Reader Norm sent me this shocking news report that the government of president Hamid Karzai is considering re-introducing the practice of stoning adulterers in public in Afghanistan, an abomination that occurred under the rule of the Taliban but was mercifully halted after they were overthrown. [Read more…]
Reports are emerging that the Geneva talks were preceded by many secret meetings between representatives of the Obama administration and the Iranian government, facilitated by the Sultan of Oman, of which the Europeans and Israel were informed only in late September of this year. (Here is a fact sheet on the deal put out by the White House.) [Read more…]
It turns out, according to the latest revelations from the Edward Snowden documents, that the NSA has infected more than 50,000 networks worldwide with malicious computer software that turns those computers effectively into ‘sleeper cells‘ that can be exploited by the NSA when it wants. [Read more…]
So it looks like a deal has been reached between Iran and the P5+1 nations. (Here is a fact sheet on the deal put out by the White House.) This is supposed to be an interim deal until a more comprehensive deal is worked out in six months. Juan Cole looks at what both sides got in the deal. [Read more…]
Much of the recent conversation amongst the political chattering classes in the US media has been about the partial elimination of the filibuster rule in the US Senate. This change in one of the many arcane internal rules of the Senate has been hyped by the chronically hyperventilating US media as if we have just witnessed a major political cataclysm. [Read more…]
So the US Senate has finally decided to change one of its internal rules of operation concerning the filibuster. This was a rule that required 60 votes out of the 100-member chamber to get procedural matters (such as ending debate on an issue and bringing it to a vote) approved. The filibuster is still in place but will no longer be available to block any administration nominee for any post, except those to the US Supreme Court. Those procedural votes now require only a simply majority. The filibuster also still remains in place for legislation so that gridlock will continue. [Read more…]
Bob Woodward, courtier journalist par excellence and faithful servant of the ruling political class, laments the fact that Edward Snowden didn’t come to him with his revelations, saying “I wish he had come to me instead of others, particularly The Guardian… I would have said to him ‘let’s not reveal who you are. Let’s make you a protected source and give me time with this data and let’s sort it out and present it in a coherent way.'” [Read more…]
Illinois legalizes same-sex marriage, with governor Pat Quinn signing the legislation into law on Wednesday. The law will go into effect on June 1, 2014. Hawaii’s legislature has also passed a similar measure and its governor signed it into law on Wednesday too. So the two of them become the 15th and 16th states to legalize such marriages. Since both laws were signed on the same day but Hawaii’s law takes effect on December 2, 2013, it may be listed as the 15th state and Illinois as the 16th. [Read more…]
In an important article in the November-December 2013 issue of Foreign Policy magazine titled The End of Hypocrisy: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Leaks, Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore lay out in great detail what I have been saying here, and that is that the main benefit of the Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning leaks is that by providing incontrovertible documentary evidence of what the US government does, it has resulted in seriously damaging the US government’s ability to lie and use hypocrisy in its favor. [Read more…]
Rick Santorum is one of the most overtly religious, anti-gay politicians around. He will undoubtedly run for the presidency in 2016 but right now has started a film company to make Christian-themed films and they have just released their first one. Titled The Christmas Candle, it has angels and miracles, apparently, which seems hardly original. [Read more…]