National Security
MEMBERS ONLY: If You Want To Know Who Trump's Calling On His Personal Cellphone, Ask Our Enemies
One of the many supremely stressful aspects of the Trump era is the very real danger that President Trump's style of erratic, racist, bullying, misinformed politics will continue beyond Trump, further eroding institutions and obliterating the functioning of government as we know ...read more
Everything That's Wrong with National Security Adviser John Bolton (Besides His Mustache)
by Kate Harveston You can learn a lot about a person from their mustache. President Donald Trump was hesitant about hiring John Bolton for the position of National Security Advisor because of his walrus-like facial hair. Bolton is a questionable character to fill any top role ...read more
Why Are We Still Using the Espionage Act?
The Trump administration has taken it’s first step in retaliating against leakers, showing that the President’s tirades on twitter are more than just rhetorical threats. Charges have been brought under the Espionage Act against a 25 year-old NSA contractor for allegedly ...read more
Trump Admits His Border Wall Is About Racism, Not "Protecting America"
Ever since the beginning of his campaign, Trump has had an explicitly racist message about Latinos. When he started declaring that he would build a wall on the Mexican border and "force" Mexico to pay for it, his audience went wild. The conceit was that this would make America ...read more
Trump Had A Classified Security Briefing In The Middle Of A F*cking Restaurant
Remember the good ol' days when Hillary Clinton was a criminal for having no classified information on a private server? Trump loved bashing her for it. "Lock her up!" was the mating call of the angry Trump voter. Trump brought it up so often that even his critics assumed he ...read more
Why Greenwald's Latest Piece Is Good Journalism That Raises Serious Questions
On Wednesday, Glenn Greenwald published a very important piece of journalism on The Intercept that should -- in any society that cares how the government decides which citizens it spies on -- be part of a meaningful discussion about government transparency. The report is based ...read more
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No, Obama Is Not 'Worse Than Bush' on National Security
Just when I thought it was safe to carry on a conversation on the left about various Obama administration policies, the phrases "same as Bush" or "worse than Bush" have skulked back into popular use thanks to the leaked Office of Legal Counsel white paper on the targeted killing ...read more
How Secrecy Corrodes Democracy
President Barack Obama meeting in the Oval Office with two of his speechwriters on Feb. 5, 2013. (White House photo by Pete Souza) By Robert Parry The United States is a nation foundering in a vast sea of secrets, with government officials showing little regard for the ...read more
Post-9/11 Intelligence Center Gathered Citizen Information, Very Little on Terrorists
The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From The AP: WASHINGTON (AP) — A multibillion-dollar information-sharing program created in the aftermath of 9/11 has improperly collected information about innocent Americans and produced little valuable intelligence on terrorism, a Senate ...read more
Mitt Romney Kneejerks Into Another Colossal Blunder
By Bob Cesca: This week, Vanity Fair published a beautifully written article about the president by Michael Lewis who happened to use the American involvement with the NATO military action in Libya as a through-line. It's possibly the best insider piece on the president since ...read more
Idealism and Spiking the Bin Laden Football
By Bob Cesca: You might have noticed how the Democrats last week weren't afraid to ballyhoo the Obama administration's tenacious pursuit and killing of Osama Bin Laden. This pivotal event in the president's first term represented what could be the beginning of a major shift in ...read more
Natl. Security Adviser Jim Jones: More Success Terrorists Killed/Captured Under Obama
Elect a president like Obama who actually takes national security and the defense of America seriously and the results tend to follow. ‘This type of radical fundamentalism or terrorism is a threat not only to the United States but to the global community,’ Jones said. ‘The world ...read more
Pete Hoekstra: National Security Expert? Don't Make Me Laugh
Robert Costa of the conservative National Review has an interview up with Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan. In the interview, Hoekstra has dire warnings - OH NOES - about national security under President Obama: Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R., Mich.), the ranking Republican member of the ...read more
DOJ Appointing Prosecutor To Investigate Possible CIA Abuse
About time. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided to appoint a prosecutor to examine nearly a dozen cases in which CIA interrogators and contractors may have violated anti-torture laws and other statutes when they allegedly threatened terrorism suspects, according to ...read more
Leon Panetta Threatens To Quit CIA?
Maybe he should. Since Panetta took over the CIA he seems to reflexively be defense of the agency's past - possibly illegal -activities. At every turn he has opposed efforts by the White House and Congress to uncover what was done during the Bush administration. We can't ignore ...read more
Climate Change: The Security Threat
But we should totally give in to oil company propaganda and the blogs they send on junkets (*cough* QandO *cough*). Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South ...read more
Finally, Oversight Of The Bush Era's CIA Activities
Because so far the Dems have been mostly talk, and not even enough of that. The House Intelligence Committee has asked the CIA to provide documents about the now-canceled program to target al-Qaida leaders, congressional officials said Tuesday. The move is a precursor to what ...read more
Hey, Dick Cheney's A Crook
But you knew that already. The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House ...read more
During Bush Era, CIA Lied To Congress
And this is why President Obama is wrong when he so quickly wants to turn the page on the abuse of this country by George W. Bush and Co. Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon E. Panetta has told lawmakers that CIA officials misled Congress 'for a number of years' since ...read more
Obama Tells Bush Appointees At Pentagon To Clean Out Their Desks
New boss. Despite keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in the Pentagon, President-elect Obama’s transition team informed 90 Bush appointees their services will not be needed after Inauguration Day. Scott Gration, a senior official on Obama’s transition team, called and emailed ...read more
Big Gov't Republicans
We've got to clean out the stables of national security as well. ‘For a bunch of small-government Republicans,’ one former denizen of the White House who has now stepped back inside for the first time in eight years, ‘these guys built a hell of an empire.’ Eight years ago, there ...read more
McCain: Pay For Corporate Tax Cut With Defense Cuts
These people are insane. Not only do they want to cut taxes for big corporations like the energy companies, but the way they think we should make up for it is to cut defense spending? Even the people who support cuts in defense spending (I'm not much for that) would think that ...read more
Hillary Clinton Crosses "The Commander In Chief Threshold" During Her Time As First Lady: Illustrated
Sen. Clinton repeatedly cites 35 years of experience as a major rationale for her presidential candidacy. Next to her term in the Senate (in which the most significant vote she cast was a vote in favor of the Iraq war), the only other experience of hers that has national ...read more