Apparently (though the story remains unconfirmed), a couple of weeks ago Kim Jong-un executed his defense minister (well, former defense minister), Hyon Yong Chol, by having him shot with a giant anti-aircraft gun, maybe for incompetence, maybe for falling asleep on the job, or who knows, really, this is Kim Jong-un we're talking about. "Analysts" … Continue reading Dead is dead, right?

Burundi may be in the midst of a military coup to oust President Pierre Nkurunziza: An army general in Burundi announced Wednesday that the military had ousted President Pierre Nkurunziza, setting off celebrations in the streets among protesters who had been trying to block the president’s bid for another term. “President Pierre Nkurunziza is removed … Continue reading Coup in Burundi, results unclear

Remember how I said that Seymour Hersh's big Osama bin Laden story was interesting but needed some serious corroboration before it could really be considered a serious challenge to the official version of events? Well, here's some corroboration, from Carlotta Gall of the New York Times: The latest contribution is the journalist Seymour Hersh’s 10,000-word … Continue reading Part of Seymour Hersh’s story gets corroborated

Somebody is releasing unauthorized recordings of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his top aides, and what's on them doesn't reflect very well on Egypt's Pharaoh Khedive Supreme Leader Imperator President for Life: For months, a steady trickle of leaked audio recordings has appeared to offer a rare chance to eavesdrop on embarrassing conversations among the inner circle of … Continue reading Sisi and desist

At the Rachel Maddow blog, Steve Benen asks: Is Jeb Bush’s position on Iraq a disqualifier? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-NAIg_3XmM The answer is yes, it is. JEB was asked by Fox News's Megyn Kelly whether, "knowing what we know now," he would have invaded Iraq back in 2003 like his brother. This question shouldn't produce any genuinely enlightening … Continue reading SATSQ: Jeb Bush and Iraq edition

I'm one of those hard to please lefties who won't really be satisfied with any health care reform short of something like single payer or a national health service, but the health care reform we got seems to be better than no reform at all. That said, people are always going to fall through the … Continue reading The most tortured “Thanks Obama” story you’ve ever heard

Incredibly, another large (around 7.3 or 7.4) earthquake hit beleaguered Nepal today, east of Kathmandu: Residents of Kathmandu, the capital, reported that buildings swayed in the earthquake, which was felt as far away as New Delhi. The United States Geological Survey assigned the quake a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, with an epicenter about 50 miles … Continue reading Nepal hit by ANOTHER major quake: links for charities

On Saturday I went on Alhurra's "30 Minutes" to talk about this week's upcoming US-Gulf Cooperation Council summit at Camp David, along with Dr. Anwar Ishqi from Saudi Arabia's Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies. If you have a strong desire to watch a fat guy being dubbed in Arabic (assuming you don't … Continue reading US and GCC (or whoever shows up) prepare to put on a happy face at Camp David

Ezra Klein, filling in for Kevin Drum at Mother Jones, looks at the "decline" of cable news and suggests that it's not so much the news channels that are to blame as the fact that the news itself these days is both generally depressing and (worse) usually pretty boring: The Washington Post's Paul Farhi sees … Continue reading When “the news” stopped being about news

To preface this, I've only read about half of Seymour Hersh's report on the raid (or "raid") that ended with the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, because a) it's very long, plus b) its publication raised such a commotion online that the LRB's website crashed for over an hour, both of which matter … Continue reading About Abbottabad