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via AP, Los Angeles Times The Senate closed the Capitol on Saturday after sending President Obama a spending bill that will make sure the government won’t shut down Oct. 1, the start of the new budget year. The measure passed early Saturday by a 62-30 vote — and then lawmakers skipped out of town to … Continue reading
via Philip Elliot and Alan Fram, The Huffington Post Republicans emphatically approved a toughly worded party platform at their national convention Tuesday that would ban all abortions and gay marriages, reshape Medicare into a voucher-like program and cut taxes to energize the economy and create jobs. The document opens by warning that while the American … Continue reading
via Jim Garrison, The Huffington Post President Obama’s National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order of March 16 does to the country as a whole what the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act did to the Constitution in particular — completely eviscerates any due process or judicial oversight for any action by the Government deemed in the … Continue reading
via Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet A Homeland Security training manual belies claims made by DHS representatives during a Congressional hearing last week that the federal agency is only monitoring social media outlets for “situational awareness,” and proves the fact that Bis Sis is also tracking online criticism of government, including discussion of airport body … Continue reading
via Jonathan Turley, The Washington Post Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries … Continue reading
via Margaret Talev and Nicole Gaouette, Bloomberg The Obama administration will weigh how countries treat gays and lesbians in making decisions about foreign aid, according to a presidential memorandum released by the White House. Laws prohibit same-sex sexual activity in many nations in the Middle East and Africa, and in two of the largest recipients … Continue reading
via Thom Shanker and Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq … Continue reading
via Glenn Thrush and Dan Hirschhorn, Politico President Barack Obama marked the end of the Iraq War last week, but he left it to Hillary Rodham Clinton — whose support for the unpopular war in 2003 ultimately helped lift Obama to the White House — to answer tough post-withdrawal questions Sunday. The Secretary of the … Continue reading
via Asjylyn Loder and David Evans, Bloomberg In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company … Continue reading
Speaking at a press conference in New York hours after landing back safely on American soil following their release to Oman on Wednesday, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal laid bare the extent of their harrowing two-year ordeal in Iran. “We had to go on hunger strike repeatedly just to receive letters from our loved ones,” … Continue reading
As a convoy of Swiss and Omani diplomats rolled through the gates of Tehran’s Evin Prison on Wednesday afternoon, the relieved families of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, the American hikers held behind its gates for the past 26 months, were preparing to welcome them home — a reunion further delayed this week by a … Continue reading
Gay Iranians are sending a message via a new Facebook group — “We are everywhere.” London’s Guardian first noted that a string of anonymous Iranians were proclaiming their homosexuality in videos posted on the “We are everywhere” Facebook group as a protest. They live in a country that not only recently executed three men for … Continue reading
The Brandt Standard 