Yesterday two small US navy ships entered Iranian territorial waters. They were promptly intercepted by Iranian patrol boats and the soldiers detained pending an investigation by the Iranians as to whether it was a hostile attack or an accidental transgression. The Iranians assured the US that the sailors would be kept safe and the issue would be dealt with promptly. And sure enough, the sailors and boats were released following the Iranian determination that this was accidental. US Secretary of State John Kerry thanked the Iranians for the quick release and said that this kind of peaceful resolution was due to the diplomatic channels that had now been established because of the nuclear arms deal.
[Read more…]

The hot news in presidential elections this week has been the rise in the polls of Bernie Sanders that has seriously challenged Hillary Clinton’s air of inevitability as the eventual Democratic nominee. Her past policy positions, some of which like her warmongering and pro-Wall Street and pro-oligarchy stances, are distasteful to the more activist and progressive members of the Democratic party. These people are rallying around Sanders and the movement has been such that even the pundit class, many of whom were ignoring the Democratic race because it seemed like she was a shoo-in, are now sitting up and taking notice.
[Read more…]

The issue about Ted Cruz’s eligibility to be president seems to be having much greater staying power than I had anticipated. Donald Trump has been making it an issue sufficiently strongly that Cruz has felt obliged to even release his mother’s birth certificate. For me at least, it initially seemed like a chance just to make fun of Republicans who find themselves hoist with their own petard, the tables turned on them after they raised such a big fuss over president Obama’s eligibility. But with Cruz, the issue has suddenly taken a rather more serious turn due to recent developments.
[Read more…]

I came across this online questionnaire that asks you for your opinion on various issues and then lets you know how well you align with the various candidates running for president in the different policy areas and overall. It is more sophisticated than most such things since it not only asks you for multiple choice responses to various questions, it also asks you how strongly you feel about the issue. What I particularly liked was that it provides more nuanced options if you don’t find the first pair of binary options satisfactory, which I often didn’t.
[Read more…]

Charles and David Koch are billionaire industrialists who have used their vast wealth to launch major campaigns at the local, state, and federal levels to influence (read ‘buy’) legislators so that they can get legislation passed that advances their own interests. They do this by contributing to contributing to candidates directly or through Super PACs, creating and supporting so—called think tanks that advance their interests, funding lobbying groups that work ceaselessly on their behalf, and in any other way that they can think of.
[Read more…]

There are mixed reports coming out of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon where a group of armed people have taken over the property in the name of the ‘people’, to ‘restore the constitution’, ‘fight government tyranny’ and all the other things that get right-wing paramilitary groups get all fired up. Tim Dickinson has been following events closely and gives us some background on some of the members of this group.
[Read more…]