“Americans aren’t exactly itching for a new war. (A majority, in fact, believes the country would be better off staying in the nuclear deal with Iran.) So how can the Trump administration build a case for a pre-emptive strike? Those claims of a nefarious alliance with Al Qaeda might help.”
“The Pentagon tried to block an independent assessment of child sex abuse crimes committed by Afghan soldiers and police, instead insisting on the creation of its own report offering a far less authoritative review of human rights violations perpetrated by U.S. allies, according to an aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). Afghan security personnel have been known to recruit young boys as servants, sometimes to use for sex. There is a broader practice in Afghan society to dress some boys as women and have them dance at gatherings. Known as bacha bazi, it was banned under the Taliban but revived after the U.S. invasion in 2001.”
“SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said regime must ‘stop killing children’ as he condemned the Government for failing to suspend selling arms to Riyadh during the devastating three-year conflict in Yemen.”
“As bad as the North Korean government is, it is does not go abroad looking for countries to invade. The designation is a political one, allowing Washington to ramp up more aggression against North Korea. What is terrorism? Maybe we should ask a Yemeni child constantly wondering when the next Saudi bomb overhead might kill his family. Or perhaps we might even ask a Pakistani, Somali, Iraqi, Syrian, or other child who is terrified that the next US bomb will do the same to his family. Perhaps we need to look at whether US foreign policy actually reflects the American values we claim to be exporting before we point out the flaws in others.”
“We are told that US foreign policy should reflect American values. So how can Washington support Saudi Arabia – a tyrannical state with one of the worst human rights record on earth – as it commits by what any measure is a genocide against the Yemeni people? US involvement in Saudi Arabia’s crimes against Yemen is a national disgrace. That the mainstream media fails to accurately cover this genocide is shameful. Let us join our voices now to demand that our US Representatives end US involvement in Yemen immediately!”
“The state police have insisted the part of the calibration process that Dennis skipped is ‘legally required but not scientifically necessary.’ However, legal experts have voiced concerns about how important every part of the calibration process is, saying that these measures are ‘legally required’ for good reason. Just a small percentage point on a breathalyzer could mean the difference between freedom and imprisonment.”
“The law was the crowning achievement of a multifaceted campaign by the drug industry to weaken aggressive DEA enforcement efforts against drug distribution companies that were supplying corrupt doctors and pharmacists who peddled narcotics to the black market. The industry worked behind the scenes with lobbyists and key members of Congress, pouring more than a million dollars into their election campaigns.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/dea-drug-industry-congress/
“The idea that ‘strong security’ is compatible with a government backdoor is a lie. Any security expert can tell you that a backdoor leaves your product vulnerable, even if you trust the government agency with the key. Previous backdoors advocated by the US government have been blown wide open by security experts. There is near-universal agreement among security experts that government backdoors and security are not compatible – a reality that the DOJ continues to ignore.”
Read more: https://fee.org/articles/the-government-is-lying-to-us-about-cybersecurity/
“The Spanish government decided that criticizing the actions of state agents is hateful and therefore punishable as hate speech. This is by no means an isolated incident. Many countries that American progressives admire and make calls for the US to emulate have stringent hate speech prohibitions and are using those prohibitions to crack down not on racial or gendered attacks, but on political speech. Recent examples include France, Canada, Germany, and the UK.”
Read more: https://fee.org/articles/criminalizing-hate-speech-causes-more-problems-than-it-solves/
“In George W. Bush’s home state of Texas, if you are an ordinary citizen found guilty of capital murder, the mandatory sentence is either life in prison or the death penalty. If, however, you are a former president of the United States responsible for initiating two illegal wars of aggression, which killed 7,000 U.S. servicemen and at least 210,000 civilians, displaced more than 10 million people from their homes, condoned torture, initiated a global drone assassination campaign, and imprisoned people for years without substantive evidence or trial in Guantanamo Bay, the punishment evidently is to be given the Thayer Award at West Point.”