Fear & Loathing Mix With Beauty & Greed In the Olympic Cauldron
The Summer Olympics are here! Yay! The Olympics, especially the summer ones, have become so commercialized, politicized and oversold, on so many levels, that it is hard in some respects to get too excited about them. That said, there is still…
These Teachers Don't SEEM "Greedy"
By odd stroke of timing, the American Federation of Teachers is meeting this weekend in Detroit--just as the city's Emergency Manager insists that the solution to Detroit's budget woes is to teach the next generation in classrooms of 61 students.…
Pakistan Press Reporting UK Lawmakers Wrote Letter Urging Obama to Stop Drone Strikes in Pakistan
Virtually every press outlet I scan in Pakistan is reporting today that a group of at least twelve member of the House of Lords and House of Commons have written a letter variously reported as addressed to Barack Obama, the United States and…
Is Obama Worried that Fat Al Gore's Drought Will Threaten His Reelection?
I'm beginning to wonder whether Obama is worried the drought--particularly in the Midwest--could imperil his reelection campaign. I say that because he seems to be avoiding addressing it on the campaign trail. (Compare that to the way he…
Conflation of Military and Sports to Give Us Basketball Game on Ship Used for Rendition, Torture
The sickness in American culture today that praises violence has seeped into college athletics in a manner that leaves me cold. I am appalled when college football or baseball teams "honor" the military by incorporating camouflage motifs…
Why Are FAA Boosters Satisfied with Inadequate Oversight?
Julian Sanchez hosted a Cato event yesterday that examined surveillance generally and the FISA Amendments Act specifically. At it, Ron Wyden presented his concerns about the FISA Amendments Act and other surveillance, and then ACLU's Michelle…
What Was the Evidence Supporting the First Strike on Anwar al-Awlaki?
According to the William Webster report, the FBI's understanding about Anwar al-Awlaki's operational role developed only after the UndieBomb attack.
As of January 7 and June 16, 2009, the FBI knew anwar al-Aulaqi was an anti-American, radical…
Cheney's Thugs Win the Prize for Leak Hypocrisy
I wasn't much interested in Mitt Romney's latest efforts to change the narrative from the evil things he profited off of at Bain Capital and the tax havens he stashed the money he got as a result. Not only don't I think journalists will be all…
GAO Catches DoD Changing Definitions to Claim Progress Training Afghans, Misses Real Risks
Patrick Eddington pointed us toward a report (pdf) released yesterday by the GAO. The report is titled "Afghanistan Security: Long-standing Challenges May Affect Progress and Sustainment of Afghan National Security Forces". GAO describes their…
FAA Extension: The Data Gaps about Our Data Collection
As I noted the other day, part of the point of the language Ron Wyden got declassified the other day seemed to be to call out a misrepresentation in Dianne Feinstein's Additional Views in the Senate Intelligence Report on the extension of the…
Judge Kollar-Kotelly Sees No Evil, Hears No Evil
Yesterday, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly upheld the government's right to withhold cables already released via WikiLeaks under FOIA (see my earlier posts on this FOIA here and here). Her logic seems to have a fatal flaw: she says the State Department…
This Drone Assurance Brought to You By Northrop Grumman
Dianne Feinstein gave a speech to the World Affairs Council yesterday. As part of it (after 9:10), she gave the following reassurances regarding the oversight of drone strikes.
We have a special effort on the CIA Predator program. The staff…
Huge Backlog Remains in Karachi for NATO Supplies; Driver Killed Near Peshawar
The Express Tribune reports today that despite the fact that the NATO supply route through Pakistan reopened three weeks ago, the huge backlog of thousands of trucks at the port in Karachi has still not yet seen the first truck leave. The trucks…
When Green on Blue Attacks Aren't "Technically" Green on Blue Attacks
On April 30, AP's Robert Burns revealed that the number of attacks on NATO soldiers by Afghan military and police had been systematically under-reported because only attacks resulting in fatalities were reported. An attack in Herat, Afghanistan…
The New Gitmo Memorandum of Understanding: Obama Finally Figured Out How to Close Down Gitmo!
Yesterday, the NYT weighed in on a new practice at Gitmo: the requirement that lawyers whose clients have lost their habeas case sign new memoranda of understanding governing the terms of access to their client.
The Obama administration’s…
NCAA, Mark Emmert, Unitary Executives & The Death of Due Process
Once you step beyond the tragedy of Aurora, the big news today centers on Penn State and the aftermath of Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno and Louis Freeh. There is a lot of news, and implications to come, from today's events.
First, and unsurprisingly,…
Big US Banks Have Gained Market Share in the Looter Assistance Business
As I noted earlier, the Tax Justice Network just released a study showing that there is somewhere between $21 and 32$ Trillion that tax cheats have hidden in tax havens. Really obscenely rich people like Mitt Romney make up for $9.8 trillion…
Mitt and His Buddies Looted Almost $10 Trillion from Real Economy
The Tax Justice Network just released an updated version of a report showing how much money gets siphoned out of the real economy into tax shelters: conservatively, $21 Trillion, and possibly as much as $32 Trillion.
I'll have more to say…
The Only Terrifying Math That Gets Any Attention Is Defense Spending
Bill McKibben had a long piece on climate change this week, "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math," that has justifiably gotten a lot of attention. The terrifying math of the title is this:
Almost the entire world agreed in 2009 that we…
Hockenheim, Highway Stars & Aurora
It is time for the Formula 1 Grosser Preis Santander Von Deutschland 2012. There is that.
Then there is the fact Jon Lord has died. If you do not know Jon Lord, he was a founding member of, and keyboard player for, Deep Purple. One of the…