911 to report a burglary. When police arrived, the elderly woman was wandering in the backyard holding a gun and officers say they fired at her after she repeatedly ignored their requests to drop the weapon.
Pro-Israel think-tanker urges next U.S. president to prioritize Middle East democracy
In a Campaign 2012 policy brief entitled “Prioritizing Democracy: How the Next President Should Re-Orient U.S. Policy in the Middle East,” Shadi Hamid, director of research at the affiliated Brookings Doha Center, recommends:
Only a Revolution in Our Thinking Can Save Us From a Water Crisis
Cynthia Barnett's new book, "Blue Revolution" issues a call for an American water ethic.
Why Do the Craziest Religious People Get the Most Attention?
And how can more moderate voices be heard?
Obama Blows an Opportunity During the Blasphemy Riots
Blasphemy, as Hussein Ibish argues, is an indispensable human right. I'm not much into blasphemy myself -- I generally find it offensive. But as Americans, we are compelled to defend the right of any blasphemer to be an asshole. This is the essence of free speech. We are not a country, and not a civilization, that suppresses unpleasant speech. We believe that the way to battle bad speech is with good speech. We are a modern society precisely because people here are free to say what they want. This is a lesson that President Obama could have carried to the Muslim world last week. But he didn't.
When Right-Wing Crazy Backfires: 5 Ways Racist Pro-Israel Ads Make the Right Look Like Hateful Idiots
