Kara Brandeisky writes at ProPublica: Although the House defeated a measure that would have defunded the bulk phone metadata collection program, the narrow 205-217 vote showed that there is significant support in Congress to reform NSA surveillance programs. Here are six other legislative proposals on the table. 1) Raise the standard for what records are […]
Congress betrays vow to Uphold Constitution, abrogates 4th Amendment; Snowden is Better
The US House of Representatives narrowly declined on Wednesday to deny funding for National Security Agency collection and storage of millions of Americans’ phone records. The requisition of the records of domestic and foreign calls made by Verizon customers was revealed by The Guardian newspaper’s New York operation . The NSA Prism program seems to […]
Top Ten Things Anthony “Carlos Danger” Weiner has said that are worse than Sexting
Reprint Edition: The real scandal surrounding Anthony Weiner is that he is bigoted against Palestinians and used to misuse his position in Congress to support punitive policies against them. Americans appear to be bored by policy, titillated by private peccadilloes [well, OK, years later it is clear that these are a mental problem, not just […]
Israel’s Newly Multi-Cultural Army Stirs Controversy: Ultra-Orthodox Jews & Palestinian-Israeli Christians (Goldman)
Shalom Goldman writes at IslamiCommentary: Shalom Goldman A report by the Times of Israel yesterday said religious opponents were reciting psalms, blowing the ram’s horn, and tearing garments over a new bill that would “significantly increase enlistment among Ultra-Orthodox Israelis” into Israel’s military or in national service. Members of the Israeli parliament voted 64 to […]
A Tale of Two Bombings: Libya too Weak, Egypt too Strong
On Tuesday, someone set up a Soviet-vintage 107 mortar launcher in a car outside the five-star Corinthia hotel in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, and lobbed a mortar from it, apparently by remote control. The launch caused the car to catch on fire. The mortar shell hit a residential apartment building and put a hole in the […]
Pakistan: 20% of US Drone Victims are Civilians, 12% are Children (Woods)
Exclusive: Leaked Pakistani report confirms high civilian death toll in CIA drone strikes Chris Woods writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism: A secret document obtained by the Bureau reveals for the first time the Pakistan government’s internal assessment of dozens of drone strikes, and shows scores of civilian casualties. The United States has consistently […]
Are Extremist Buddhists in Burma attacking Helpless Muslims? (Walton)
(Author title: “Matthew Walton: A Primer on the Roots of Buddhist/Muslim Conflict in Myanmar, and A Way Forward” ) Matthew J. Walton writes at ISLAMiCommentary Recently Myanmar has been in the news for more than just its surprising political reforms and nascent transition from military rule. Violent attacks—mostly by Buddhists against Muslims—have occurred in cities […]
Dear Royal Baby: We Americans apologize for our Revolution; please be our Absolute Monarch
Dear Royal Baby: You had an ancestor named King George III that we Americans said a lot of nasty things about, and we’d like to apologize to you, since you seem like a nice baby and anyway, we’ve gotten over our dissatisfaction with your Highness’s family. We wonder if you’d like to take back over […]
Can Christianity Survive in the New Iraq? (Teule)
Larry McGill writes at ISLAMiCommentary Herman Teule There are sizeable Christian minorities in several Middle Eastern countries with Muslim majorities, but the numbers of Christians may be diminishing. This Spring, Duke’s Department of Religion in conjunction with the Duke Islamic Studies Center invited Herman Teule, Professor of Eastern Christianity at Radboud University in the Netherlands, […]
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