On Tuesday, Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack more than an hour after his botched lethal injection began. Things went so wrong that the state of Oklahoma’s second scheduled execution for that night was stayed for 14 days. A notable thing about Lockett’s slow demise is that it came as no great surprise to …
Continue reading “The Death Penalty Is as Flawed and Heartless as War”
We now know that despite all the smoke and mirrors Paul Ryan’s budget was primarily a way to reinstate defense sequester cuts. For all its posturing about what future congresses should do, e.g. reforming Medicare and social security, his real budget proposes to take away tax deductions and preferences so as to spend more on …
Continue reading “Paul Ryan’s Phony Budget – Taxes Today for Promises Tomorrow”
When specialists with a good sense of history insist that war with Russia is “not unthinkable” precipitated by events in Ukraine, one should take careful note. The “not unthinkable” quote is from pre-eminent American historian of Russia, Stephen F. Cohen, who recently appeared with John J. Mearsheimer, historian of U.S. foreign policy, on RT’s Crosstalk. …
Continue reading “Kerry’s Propaganda War on Russia’s RT”
Updated at 10:15 p.m. EDT, May 1, 2014
Iraqis went to the polls today. Increased security seemed to have the effect wanted, as there were fewer reported casualties than in recent days. Security officials, however, admitted there were at least 50 attacks today on polling stations. In those attacks and others, at least 34 people were killed and 88 more were wounded.
In the wake of the collapse of U.S.-led peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the angry rhetoric around this conflict has only escalated. After days of mutual recriminations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ignited a controversy by telling a gathering of world leaders at the Trilateral Commission …
Continue reading “Kerry Draws Israel Hawks’ Ire Amid Failed Talks”
I’m old enough to remember when there was no such creature as a neocon: we knew that because Jonah Goldberg told us so. So did this writer for Commentary magazine, who suggested that to even form the word on one’s lips was the equivalent of favorably citing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And …
Continue reading “A Neocon’s Lament”
Originally posted at TomDispatch. You might think that 12-and-a-half years after it began, Washington would have learned something useful about its war on terror, but no such luck. If you remember, back in the distant days just after 9/11 when that war was launched (or, in a sense, “lost”), the Bush administration was readying itself …
Continue reading “How To Lose a War That Wasn’t There”
Although President Barack Obama pledged to curtail U.S. drone attacks in the war on terror, recently in Yemen, he has done just the opposite. Three such attacks whacked more than 40 alleged Islamist militants. It seems that three civilians were accidentally killed in the attacks. In terms of limiting "collateral damage" to noncombatants, that’s a …
Continue reading “Accelerating the Counterproductive Drone War in Yemen”
Just weeks before Tax Day, April 15, Governor Deval Patrick, Obama’s "close friend," signed into law a bond bill that dispenses $177 million in Massachusetts State Taxes to the Pentagon for construction and "upgrades" of U.S. military bases in the state. That’s right, not federal taxes but state taxes. On April 15, last year, the …
Continue reading “Massachusetts Pays $177 Million in State Taxes to the Pentagon”
On the eve of parliamentary elections, at least 67 Iraqis were killed and 115 more were wounded. Bombers again struck in Diyala province, not far from where a bomber caused massive casualties at a political rally yesterday.
