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Nuclear Disamament:: Beyond Iran

Iran! So long our enemy-in-waiting, just asking for it, y’know?

No wonder Americans are confused about the idea of maybe not going to war with that country one of these days, at least according to USA Today, which reported: “The White House and Iran face an uphill selling job to convince Americans to embrace the interim nuclear pact negotiated with Tehran last month.”

Two out of three Americans who have actually heard something about the accord don’t trust it, the paper explains, because, in essence, Iran took American hostages that one time (for no reason) and have been uncooperative toward our interests ever since. Thus, however hopeful or problematic the Geneva agreement between Iran and the P5 + 1 nations (the U.S., Russia, China, France, U.K. and Germany) may be, here in the land of all-that-is-exceptional, pop culture and superficial opinion polls rule and cynical ignorance counts as news.

Folding before the cards are even on the table

As with any popular deal formulated in Washington, the singing that stems from both sides of the aisle urges politicians to rush to the table. Compromise is the key above all else, and the table is where real consensus-building can take place. In any negotiating scenario the situation practically describes itself. Two sides in opposition come together in harmony and hash out an agreement. But what happens when both sides already agree on the main points?

There have been spurious movements over the past several years in the U.S. to create viable third parties to disrupt a transparently broken political system. While Perot made the most headway, momentum has continued to grow against the stream of D.C. politics in small doses every election year. The problem, of course, is that before we begin to consult the possibility of a third party in this country a second party must arise.

The ghost of rigged elections past: New revelations on the death of Michael Connell

Michael Connell, the Bush family and Karl Rove’s IT guru, was heading home from Washington D.C. to attend his company’s Christmas party on Friday, December 19th in 2008. An accomplished pilot, he was flying from the College Park, Maryland airport to the Akron-Canton airport in Ohio under unremarkable weather conditions. Yet his Piper Saratoga plane suddenly dove to the ground between two houses in an upscale neighborhood, when he was just 2.5 miles from the airport. The site was roped off, cleaned up within two hours at night against protocol, and the next day his wife found his omniscient Blackberry missing from his still intact knapsack.

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