The Frankenstein story is a morality tale that gets played over and over again in political life. A group (a government or political party or other organization) covertly supports and encourages extremists in order to achieve their own goals, thinking that they can control their surrogates and rein them in after they have served their purpose, only to find that the group has grown beyond its control and is determined to continue on its own path and in order to do us, turns against its own creator.
[Read more…]

Kevin Gosztola reports that a judge has ordered that US officials at Guantanamo stop the force feeding of inmates. He has also told them not to destroy the recordings of them doing so in the past.
[Read more…]

I personally do not wear my emotions on my sleeve. I am of the school that feels that one should deal with life’s adversities with stoicism and reserve, especially when one is in public. Expressions of emotion and grief are to be kept for private moments with those whom one is very close to. Stiff upper lip, and all that.
[Read more…]

Richard Clarke is a Washington insider. He was national coordinator for security and counterterrorism and thus chief counter-terrorism officer in the White House when George W. Bush was president. He was also selected by president Obama as part of the team to review the workings of the NSA in light of Snowden’s revelations. He now tells Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! that he thinks that some of the things that Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld did in office were war crimes.
[Read more…]

Some of you may have been following the case of Cecily McMillan. She was one of the Occupy Wall Street protestors who was arrested and she was accused of injuring a police officer in a scuffle although she alleged that she had acted reflexively when he grabbed her breast.
[Read more…]

As a result of negative reactions, more and more fast food places are telling their customers not to carry their guns openly into their stores. The list now includes Starbucks, Wendy’s, Applebees, Jack In The Box, Chipotle, Chili’s and Sonic. Some gun owners feel that these places are no longer safe to eat in because they are not allowed to take their guns into them, because of course no place is more dangerous than your neighborhood Wendy’s.
[Read more…]