I was interested in this story about how some major communications companies are shocked that the NSA tapped into their networks via the cables. Companies like Google and Yahoo say that the NSA got entry into its data systems without their knowledge. [Read more…]
In a major statement released on November 24, 2013 titled Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis has leveled a major broadside at the current economic and political systems which he condemns as serving only the interests of the few and ignoring the needs of the many. [Read more…]
The war on women’s right to choose has been waged relentlessly, and many of its most vocal leaders have been men.
It never fails. Whenever the warhawks in the US want to gin up support for yet another war against (preferably) yet another Muslim country, we hear the old familiar song: that country’s leader is another Hitler, any US leader who favors diplomacy is another Neville Chamberlain, and any talks between the two is another Munich. [Read more…]
A new revelation from Edward Snowden published by Glenn Greenwald, Ryan Gallagher, and Ryan says that the NSA has been using the browsing habits of people as pertains to sex to try and discredit them. [Read more…]
I have been discussing in previous posts the divisions within the Republican party. The split is not along any ideological lines (they are pretty much unified on all the major issues) but on strategy, between what we might call Tactical Obstructionists and Scorched Earthers. The Tactical Obstructionists are those who favor more traditional means of achieving political goals, carefully choosing those fights that they think they can win or that have the most resonance with voters, but letting the rest of the government function. This is the approach of the Republican party establishment. [Read more…]
In the light of all that we have learned in the last few months, let’s recap where we are: We have a government that collects everyone’s communications data in secret and stores them, justifying the practice by using secret interpretations of the law and getting authorization to do so from a secret court that issues secret rulings, telling a handful of congresspersons in secret just a little of what they are doing, and putting people on secret kill lists and secret no-fly lists on the basis of criteria that are secret. [Read more…]
While there have been complaints about the Affordable Care Act, one of the good pieces of news coming out is that sex workers who formerly could not get health insurance for no reason other than the stigma associated with their work, even in states where it is legal, now can purchase affordable insurance. [Read more…]
I was curious as to what Stephen M. Walt would have to say about the deal with Iran and he says that while the proximate issue is about nuclear technology, the ultimate issue is something else and it is the latter that explains the somewhat paradoxical reactions of both supporters and opponents of the deal. [Read more…]
Back in 2008, I wrote a 12-part series titled The Propaganda Machine in which I laid out how the right-wing propaganda machine works in the US. Much of that machine became created because of what is now known as the Powell Memo. [Read more…]