Caches of weapons in the news
Today, a man with a "cache" of weapons is all over the national news. His cache consisted primarily of two rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Aside...
View ArticleToday's most important news story - it's not what you think
The State of the Union address? The introduction of the iPad? No, this: Increased co-payments for doctor visits boost health-care costs for seniors Obama is constantly talking about "controlling health...
View ArticleFiorina's ad laughable? Not half as much as Whitman's
Carly Fiorina, failed HP CEO, is catching massive flack for a laughably sophomoric attack ad on her opponent, Tom Campbell, featuring a "wolf in sheep's clothing" (what an original metaphor!) which...
View ArticleMarch 20: Off the computer and into the streets!
This statement was issued by the ANSWER Coalition today: We won’t sit by while the bankers and militarists plunder this country and send our loved ones to fight in a war for empire!
View ArticleToday's Silicon Valley business news
Two interesting columns in today's San Jose Mercury News. First, this from Mike Cassidy: Jonathan Schwartz, former Sun CEO...wrote a note in late January marking the end of Sun and bidding goodbye to...
View ArticleThe U.S. Government coddles terrorists
Reading them Miranda rights (Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab)? Refusing to even call them "terrorists," even when they committed precisely the same act (flying a plane into a building full of people) as the...
View ArticleGambling in the casino
Commenting on the revelation that Toyota lobbied to narrow the scope of some recalls to save the company money: Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the top Republican on the...
View Article"U.S. Afghan death toll hits 1,000"? True or false?
So read today's headlines, bizarrely relying on a privately maintained website instead of anything official. The Pentagon is pushing back, claiming that "It's significantly less than 1,000 in...
View ArticleA morning at the DMV
I spent this morning at the DMV renewing my driver's license (something you have to do every 5 (?) years here in CA). Nothing more than paying money and getting a new picture taken. You can make an...
View ArticleGordon Brown lifts the curtain
Gordon Brown testified yesterday at the British commission investigating the invasion of Iraq. Brown insists that the invasion was "the right thing and was done for the right reasons." Interestingly...
View ArticleCitizens United: the other side of the coin
We all know what the Citizens United decision has done to erode our rights. Not that the power of corporations (not to mention wealthy individuals) in the political system wasn't already immeasurably...
View ArticleShep Smith PWNs Michael Steele
I've written more than once in praise of Shepard Smith as the best newsperson on TV; today he proved it once again interviewing Michael Steele. I wish I had a transcript. Things I remember include...
View Article"Democracy" on display
On a state level, the farce of "free" speech continues. Republican Gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman continues to saturate the airwaves with her aids (bizarrely, most aimed at her primary opponent whom...
View ArticleBREAKING: Anti-government protesters ask for public defenders
First the breaking news: All members of the anti-government Hutaree group, who wanted to start a violent revolution against the government...have asked for public defenders! :-)Now back to our main...
View ArticleCapitalism's wheels grinding to a halt
Literally, as "money for war, not for education, health care, mass transit, etc." consequences intensify, and Caltrain, the train service which takes commuters and others from San Jose, Palo Alto, etc....
View ArticleWho needs Dick Cheney and George W. Bush?
Both were notorious for their outright lying about Iraqi WMD, the ones they "assured" us we "knew" existed, except they didn't. But there's no need to lament the dearly departed; we have Hillary...
View ArticleHow many Iraqis have died?
A few days ago it was the story of the coverup of the murder by U.S. forces of civilians in Afghanistan, today it's the story of a 2007 massacre in which U.S. helicopter gunships fired on civilians in...
View ArticleDon't cha wish your movement was hot like "Tea"?
TV news this morning features repeated promos for Tea Party rallies coming up this afternoon. The front page of the San Jose Mercury News features two pictures and an article covering about 50% of the...
View ArticleWhy Americans have a distorted view of Israel
Two days ago something very serious, though not at all uncommon, occurred in the West Bank (a.k.a. occupied Palestine): More than 300 olive trees were uprooted and two cars set alight in the West Bank...
View ArticleCapitalism in a nutshell
It's nice when the newspapers do my job for me, even if they don't exactly connect the dots. Front page of today's San Jose Mercury News features one article on the "booming economy." Here's the lead...
View ArticleHistoric day in Oakland: Israeli ship blocked from unloading
In an unprecedented action yesterday at the Port of Oakland, hundreds of activists succeeded in preventing the offloading of an Israeli cargo ship for 24-hours, in protest against the massacre of...
View ArticleRacism at the USDA? You bet
The ANSWER Coalition, Code Pink, the DC Statehood Green Party, and others held a demonstration (pictures at the link) in front of the Department of Agriculture today, demanding the reinstatement of...
View ArticleWhitmanomics
I've already been on Meg Whitman's case for claiming that as governor of California she'll create millions of jobs, starting by firing 40,000 state workers. Here's today's sample of Whitmanomics:...
View ArticleRobert Gates: Less is more
Yesterday, Secretary of War"Defense" Robert Gates gave a major speech to a news conference announcing major "cuts" in the Defense Department. CNN's subtitle under him was interesting, though, and...
View ArticleAnother day, another war
The New York Times and the rest of the corporate media gets lots of justifiable flak from this blog (and plenty of other sources), but it is also a fact that they do serve a valuable function, as...
View ArticleThe hidden Katrina timeline: Cuban doctors
Here's a part of the Katrina timeline, five years after the fact, that you won't see anywhere else, representing just one more of the many crimes of the Bush administration:
View ArticleThe double-standard on terrorism
Barack Obama on a bombing in Egypt yesterday which took the lives of 21 people: "The perpetrators of this attack were clearly targeting Christian worshipers, and have no respect for human life and...
View Article"Cuts" to "defense"
News reports have it that President Obama is proposing "cuts to defense spending" of $78 billion. Really? Well, it's easy to propose things (like ending wars, for example) for some time in the future;...
View ArticleEight years is a long time - human rights abuses examined
Nearly eight years ago, I started writing this blog. Eight years is a long time. You know what else happened eight years ago. Two men, one a Russian ballet dancer and the other an Algerian who was a...
View ArticleQuote of the Day from...Justin Bieber?
"Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard's baby was...
View ArticleIranian "curveball"
Two stories in today's news make for an interesting juxtaposition. On the one hand, we have the notorious "Curveball" admitting he completely made up allegations about Iraqi WMD because he wanted the...
View ArticleAlone again, naturally (U.S. vetoes U.N. resolution against settlements)
[Bonus points for getting the song allusion in the title]Today, 14 of the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council voted for a resolution declaring Israel's West Bank settlement construction illegal, a...
View Article"Deliberate indifference"...on the part of the Supreme Court
A New Orleans man spent 14 years on death row and was within weeks of execution before someone discovered that his blood type didn't match the killer (a fact known to the prosecution at the time) and...
View ArticleCommand and control center destroyed by NATO
Not sure just what was being commanded or controlled, though (emphasis added):Saturday's strike reduced most of the Gadhafi family compound, which takes up an entire block in the residential Garghour...
View ArticleGovernment lies, media covers for them
You all know the story by now. On day one, Osama bin Laden was killed after using a woman as a human shield, and resisted capture by firing back. On day two, there was no human shield, and he was...
View Article"Protecting" civilians in Libya
Hillary Clinton says:"We reaffirmed that there is only one way forward for Libya. Attacks against civilians must stop. Gadhafi must go, and the Libyan people deserve to determine their own future. The...
View ArticleTraining Afghan troops
We're told that a major (or perhaps the major) focus of American involvement in Afghanistan right now is training Afghan troops to take the place of American troops who can then leave. Today, however,...
View ArticleThe "unconventional" Jon Huntsman
Today's laugh of the day - this headline from Business Week:Huntsman Enters White House Race as Unconventional Candidate OK, let's read the article and see if we can figure what's "unconventional"...
View ArticleNation building at home
President Obama: "America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home."If by "it is time," you mean in a year or two once we stop bombing Libya, and in another 5 or 10 years when we have...
View ArticleVeterans react to Afghan "withdrawal"
Obama’s speech means nothing to us and our families Veterans, active-duty troops respond to endless war in AfghanistanHow many more deaths between now and the supposed withdrawal date in 2014?The...
View ArticleANSWER replies to "No Libyans allowed" claim
This is a response to the opinion article "No Libyans allowed at ANSWER Libya forum," posted here at Daily Kos and on various email lists on June 23, 2011. The writer of the response is the...
View ArticleWho killed 9 Turkish activists on the Mavi Marmara?
You've got to love the passive tense*:From AFP, with emphasis added:Hundreds of activists are preparing to board aid ships bound for Gaza this week in defiance of an Israeli blockade and UN warnings...
View ArticleObama: "Constitution and laws are just 'noise'" and other lies about Libya
Via fellow blogger WIIIAI, I was alerted to an Obama press conference I somehow missed on Wednesday. One could use up a lot of electrons on picking apart what he had to say on lots of subjects, but...
View ArticleObama's confusion on interest vs. taxes
In his address to the nation about the debt ceiling "crisis," President Barack Obama had this to say about the consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling:"Interest rates would skyrocket on...
View ArticleThe Afghan merry-go-round of death
Today in Afghanistan:Eight civilians, including women and children, have been killed in a US-led NATO airstrike in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. ... In a separate incident, at least four...
View ArticleNBC's Brian Williams hides the military nature of the space program
In a feature on tonight's NBC Nightly News entitled "What we've missed this week", Brian Williams told a story this way (my transcript from the video):"This was the thing that was going to make us feel...
View ArticleWhere does change come from?
It's easy to get disillusioned with mass protest. Did it stop the invasion of Iraq? Has it ended the war against Afghanistan? Is the current "occupation" of Wall Street really likely to end the power...
View ArticleFirst of Cuban Five released from prison
Statement from the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five on the Release from Prison of René GonzálezRené González, one of the five men known as the Cuban Five, today will walk out of Federal Prison...
View ArticleRyan on Janesville: the lie wasn't the worst part
There has been a lot of media (and blog and Facebook and Twitter) attention on Paul Ryan's Janesville lie, in which he blames Barack Obama for the closing of an auto plant which closed before Obama was...
View ArticleIran is guilty because...we say so
The U.S. is ramping up pressure on the American public to accept an attack on Iran, with not one but two stories in today's news. It wasn't enough to accuse Iran of producing nuclear weapons based on...
View Article
