Someone has leaked to Glenn Greenwald a secret court order that shows that the Obama administration has obtained from Verizon detailed records of all its customers. The suspicions are that the government has obtained similar records from other phone companies as well. [Read more…]
The American Muslim Advisory Council in the town of Manchester, Tennessee invited the US attorney Bill Killian and the special agent for the FBI in charge of that region Kenneth Moore to talk about hate crimes, in order to foster a “public discourse in a diverse society, with a particular focus on the Muslim religion.” [Read more…]
As regular readers know, I have long been a great admirer of the work that Glenn Greenwald does. In a recent essay he discusses reader-funded journalism which he thinks is the way that quality news will be generated in the future, because it will enable writers to free themselves from the clutches of big corporate media entities and thus not be confined by their boundaries of what constitutes ‘acceptable’ journalism or commentary. It is an interesting take, worth reading for those who care about ensuring quality news media.
He also mentions his annual fundraiser to help support his work and I urge those who believe in this type of journalism to contribute here.
For reasons that are obscure to me, Andrew Sullivan and his blog The Dish are highly popular. He is often cited as someone whose opinion is worth considering and is a frequent guest on talk shows. But he has always struck me as someone who has no internal compass to guide him but worships power and those who possess it. The only purpose he serves to me is as a reliable indicator of where the boundaries of conventional wisdom lie, because he cruises close enough to give himself the air of a daring thinker while not threatening the current social order. [Read more…]
Yesterday was the second day of the Bradley Manning trial. Nathan Fuller of the Bradley Manning Support Network is summarizing the proceedings day by day (day 1 and day 2) and the transcripts can be seen here. [Read more…]
Following Mitt Romney’s defeat in the 2012 presidential election and other setbacks to their hopes for gaining ground in the Senate and House of Representatives, the Republican party has commissioned studies to see how to gain ground with young, female, and minority voters. The results should not be that surprising, since the party’s problems with these demographics were fairly obvious. [Read more…]
I am sure many saw the news reports of the Pew survey that found that “a record 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family.” This was up from just 11% in 1960. [Read more…]
It appears that despite the Obama administration’s attempts at keeping the trial as opaque as possible by, among other things, not granting press passes to two crowd-funded court stenographers so that media outlets they can create their own transcripts of the proceedings since the government won’t release its own, a small window has opened. Some media outlets have given the stenographers their own passes and the judge and the prosecutor have said that they won’t oppose having them in the courtroom. [Read more…]
Recently I met with a government delegation from Nigeria. During an evening dinner with the group, their leader suddenly went on a rant against gays. I was nonplussed and was mentally debating whether it was appropriate to push back against this since I had been invited as a guest and did not want to jeopardize any agreements that my host was negotiating with the Nigerian government. On the other hand, I feel it is wrong to let such statements go unchallenged because silence can be construed as agreement. Much to my relief, my host herself stepped in and said that she disagreed with the sentiments that had been expressed. [Read more…]
The trial of Bradley Manning begins today. I am not hopeful that he will be acquitted or even receive a fair trial. The Obama administration is determined to punish him harshly and has gone to extreme lengths. After not only keeping him for extended periods under abusive conditions, they have now put him on trial before a military tribunal and rigged the system in such a way as to favor the prosecution. There have been large protests outside the military base where the trial is being held. [Read more…]