Imperial Hubris

U.S. Treasury to miss deadline on FATCA tax crackdown

"The Treasury Department will miss a year-end deadline to publish final rules for a new global tax enforcement regime targeting the offshore assets of U.S. taxpayers. FATCA was enacted in 2010 after an outcry over a Swiss banking scandal that revealed U.S. taxpayers had hidden millions of dollars in assets overseas from the Internal Revenue Service. The law requires foreign financial institutions to tell the tax-collecting IRS about Americans' offshore accounts worth more than $50,000. International businesses ranging from Western Union Co to BlackRock Inc are waiting anxiously to see the rules so they can figure out how to comply with the law." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingU.S. Treasury to miss deadline on FATCA tax crackdown

U.S. Government Asks Court Not To Consider Targeted Killing Challenge

"The U.S. government today filed its first response to a lawsuit challenging the targeted killing of the three U.S. citizens in Yemen last year, Anwar Al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman and Samir Khan. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the case on behalf of the families of the Americans who died, issued the following statement about the government’s motion to dismiss." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingU.S. Government Asks Court Not To Consider Targeted Killing Challenge

Russia to vote on banning U.S. adoptions

"The Russian parliament will vote this week on a bill banning adoption of Russian children by Americans, in retaliation to the Magnitsky Act passed by the United States last week, lawmakers said Monday. Ahead of the key second reading scheduled for Wednesday, lawmakers added to the text of the bill new clauses banning adoptions of Russian children by US nationals, according to opposition lawmaker Dmitry Gudkov, who posted a copy of the amended bill online. The amended bill would also order the closure of US adoption agencies in Russia." Continue reading →

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Obama signs Russian human rights law, angers Putin

"President Barack Obama Friday signed legislation that sanctions alleged Russian human rights abuses, which outraged Moscow after being coupled with a bill granting it normal trade relations. Obama signed the measure into law a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the so-called Magnitsky Act, which blacklists Russian officials allegedly implicated in the prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The Russian foreign ministry issued a statement minutes after Obama formally signed the legislation in the Oval Office, saying the move amounted to 'open meddling' in its internal affairs and was 'a blind and dangerous position.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama signs Russian human rights law, angers Putin

The Woes of an American Drone Operator

"A soldier sets out to graduate at the top of his class. He succeeds, and he becomes a drone pilot working with a special unit of the United States Air Force in New Mexico. He kills dozens of people. But then, one day, he realizes that he can't do it anymore. For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 63 degrees Fahrenheit and, for security reasons, the door couldn't be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world." Continue reading →

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Double Tap Drones: What Has Happened to the United States?

"NYU student Josh Begley is tweeting every reported U.S. drone strike since 2002, and the feed highlights a disturbing tactic employed by the U.S. that is widely considered a war crime. Known as the 'double tap,' the tactic involves bombing a target multiple times in relatively quick succession, meaning that the second strike often hits first responders. A 2007 report by the Homeland Security Institute called double taps a 'favorite tactic of Hamas' and the FBI considers it a tactic employed by terrorists. The reports featured on @dronestream clearly document that U.S. hellfire missiles have intentionally targeted funerals and civilian rescuers." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDouble Tap Drones: What Has Happened to the United States?

Ron Paul: Expanding Covert Warfare Makes Us Less Safe

"Earlier this month we learned that the Obama Administration is significantly expanding the number of covert Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) agents overseas. From just a few hundred DIA agents overseas today, the administration intends to eventually deploy some 1,600 covert agents. The nature of their work will also shift, away from intelligence collection and more toward covert actions. This move signals a major change in how the administration intends to conduct military and paramilitary operations overseas. Unfortunately it is not a shift toward peace, but rather to an even more deadly and disturbing phase in the 'war on terror.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRon Paul: Expanding Covert Warfare Makes Us Less Safe

US to send missiles, troops to Turkey in bid to deter Syria

"Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed an order Friday to send two Patriot missile batteries to Turkey to protect it from rounds crossing the border from Syria. The order includes 400 American personnel to operate the batteries. 'We are deploying two patriot batteries here to Turkey along with the troops that are necessary to man those batteries, so that we can help Turkey have the kind of missile defense it may very well need in dealing with threats that come out of Syria,' Panetta told the troops at Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey." Continue reading →

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Pentagon prepares military operation in Mali

"United States officials with knowledge of the matter tell the Washington Post that the Department of Defense and the US State Department will assist next year in a mission to overthrow Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qaeda who took under control a significant part of Mali. Earlier this year, military officers displaced the administration of then-President Amandou Toumani Toure, claiming that he was reluctant in addressing the extremist issue himself. However since then the military junta failed to improve security in the country and retake control of the northern part of Mali captured by the Islamists. Now the US is claiming that it’s ready to help the military rulers." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPentagon prepares military operation in Mali