US politics

Former CIA, NSA Boss Says Senator Feinstein Is Too Emotional To Judge CIA Torture Fairly (via Techdirt) We’ve written about former NSA and CIA boss Michael Hayden plenty of times around here, and the guy is practically a caricature of what you’d expect him to be. He defends the intelligence community at all costs, and […]

Democratic Party

2 GOP Latino Strategies Clash: Sen. Ted Cruz disses Jeb Bush’s ‘Immigration for Love’ Meme

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Sen. Ted Cruz criticized Jeb Bush for appearing to downplay the rule of law in arguing that undocumented immigration to the US is a crime of passion, resorted to out of an abundance of love for families in straitened circumstances. Cruz said that such an argument injures the sovereignty of the US […]

Energy

Is Rand Paul right that Cheney invaded Iraq for Halliburton Profits?

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) David Corn at Mother Jones got the scoop: In 2009, Rand Paul gave a talk at Western Kentucky University in which he accused former vice president Dick Cheney of having gotten up the Iraq War to rescue his troubled oil services company, Halliburton, which– along with its subsidiaries– was awarded enormous no-bid […]

Republican Party

Pelosi: “Cheney Proud of ordering CIA Torture”; Sen A. King: ‘Waterboard Cheney!’

Juan Cole

Dick Cheney has defended torture techniques so many times that a frustrated U.S. senator has finally offered to waterboard the former vice president. “The accusations are not true,” Cheney told college television station ATV last week. “Some people…

Climate Change

Climate Change: Who’s Campaigning Against Our Environment?

Juan Cole

(By Todd Smekens) Climate Change: Who’s Campaigning Against Our Environment? (via www.muncievoice.com) MUNCIE, Indiana – The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a new 2,600 page report this week compiled by over 300 scientists warning of the existing and potentially severe adverse future impact of climate change. “… —– Related video: […]

Constitution

America’s Post-9/11 Dystopia: No-Fly Lists, Secret Gov’t Databases and Guilty even if Proven Innocent

Juan Cole

(By Peter van Buren) Rahinah Ibrahim is a slight Malaysian woman who attended Stanford University on a U.S. student visa, majoring in architecture. She was not a political person. Despite this, as part of a post-9/11 sweep directed against Muslims, she was investigated by the FBI. In 2004, while she was still in the U.S. […]

CIA

State Department Official Freaks Out That Declassifying CIA Torture Report Might Make The World Angry

Juan Cole

While the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to declassify its $40 million, 6,300 page report detailing the CIA’s torture regime — including the facts that it went beyond what was authorized, produced no useful intelligence and then the CIA lied about…

Bill of Rights

ACLU Complains: CIA to Filter Release by Senate of Torture Report

Juan Cole

(By Sarah Lazare) The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee voted Thursday to partially lift the media and public blackout of its 6,300 page investigation into widespread CIA torture, extrajudicial detentions, unlawful renditions, and lying to the U.S. government in the so-called 'War on Terror.' In an 11 to 3 decision, the committee voted to submit the […]

Afghanistan

US National Security hijacked, flown into Bermuda Triangle of Mysteries

Juan Cole

(By Tom Engelhardt) Isn’t there something strangely reassuring when your eyeballs are gripped by a “mystery” on the news that has no greater meaning and yet sweeps all else away? This, of course, is the essence of the ongoing tale of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Except to the relatives of those on […]