Politics ~ Progressive

Gary Jackson, the ex-President of private security contractor Blackwater (now known as Xe), has been indicted on federal weapons charges, the Associated Press reports. Four other Blackwater officials will also face prosecution. As Mother Jones noted last month, this news wasn't entirely a surprise.

NATO's own figures revealed that the number of civilians killed by NATO in Afghanistan had well more than doubled year over year.

An Arab member of the Israeli parliament is demanding that a newspaper be allowed to publish an investigative report that was suppressed days before Israel attacked Gaza in winter 2008.

In 2005, former CIA director 2005 approved a decision by a top aide to destroy dozens of videotapes documenting criminal torture of two detainees.

Be careful. Be very careful.

Middle East Policy Council

The U.S. disclosed for the first time on Monday the current size of its nuclear arsenal, lifting the veil on once top-secret numbers in an effort to bolster non-proliferation efforts.

Cornell Law School offers Syllabus, Opinion (Kennedy), Concurrence (Roberts, Scalia), CD-in-Part (Stevens, Thomas), in addition to primary ruling.

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.

Where to put the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), which will centralize the writing and (to some degree) enforcement of federal financial regulations on such things as mortgages, savings accounts, and consumer debt. Should it be an independent agency, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, or a subunit of the Treasury Department or the Federal Reserve?

Obama's FCC to Abandon Net Neutrality?

I was tooling around the internet for awhile yesterday, looking for a transcript of the Congressional hearings that featured Goldman Sachs executives and traders as the star witnesses, before I realized that nowhere in print was there any real sense of what had gone on. Congressional hearings may have been effective at some point in the past, but these days, the witnesses are usually far too polished and used to dissembling for hours at a time to be of any real value, and the senators and congressmen who are asking the questions are usually too polite to do more than ask questions of little or no value. Senator Carl Levin tried to deviate from that formula on Tuesday. He was harsh, unyielding and relentless. "Your clients lost. Goldman profits" rang out several times during his opening address. But Senator Levin didn't have enough of an understanding of the business to really pin back the ears of any of the witnesses, including Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs chairman. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why his staffers didn't line up a few disgruntled traders and insiders to give the senator a three or four day crash course on the business. His gambling analogies were something that might appeal to my grandmother, who puts gambling of any kind up there with the cardinal sins, but missed the mark when it came to characterizing Wall Street's shenanigans.

 

More than $13 BILLION dollars were spent by lobbyists on Congress between 2004 and 2008. ... Only $55 MILLION dollars were collected by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and CBC related charities between 2004 and 2008.

An FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force had taken over the investigation Monday amid growing indications of a possible international connection

After NAFTA caused cheap American corn to flood Mexican markets, putting even prosperous Mexican corn farmers out of business, many fled to the U.S., desperate for work to support their families. Many others were actively recruited by corporations like Smithfield to work dangerous jobs in American factories. Government raids, like the one depicted in the movie, are carried out in collusion with the senior management of companies like Smithfield to "send a message" (to Americans, to the undocumented) while never really interfering with the company's production line or, more importantly, its bottom line.

White House: Immigration Is 'Important' And Energy Is 'Critical,' But Reid 'Sets The Agenda'

"40 politicians, government officials, religious leaders, militias and criminal organizations that cannot stand the press, treat it as an enemy and directly attack journalists."

Why the Financial Reform Bill is Better Than Nothing (But Not by Much)

Court says family can't sue federal doctors over detainee's death Immigration officials refused a man's repeated requests for a lesion biopsy. After his release, he died of cancer.