A group of U.S. intelligence veterans chastises the mainstream U.S. media for virtually ignoring a British newspaper’s account of the gripping inside story on how the CIA tried to block the U.S. Senate’s torture investigation. MEMORANDUM FOR: Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Vice…Read more →
Just before Harvey Milk was assassinated by a right-wing freak at the end of November, 1978 I had been spending a lot of time with him at his camera store, next door to my business partner's record store, Aquarius, on Castro Street. Harvey didn't have enough foul stuff to say about a fellow Supervisor Dianne Feinstein who was, along with the murderer, Dan White, the persona who represented the Republican interests on the Board. Harvey told me many times why he could never trust her. And she was the greatest beneficiary of the assassinations that November.
Wisconsin Ayn Rand devotee Paul Ryan just started his new job as Speaker of the dysfunctional House Republicans. And he's already headed for a showdown with the White House. Remember how on his very first day in office President Obama signed an oder to shut down the torture prison at Guantánamo? Conservatives in Congress have been thwarting him ever since, most recently by passing a military budget that included language prohibiting the president from doing just that.
What do you say about the blameless man who was held at the Guantanamo concentration camp for 13 years, without trial, without charges against him, without credible evidence that he had done anything remotely deserving of 13 years of torture and isolation, with no hope of anything remotely like justice?
Are you one of the millions of people in the United States who drives a car every day? How do you react to the trucking industry, whose lobbyists with ample campaign cash swarm over Congress, pressing for a rider to a transportation appropriations bill to be passed to overturn laws in 39 states that currently ban unsafe double 33 foottractor-trailer combinations? What is your opinion of another provision in this bill to permanently increase truck driver working and driving hours up to 82 hours per week, abolishing the “weekend off” for two nights of restorative rest?
By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | April 3, 2015 As you may have heard, yesterday the FBI “uncovered” yet another of its own terrorist plots, the latest in a very long line of “terrorist plots” the FBI has “uncovered” — in which the details always show that it was an undercover FBI “informant” (often doing […]
Elites rarely think other elites need to face the same kind of justice non-elites have to face when they break the law. Whether banksters on Wall Street or legislators on Capitol Hill, the worst criminals in our society-- those given the greatest amount of public trust-- are rarely held to account for their transgressions. And the lack of accountability is systemic and has become almost a tenet of our entire society.
It’s been a year of fervent activism on police accountability, living wages, climate change, personal freedoms, immigrant rights, an open internet and diplomacy over war. The electoral beating the Democrats received has prompted both the Administration and some spineless congresspeople to realize that support for progressive issues could reinvigorate their base —a realization that has already led to Obama’s executive action on immigration and the opening to Cuba.
So here are some of the 2014 highlights.
Since August 1, Ken and I have written 4 posts vaguely along the lines of Obama Hasn't Fired John Brennan Yet-- Let Alone Had Him Arrested, the others being here (August 3), here (August 6), and h
Remember when 2001: A Space Odyssey astronauts Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) and Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) thought they had evaded HAL's all-watchful eye so they could talk about their suddenly glitchy computer's, er, problems? But HAL wasn't to be messed with so easily! Kind of like our own CIA, maybe?"The inspector general’s account of how the C.I.A.
