I'm pretty addicted to Feedly, as I've probably mentioned before. So I was catching up on my newsfeed last night when I see blaring at me, via Foreign Policy's RSS feed, the headline: U.S. Accuses Iran of Secretly Breaching U.N. Nuclear Sanctions I read the entire article, because for some reason FP's RSS feed has been … Continue reading Foreign Policy’s Incredible Disappearing “Iran Is Breaching U.N. Sanctions” Article

After Michèle Flournoy and Sen. Jack Reed both said "thanks, but no thanks" to the chance to become Barack Obama's fourth defense secretary, the last top candidate standing was Dr. Ashton Carter, who previously served as Obama's (2011-2013) Deputy Secretary of Defense and (2009-2011) Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, and before that was … Continue reading Obama nominates hawkish Ashton Carter as next Secretary of Defense

I'm just gonna leave this here, since, well, you know. I will add, though, that while I'm actually in agreement with John McCain (I know) on this, he could have been slightly more...diplomatic, let's say, about expressing his thoughts: Orbán is pretty authoritarian, though "neo-fascist" might be going too far, but he's not a dictator, … Continue reading How do you say “Days of Our Lives” in Hungarian?

So Tuesday's story wasn't entirely accurate: "Dulaimi is not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's wife currently. She has been married three times: first to a man from the former Iraqi regime, with whom she had two sons," he said. "Six years ago she married Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for three months, and she had a daughter with him. … Continue reading Turns out Lebanon is detaining EX Mrs. al-Baghdadi (maybe)

It's hard not to give in to laughter sometimes: Letters from disillusioned French fighters in Syria published by a French newspaper this week have revived a contentious debate in Europe about what to do with radicalized recruits to foreign wars who wish to lay down their arms and return home. In the excerpts, published by Le … Continue reading “MOOOM, this jihad is SOOOO lame, can I come home now????”

A group of Chechen insurgents seized control of buildings in the Chechen capital city of Grozny on Wednesday night, then engaged in a gun battle with police that appears to have killed at least 19, 9 fighters and 10 police officers (nobody with the Chechen Republic seems prepared to say whether there were any civilian … Continue reading Is Russia on the verge of a new Chechen conflict?

Let me take a shot at answering my own question from earlier: Is there any other government that voluntarily shuts itself down every December because half of the freaking political system has a big old temper tantrum when it comes time to make the budgets? Usually when other governments shut down it’s because, I don’t … Continue reading Is it the system?

Today we learned that you can show a group of ~20 mostly white people (I'm guessing, but I bet I'm right) a video of a police officer choking a man to death, and if the victim happens to be black, those 20 or so people will say, "huh, yeah, that looks about right." Eric Garner … Continue reading Our post-racial society

With all credit to The Nation's Reed F. Richardson: NYT says it won't decide right away if it plans on replacing its lone labor reporter, who's taking a buyout… http://t.co/6EpnEcXrSB — Reed F. Richardson (@reedfrich) December 3, 2014   Meanwhile, it has *14* reporters contributing to its Wall Street-cheerleading sub-site, DealBook. #priorities http://t.co/fSgADP4HVS — Reed … Continue reading Journalistic priorities, in two tweets

Just when you thought the 113th Congress was done being The Worst Legislative Body in the History of Legislative Bodies, they've found one last way to cement their awfulness! And you just know that this upcoming government shutdown is going to be the best one EVER! Just 24 hours ago, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and … Continue reading The Republican Party is in re-runs