National Security State

Press TV: | “Iran has released a video showing the test flight of an Iranian-made version of the captured US RQ-170 spy drone. The stealth drone was designed and made in less than three years and will be ready for surveillance, combat and other related missions in the next few months. The RQ-170 Sentinel stealth […]

Featured

Top 5 Disasters If GOP Senate derails Iran talks

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | The Republican Party is already conniving at ways to derail the US-Iran negotiations over Tehran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program. When they take over the senate in January, the GOP senators will be in a good position to deep-six the talks and deny President Obama a diplomatic breakthrough. Iran does not have […]

Militarization

Rehab for Empire Addiction: Uncle Sam on the Couch

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt (Tomdispatch.com) [What follows is a transcript of a therapy session between the American Empire and a psychiatrist whose name we at TomDispatch have agreed not to disclose. Normally, even in an age in which privacy means ever less to anyone, we wouldn’t consider publishing such a private encounter, but the probative news value of the exchange is so […]

Bill of Rights

Congress has a Bill Ready to Curb NSA Snooping; if You care, Tell them to Pass it!

contributors

By Mark Jaycox (EFF) Congress continues its path towards becoming the least productive Congress in modern history while on its second vacation in as many months. During their first vacation, we ranked Congressional lawmakers on their support for NSA reform by reviewing bills like the Surveillance State Repeal Act, the USA Freedom Act, and the […]

Barack Obama

Top 5 Reasons Obama is Seeking Congressional Approval for War on ISIL

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole President Obama said Wednesday that he would seek Congressional authorization for his war on ISIL or the “Islamic State” Group in Iraq and Syria. This statement comes after months of his administration maintaining that the AUMF of 2001 was still sufficient to underpin this effort. (In fact, it referred to war on […]

Militarization

The Pressure to Escalate: How Washington governs by Whipping up Paranoia

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt via Tomdispatch.com Sometimes it seemed that only two issues mattered in the midterm election campaigns just ended. No, I’m not talking about Obamacare, or the inequality gap, or the country’s sagging infrastructure, or education, or energy policy. I mean two issues that truly threaten the wellbeing of citizens from Kansas, Colorado, and […]

Barack Obama

How a Republican Congress could Entangle the US further in the Middle East

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The midterm elections in a president’s second term have historically been a time when the president’s party lost seats in both houses of Congress. Only a little over a third of the electorate typically votes in these elections, and they are disproportionately white, wealthy and elderly. In short, a different country voted […]

Climate Change

The Pentagon wants to Surrender to Climate Change, not Fight It

contributors

By Eric Bonds via Foreign Policy in Focus The Pentagon recently released a new report sounding the alarm on the national security threats posed by climate change. Like previous reports on the subject, this one makes clear that Department of Defense (DoD) planners believe that global warming will seriously challenge our nation’s military forces. The […]

Bill of Rights

Only 1/2 of 1% of “Patriot” Act Secret Warrants Used against Terrorism

contributors

By Mark Jaycox via Electronic Frontier Foundation The Patriot Act continues to wreak its havoc on civil liberties. Section 213 was included in the Patriot Act over the protests of privacy advocates and granted law enforcement the power to conduct a search while delaying notice to the suspect of the search. Known as a “sneak […]