Noam Chomsky writes at Tomdispatch.com: [This piece is adapted from “Uprisings,” a chapter in Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire, Noam Chomsky’s new interview book with David Barsamian (with thanks to the publisher, Metropolitan Books). The questions are Barsamian’s, the answers Chomsky’s.] Does the United States still […]
Syria: Rebels take Aleppo Airport Road; NYT: Obama Nixed Clinton/Petraeus Plan to Arm Rebels
Syria’s revolutionaries are saying that they have taken a key Aleppo district, Sheikh Said, that enables them to block the road to the airport. The Baath regime has been using its airports and air bases to resupply troops in the north. If the rebels can block the use of Aleppo airport for this purpose, they […]
Obama Closing the Office that Had been charged with closing Guantanamo Bay (Colbert Report)
Stephen Colbert reports on the Obama administration’s closing of the office that was supposed to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. The Colbert Report Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Egyptian Cities Erupt in anti-Morsi Demonstrations
Tens of thousands of Egyptians demonstrated around the country on Friday, despite cold, rainy weather in Alexandria and along the Canal zone. In Cairo itself, crowds gathered in front of Morsi’s presidential palace in Heliopolis, and some youth threw Molotov cocktails. Aljazeera English reports: Crowds in major cities chanted that they wanted new presidential elections, […]
Matt Taibbi on Big Banks’ Lack of Accountability (Moyers Video Interview)
Bill Moyers interviews Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi on why banksters who clearly engaged in illegal activity that crashed the American economy have been held harmless from prosecution. This is the blurb at Bill Moyers’ indispensable site: “Matt Taibbi on Big Banks’ Lack of Accountability February 1, 2013 Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi joins Bill to […]
Arts under the Occupation: Dispatch from Palestine (Quran)
LAYLA QURAN writes at ISLAMiCommentary: Layla Quran (pictured outside Ofer Prison, left) is a sophomore global studies major at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Palestinian-American who moved to the U.S. from Jerusalem when she was four-years-old. She spent 10 weeks in Palestine this past summer researching the impact and role of the […]
Chuck Hagel Mauled in Bizarro World of US Senate
The confirmation hearing in the Senate for Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, was painful to watch because it displayed the tomfoolery, pretense, self-righteous know-nothingism, and embarrassing lack of contact with reality that dominate the landscape of America’s broken democracy. It was like watching a Nebraska ordinary Joe set upon by circus […]
Why the Senate should Confirm Chuck Hagel as SecDef
Reprint edn.: this appeared earlier, but is a propos of today’s Senate confirmation hearings. A future column will treat that process: I doubt Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator from Nebraska, and I would agree about almost anything with regard to domestic US politics . . . But he isn’t being nominated for secretary of […]
Russia slams Israeli bombing of Syria as Violation of UN Charter
The USG Open Source Center translates the statement at the website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sharply condemning Israel: Text of “Russian Foreign Ministry statement in connection to reports about air strikes by the Israeli Air Force on targets on Syrian territory” published on the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website on 31 […]
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