"For the past seven years, the NSA has had a secret court order to obtain all phone records of Verizon customers. This all became a reality after Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald exposed the practice, but now President Obama is claiming this is a necessary evil to win the ongoing war on terror. Sahar Aziz, associate professor of law at Texas Wesleyan University, brings us more." Continue reading →
"Verizon and other carriers are forbidden by law from revealing the court order. A secret court, such as the FISA court – under which this order was issued – isn’t really a court in the Western sense: it is a star chamber affair, a formality that rubber-stamps whatever our rulers desire at the moment. In what sense is the United States a 'free' country, let alone the leader of the 'Free World'? Sure, we have elections: so does Iran. Yes, we have a 'free' press, but what happens when sources are afraid of talking to reporters? With a massive database that may even be tracking our location, America’s political class is making itself invulnerable to any challenge." Continue reading →
"May was Iraq's deadliest month in nearly five years, with more than 1,000 dead – both civilians and security personnel – in a rash of bombings, shootings and other violence. Millions live in constant fear, refugees do not return home, and the economy is destroyed. The Christian community, some 1.2 million persons before 2003, has been nearly wiped off the Iraqi map. Other minorities have likewise disappeared. US support for the Syrian rebels next door has drawn the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government into the spreading regional unrest and breathed new life into extremist elements. The invasion of Iraq opened the door to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which did not exist beforehand..." Continue reading →
"The employment-population ratio has barely changed in three years, showing that 58.6% of U.S. adults over age 16 had a job as of April. Forget the unemployment rate. The employment rate – the percentage of adult Americans who hold a job – has barely budged in the past three years. It's hovering near its lowest level in three decades, and it's unlikely to improve when the Labor Department releases its May jobs report on Friday." Continue reading →
"They could easily enrich themselves by selling those documents for huge sums of money to foreign intelligence services. They could seek to harm the US government by acting at the direction of a foreign adversary and covertly pass those secrets to them. They could gratuitously expose the identity of covert agents. None of the whistleblowers persecuted by the Obama administration as part of its unprecedented attack on whistleblowers has done any of that: not one of them. They undertook great personal risk and sacrifice for one overarching reason: to make their fellow citizens aware of what their government is doing in the dark." Continue reading →
"About one of every four of those killed by drones in Pakistan between Sept. 3, 2010, and Oct. 30, 2011, were classified as 'other militants,' the documents detail. The 'other militants' label was used when the CIA could not determine the affiliation of those killed, prompting questions about how the agency could conclude they were a threat to U.S. national security. The uncertainty appears to arise from the use of so-called 'signature' strikes to eliminate suspected terrorists -- picking targets based in part on their behavior and associates. A former White House official said the U.S. sometimes executes people based on 'circumstantial evidence.'" Continue reading →
"The International Monetary Fund has published a scathing internal self-assessment of its bailout of Greece three years ago. It isn't pretty. The IMF underestimated the damage that fiscal austerity would do to the Greek economy in its earliest rescue of the nation in 2010. It was too slow to promote a write-down of the nation's debts to more sustainable levels. And it was compromised by a sometimes unwieldy partnership with major European institutions in what became known as the 'troika.' The IMF could have handled its 2010 bailout of Greece quite a bit better, a staff review found." Continue reading →
"In the months since the automatic federal spending cuts known as the sequester took effect, the Washington area has added 40,000 jobs. Income-tax receipts have surged in Virginia, beating expectations. Few government contractors have laid off workers. It’s too early to be certain, but initial indications are that the damage from the sequester has been modest and slow to develop. The pace of job growth from January to April was only slightly slower this year than last year. Large government contractors are reporting relatively modest revenue hits and few layoffs due to reduced contracts." Continue reading →
"The remains of dozens of Palestinians killed by Israelis in fighting following the 1948 foundation of the Israeli state have been found in a mass grave in Tel Aviv’s Jaffa district. The grisly find occurred on Wednesday when ground subsided as workers carried out renovations, revealing six chambers full of skeletons. Jaffa was at the time a Palestinian town, but there was an exodus of most of its Arab population when it fell to the fledgling Israeli army and rightwing Jewish militias. Around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes in what they call the 'Nakba' or 'catastrophe' of 1948 and which Israel refers to as its 'War of Independence'." Continue reading →
"With the deficit in 2012 for the US federal government at $1.1 trillion, the expected $900 million from FATCA is not even a drop in the bucket. Even in the unlikely event that the US will moderately reduce its deficit in the future, the revenue from FATCA will remain a pittance in comparison. Why would the US government go through all the enormous trouble of implementing FATCA if it's going to bring in such a meager amount of money? If it's not money, it appears the primary motivation here is control. The new 'global standard' is a path that will put governments around the world one step closer to being able to track and control every penny you earn and every penny you spend." Continue reading →