Global
hat 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?
We are all France. Apparently. Though we are never all Lebanon or Syria or Iraq for some reason. Or a long, long list of additional places.
We are led to believe that U.S. wars are not tolerated and cheered because of the color or culture of the people being bombed and occupied. But let a relatively tiny number of people be murdered in a white, Christian, Western-European land, with a pro-war government, and suddenly sympathy is the order of the day.
"This is not just an attack on the French people, it is an attack on human decency and all things that we hold dear," says U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham. I'm not sure I hold ALL the same things dear as the senator, but for the most part I think he's exactly right and that sympathy damn well ought to be the order of the day following a horrific mass killing in France.
In the lead-up to the November 3 referendum on pot legalization in Ohio, reputable mainstream polls show it winning.
Then, amidst the usual “glitches” that distinguish the Buckeye State’s electronic elections, it officially failed by a 2:1 margin.
The outcome is a virtual statistical impossibility. But it fits a pattern that has made Ohio elections infamous since the 2004 “selection” of George W. Bush over John Kerry.
As in 2004, this year’s balloting was supervised by a Secretary of State with a heavy partisan stake in the outcome.
In 2004, the presidential voting was supervised by J. Kenneth Blackwell, who simultaneously served as the co-chair of Ohio’s Committee to Re-Elect Bush and Cheney.
In 2015, the general voting was supervised by Jon Husted, who vehemently opposed pot legalization and threatened legal action against the sponsors of the referendum.
Which world power can damage its own interests with the dumbest move? The contest will have you on the edge of your seats.
Here's the latest U.S. entry:
Last month, a raid by Kurdish forces supposedly freed ISIS prisoners, and those Kurdish forces posted a video of prisoners rushing out of a prison while gunfire sounded in the background. One U.S. troop was killed in the raid. U.S. media rushed to cover the story as a heroic act of benevolence. Non-U.S. media rushed to cover the fact that the "non-combat" troops, the so-called "advisors" whom the U.S. has in Iraq by the thousands were in fact engaged in combat.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The U.S. State Department has quietly approved
the sale of 16 missiles -- plus training -- to Thailand in a $27
million deal, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.
China and Thailand meanwhile began their first joint military air
exercise with 180 Chinese officers and top pilots this week, at a Thai
base used by the U.S. Air Force to bomb Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
during the Vietnam War.
The U.S. missiles deal, and the newest integration of Chinese and Thai
forces, are the latest successes by Bangkok's coup-installed junta to
attract military support from both Beijing and Washington, despite
pro-democracy activists demanding an end to the regime.
China and Thailand are conducting their Falcon Strike air exercise at
the Royal Thai Air Force Base at Korat city, also known as Nakhon
Ratchasima, from November 12 to November 30.
"For years, indeed decades, this [Thai-Chinese] cooperation would have
been not only politically unthinkable, but technically impossible, as
the RTAF [Royal Thai Air Force] was almost wholly dependent on the
Of all the excuses ladled out for the Obama administration's shredding of the Fourth Amendment while assaulting press freedom and prosecuting “national security” whistleblowers, none is more pernicious than the claim that technology is responsible.
At first glance, the explanation might seem to make sense. After all, the capacities of digital tech have become truly awesome. It’s easy to finger “technology” as the driver of government policies, as if the president at the wheel has little choice but to follow the technological routes that have opened up for Big Brother.
Now comes New York Times reporter Charlie Savage, telling listeners and viewers of a Democracy Now interview that the surveillance state is largely a matter of technology: “It’s just the way it is in the 21st century.”
New Movies Allude to CIA’s Use of Drugs Against Protesters, Activist Musicians including Lennon, Hendrix, Rolling Stones, Cobain and Tupac.
Evidence supports that the wealthiest conservative rulers that run our society have continued a covert war on activists with the use of drugs. Recent media releases, from mainstream movies to less widely distributed DVDs, have given us glimpses of the intersection between rock stars, activism and the Central Intelligence Agency’s MK-Ultra Program. These new media releases give glimpses to how MK-Ultra drugs continue to be used as “unconventional warfare” with the battlefield being our streets and homes.
Kill the Messenger and Freeway Ricky Ross on CIA Cocaine Trafficking