Trashing Korans in Federal Prisons
Remember the allegation that guards in Gitmo had flushed a Koran (which turned out to be false)?
Well, DOJ Inspector General's annual report of civil rights violations committed by DOJ employees includes this allegation from a federal prison…
Omar Suleiman Promised the 2006 Election in Gaza Wouldn't Take Place
Back in 2008, David Rose had a fairly explosive article on Condi Rice and Elliot Abrams' incompetent meddling in Gaza, which he compared to Iran-Contra. Here's how I summarized its revelations at the time:
The story explains how the Administration…
"Made in America" in the 21st Century
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In Trash Talk, bmaz wrote about a "lunchpail" Superbowl, pitting two teams named after people who make things against each other: the Steelworkers versus the Meatpackers. And the game ended appropriately,…
Hillary Can't Decide Whether to Impose Democracy or Not
On Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told attendees at a security conference that our torturer, Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman, should manage the transition to democracy in Egypt.
She backed off that stance yesterday.
CBS…
SuperBowl XLV Trash Talk
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bmazIt is SuperBowl Weekend and time for the biggest, and sadly last, NFL Trash Talk for the season. Let's roll!
Alan Simpson: America Is a Cow w/300M Tits. Plus, 10M MOTUs?
Alan Simpson claims he misspoke back in August when he called Social Security "a milk cow with 310 million tits."
He explains,
"I meant to say that America was a milk cow with 300 million teats, and not just Social Security."
Oh. Okay.…
Claiming Consensus, Omar Suleiman Promises to Hold Protesters Accountable
The key to understanding Omar Suleiman's statement claiming there is "consensus" in how to move forward in Egypt is to see how he redefines the crisis from being caused by legitimate grievances voiced by the "youth" involved in protests into…
Hillary's Tortured Democracy and the Suleiman "Assassination Attempt"
At a security conference in Munich today, Hillary Clinton announced that America's torturer, Omar Suleiman, must be in charge of Egypt's "transition" to "democracy."
The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton today signalled how far the US has…
Our Diplomats Need to Spend More Time Surfing the Toobz!
As I noted in my last post, DiFi is accusing the intelligence community of having missed the potential volatility of Middle Eastern unrest because they've been paying too little attention to social media.
So I decided to check the WikiLeaks…
"Did Anyone Know a Fruit Vendor in Tunisia Was Going to Light Himself on Fire?"
That's the question NSC spokesperson Tommy Vietor used yesterday to deflect Senate Intelligence Committee concerns that the Administration was taken by surprise by the events in Egypt.
Did anyone in the world know in advance that a fruit vendor…
What Goes into Watchlisting?
A bunch of national security journalists are tracking down the three Qataris -- described as a potential fifth 9/11 cell -- described in this WikiLeaks cable and first reported by the Telegraph. I wanted to do the reverse of what they're doing…
Abbe Lowell's Leak as Governance Theory
Josh Gerstein links to this fascinating filing from Abbe Lowell, the lawyer who successfully got leak charges against AIPAC employees dismissed, and now representing a former State Department contractor, Stephen Kim, alleged to have leaked Top…
Clinton's Blowjob: 5 Times More Important than the Wall Street Crash
Honest, I'm posting this video not for obvious affinities I have for Dylan Ratigan's argument. But mostly because of the obvious suggestion, based on the resources we dedicate to investigating them, that Clinton's blowjob was five times…
WH Press Corps Demands Photo Ops of Them Asking about Egypt
I don't see much purpose behind the letter the White House press corps just sent outgoing Robert Gibbs:
We recognize that the crisis in Egypt is a quickly evolving story and you are working to get us the information we need in a timely manner,…
"No One Could Have Predicted the Housing Bubble Middle East Status Quo Would Crash"
The WSJ has a fascinating narrative of how both the US and Mubarak's government were utterly unprepared for a democratic revolution in Egypt. From a meeting two months ago at which Egypt again refused democratic reforms, after which Hillary…
Bennie Thompson to Peter King: What about the White Supremacists?
Ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson, just wrote a letter to Peter King asking him to include other terrorists, in addition to Islamic extremists, in his fear-mongering hearing this month.
I write to request…
Former CIA CounterTerrorism Head: "The US has simply become irrelevant in the Middle East"
This column by Robert Grenier is stunning not because of its content--I agree with just about all of it--but because of who Grenier is. As the CIA's Iraq Mission Manager in 2002-2004 and then head of CIA's CounterTerrorism Center in 2004-2006,…
Unlike the Guardian, the NYT Told State Precisely What WikiLeaks Cables It Would Publish
The Guardian has now posted its version of the US government's efforts last November to learn what cables WikiLeaks would publish, so I'd like compare the three versions to show what we know.
As I noted before, these negotiations started…
In Egypt a Dictator Censors Politics; In the US a Corporation Censors ... Football
To be fair, it was not a highly lucrative football game CBS censored. Rather, it was an ad put out by the players' union opposing the lockout the owners are threatening. I guess anything from a labor union -- even a labor union representing…
Stuxnet: A Way to Nuke Iran without Using a Bomb?
Last week, Russian Ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told the organization that the computer worm Israel and the US devised to ruin Iran's nuclear program could have led to a catastrophe with the Bushehr nuclear plant like Chernobyl.
Russia…