The trials taking place at Guantanamo are pretty much a sham, a mockery, designed to produce guilty verdicts at all costs. Scott Horton describes them as a theater of the absurd and thinks that they may on the verge of collapse.

He describes what has happened, including that conversations that defense lawyers were having with their clients were being monitored. He also says that the Obama administration and its military spokespeople have been consistently lying about what was going on, retreating only when their lies were exposed. [Read more…]

Glenda Jackson was a wonderful actor, nominated four times within the space of six years for Best Actress Academy Awards and winning twice, in 1971 and 1974. She retired from acting and went into politics, and was elected as a Labour Party member of the British parliament in 1992 and has served continuously since then. She has been a strong voice for progressive causes and was a thorn in the side of the odious and unctuous Tony Blair, who was her party leader. She announced that she would retire from politics at the end of her current term, which would be 2015 unless elections are called earlier. [Read more…]

So as expected, president Obama released his budget proposals with his offer to make cuts in Social Security (via the chained CPI) in return for some tax hikes. And as equally expected, some leading Republicans are now saying that it is the Democrats who are trying to balance the budget on the backs of seniors by cutting benefits in social services and that they are going to defend it (see here and here). [Read more…]

In defense of its program of targeted killings in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world using drones and other bombing methods, the Obama administration has repeatedly claimed that its targets have been carefully vetted to make sure that they are high-value al Qaeda operatives and that their program is so precise that few civilians are affected. [Read more…]

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the government does not know what to do with the prisoners who are being held in Guantanamo. They are being held without charges, some for over a decade with no hope of a proper trial or being released. The prisoners themselves realize this, and we have some of them committing suicide (though there are darker suspicions of homicide) and others going on hunger strikes and having to be force-fed. [Read more…]

It is appalling to see president Obama once again offer cuts in Social Security and Medicare in order to get a budget deal. He seems to be really eager to give the Republicans not only something that is opposed by his supporters, but also something that will be used as a cudgel against the Democrats in future elections, when the Republicans can run on the platform that it was the Democrats who wanted to cut these prized programs. [Read more…]

When wars and famines and floods and earthquakes strike a region and threaten large numbers of people with starvation, food is often the most urgent need of the affected people. While the amount of food aid promised is often impressive, the reality is somewhat different. [Read more…]