(by Juan Cole) Barack Obama, brought up in Hawaii and having lived as a child in Indonesia, is the first Pacific president, and his current trip to Asia, beginning in Japan, is meant to underline his policy of “rebalancing” toward Asia. Although the phrase has miffed some Europeans, the policy isn’t intended to substitute US […]
Archives for April 2014
FCC Plots Murder of Blogs on Behalf of Billionaire Media Lords
Breaking: FCC Will Announce the Death of Net Neutrality Tomorrow (via Americans Against The Tea Party) If you thought corporations played a big role in your life already, just wait until tomorrow, when the FCC gives up on trying to find a way to enforce equal access to broadband and finally kills net neutrality. What […]
GOP: Giving CDC money to study Gun Violence would be “Funding Propaganda”
(By Lois Beckett via ProPublica). After the Sandy Hook school shooting, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) was one of a few congressional Republicans who expressed a willingness to reconsider the need for gun control laws. “Put guns on the table, also put video games on the table, put mental health on the table,” he said less […]
Can Afghanistan’s Vibrant Democratic Press Survive?
(By Olof Blomqvist) The presidential election has shown Afghanistan’s increasingly mature media scene at its best – hopefully not for the last time. Afghanistan’s vibrant and diverse media scene is often held up as one of the few real success stories of the post-invasion years. While the Taliban notoriously banned television, strung up video cassettes […]
IRS Targeted Liberal Groups More Than Tea Party: Newly Released Records
Think Progress obtained a series of IRS documents via the Freedom of Information Act that contradict Republican claims that the IRS targeted only conservative Tea Party groups for scrutiny because of their political beliefs. The 22 “Be On the Look…
Israel, US Complain about not being able to Divide and Rule the Palestinians
(By Juan Cole) This week the Fateh Party (secular Arab nationalist) of Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas met in Gaza with members of the Hamas Party (fundamentalist Muslim), seeking a reconciliation and a government of national unity. The Ra’y News Service of Gaza wrote, “The Palestinian Government has welcomed the [reconciliation] delegation sent by President Mahmud […]
The New York Times Criticized for Submitting to Israeli Censors
(By Sarah Lazare) The New York Times made a rare admission that it submits to Israeli state gag orders, fueling charges from critics that the globally-influential publication plays fast-and-loose with journalistic ethics to give favorable coverage to Israel. The revelation emerged when the The Times delayed its coverage of the Israeli detention of a Palestinian […]
This Saudi prince is accused of killing 2,000 endangered birds while on safari in Pakistan
Jeez. Happy Earth Day. A Saudi prince has been accused of killing 2,000 endangered birds during a safari in Pakistan earlier this year. More from GlobalPost: These cities are among the greenest in the world The birds, known as houbara bustards, are…
Government = Protection Racket for the 1 Percent
The evidence of income inequality just keeps mounting. According to “Working for the Few,” a recent briefing paper from Oxfam, “In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom…
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