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Cruel and Unusual: Life Without Parole Sentences Require Greater Circumspection

Archives for November 2013

A New Era In The Middle East

A successful nuclear deal that de-escalates tensions with Iran could open a gateway to a number of good things for the region and the world.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh

Despite the best efforts of American neoconservatives, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the French, it seems that a deal of sorts has been reached between the West and the Islamic Republic of Iran on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. This necessarily raises three questions. What does this deal consist of? Why did it occur? And what may be the fallout from it?

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Justice Department Lied To SCOTUS About NSA Surveillance

The question of whether the Justice Department knowingly lied to the Supreme Court could mean a pending minefield for the Obama administration.

Frederick Reese
By Frederick Reese

As the nation learns more about the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program, such as recent revelations that the NSA most likely tapped into the communications of Google and Yahoo users, not through cooperation with the companies themselves, but via collusion with the companies’ Internet backbone providers, questions on how the federal

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Pentagon Approves Record Sale Of Advanced Arms To Countries At War

Congress will decide if deal first struck by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in April should go through.

Jo Erickson
By Jo Erickson

Selling weapons used to be a cut-throat business. With a no-questions-asked policy, it has led in the past, to the selling of weapons to support African conflicts, leaving Angola, Somalia, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic Congo awash with AK-47 semi-automatic rifles and very little else. Today’s high-tech weapons

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House Passes Bill Making Protesting Big Oil Punishable by $5,000 Fine

Environmentalists say lawmakers reluctance to address the bill’s environmental concerns is likely a result of not wanting to bite the hand that feeds them.

Katie Rucke
By Katie Rucke

Last week the U.S. House passed multiple pro-oil, anti-environmental pieces of legislation that would, among other things, charge a $5,000 fee in order to file an official protest against a proposed drilling project, sparking outrage from environmentalists and First Amendment advocates alike. One of those bills, the Federal Land Jobs and Energy

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Poll Finds Americans Agree It’s Time For Immigration Reform

Despite the American public largely ignoring party lines when it comes to immigration reform, lawmakers don’t appear to have put their differences aside.

Katie Rucke
By Katie Rucke

A new poll released on Monday found that about two-thirds of Americans favor creating a path to citizenship for the some 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. The polling information was released in a report from the Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, which examined how

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A Resurgence Of Authoritarianism In Economically Beleaguered Greece

Forty years after the collapse of the military junta, authoritarianism is once again in full swing in economically beleaguered Greece.

CJ Polychroniou
By CJ Polychroniou

Forty years after the collapse of the military junta and the return to parliamentary democracy, authoritarianism is once again in full swing in economically beleaguered Greece. The country is under the direct command of the troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which in May 2010 provided

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