Archive for the 'Dictatorship' Category
Former Dictator Efraín Ríos Montt Convicted of Genocide in Guatemala
May 11th, 2013“President Ríos Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment. … I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice.” —U.S. President Ronald Regan, 1982 Via: Independent: Former dictator Efrain Rios Montt’s conviction of genocide is a historic moment in a country still healing […]
FBI Documents Suggest Feds Read Emails Without a Warrant
May 11th, 2013Via: ACLU: New documents from the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ offices paint a troubling picture of the government’s email surveillance practices. Not only does the FBI claim it can read emails and other electronic communications without a warrant—even after a federal appeals court ruled that doing so violates the Fourth Amendment—but the documents strongly suggest […]
Afghanistan: ‘U.S. Kicks Drug-War Habit, Makes Peace With Afghan Poppies’
May 10th, 2013You’ll love this one. Via: Wired: Because of the poppies, the raw material for most of the world’s heroin, the list of things 1st Lt. Christopher Gackstatter and his 2nd Platoon can’t do in Sartok is far longer than the list of things they can. Marching into the mud-walled village in this sun-baked district of […]
Granddaughter of Mao Zedong Has Net Worth Over $800 Million
May 10th, 2013“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” — Animal Farm by George Orwell Via: AFP: The appearance of a grand-daughter of Mao Zedong, founding father of Communist China, on a list of the country’s richest citizens prompted online accusations of hypocrisy Thursday. Kong Dongmei, now in her early 40s, and […]
Special Inspector General Claims Obama Regime Applying Pressure Over ‘Damning Audits’
May 10th, 2013Via: Politico: The watchdog who tracks the billions of taxpayer dollars spent to rebuild Afghanistan says government officials have tried to silence him because they think he’s embarrassing the White House and Afghan President Hamid Karzai by pointing out the waste and fraud. John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, used a speech […]
Hanford Nuclear Waste “Cleanup” Disaster
May 10th, 2013Via: Scientific American: The most toxic and voluminous nuclear waste in the U.S.—208 million liters —sits in decaying underground tanks at the Hanford Site (a nuclear reservation) in southeastern Washington State. It accumulated there from the middle of World War II, when the Manhattan Project invented the first nuclear weapon, to 1987, when the last […]
Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform
May 10th, 2013Via: Wired: The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system. Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating […]
Missouri Legislature Nullifies All Federal Gun Control Measures by a Veto-Proof Majority
May 10th, 2013Via: Tenth Amendment Center: Tonight, the Missouri State House voted to send Governor Jay Nixon what could arguably be the strongest defense against federal gun control measures in American history. The vote was 116-38. HB436, introduced by Representative Doug Funderburk in February, was initially passed by the House in April by a vote of 115-42. […]
State Department Asks Defense Distributed to Take Down Its 3D-Printed Gun Plans; Hilarity Ensues
May 10th, 2013These are probably some of the most mirrored files ever, and news of the ban is just causing more people to become interested in them. Via: Atlantic Wire: Defense Distributed, the Texas-based nonprofit that wants to empower people to 3D print their own guns, has hit a bit of a legal snag. According to founder […]
Britain: Snooper’s Charter
May 9th, 2013Via: Guardian: The government appears to have left open the door to the resurrection of the controversial “snooper’s charter” bill to track everyone’s email, internet and mobile text use. Whitehall sources confirmed that the possibility of legislation remains under discussion despite a declaration by Nick Clegg that the communications data legislation “isn’t going to happen […]
