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The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress
By Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges $10.20
$22
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 YouTube
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This week we throw our support behind former CIA analyst, Army veteran and peace activist Ray McGovern, whose arrest while protesting as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid tribute to the wave of demonstrations in the Middle East made a troubling statement about the state of our own freedoms.
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 Flickr / seiu_international
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After the White House let Bahrain know on Wednesday that its friends in the American government would be watching the protests over there “very closely,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made good on that advance notice by expressing ...
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 White House / Pete Souza
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Maybe you’ve noticed that the Obama administration’s strategy with regard to the ongoing Egyptian uprising has lacked a certain consistency. That’s partly because of divisions within the president’s closest circles about how to deal with the crisis and its various factions ... (more)
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 AP / Jose Luis Magana
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The U.S. and the U.K. have maintained a diplomatically symbiotic relationship, to all appearances, for decades, but yet another WikiLeaks cable cropped up to harsh that friendly mellow late this week. Let the official backpedaling commence.
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 AP / Tara Todras-Whitehill
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By Barry Lando — In attempting to persuade Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to leave the scene, Washington desperately wants to avoid further radicalization on the streets of Egypt and, above all, to ensure that the Egyptian army remains unscathed.
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 bbc.co.uk
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David Kato, a 43-year-old gay rights activist (above, right) in Uganda, was murdered in his home near Kampala on Wednesday, less than four months after his picture was published in a Ugandan tabloid under the words “Hang Them” in a story about gays “recruiting” local schoolchildren.
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 AP / Christophe Ena
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By Barry Lando — American officials were for Tunisia’s ousted despot before they were against him. Across the Middle East and Central Asia it’s the same: U.S. allies are invariably corrupt dictators, maintained in power by lavish patronage and the military.
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 AP / Manuel Balce Ceneta
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By Robert Scheer — The value of the Davis example, as with the parade of Wall Street hustlers so prominent among the Clintonistas, is that his greed has broken his cover.
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 Flickr / Gage Skidmore
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Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton top the USA Today/Gallup Poll lists of the most admired men and women in 2010. Obama has lost some love since last year, but still has more admiration among Americans than the rest of the top 10 combined. ... (more)
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This entertaining Rap News summary of the WikiLeaks Cablegate saga features “Hillary Clinton” busting rhymes and much more worth six minutes of your time.
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 Wikimedia Commons / U.S. State Department
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Richard Holbrooke was apparently preoccupied with his role as the Obama administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan until the very end, discussing the ongoing conflicts in those two countries up until he went into surgery for the heart problem that led to his death Monday.
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Taylor Jones, Cagle Cartoons, Politicalcartoons.com —
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Fake news by Andy Borowitz —
In the first major policy fallout from the WikiLeaks disclosures, the State Department has ordered all U.S. diplomats to “cease and desist telling the truth until further notice.”
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 YouTube
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Julian Assange is a wanted man. Sweden’s Supreme Court is the latest on the list of concerned parties around the globe to go after the WikiLeaks founder, giving an extant arrest warrant a boost on Thursday for rape charges stemming from last summer.
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The WikiLeaks diplomatic drama has caused the collective twisting of multiple pairs of knickers in the highly interconnected international diplomacy and espionage circles, and of course, whatever vexes those in power is prime comedy material for the minds that bring you “The Daily Show.”
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 AP / Evan Vucci
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By Robert Scheer — Hillary Clinton should cut out the whining about what the Obama administration derides as “stolen cables” and confront the unpleasant truths they reveal about the contradictions of U.S. foreign policy and her own troubling performance.
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 AP / Evan Vucci
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Being the U.S. secretary of state must have its perks, what with the power and guaranteed attention of various world leaders and all, but Monday, Hillary Clinton’s was not a job to envy.
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 Congress via Wikimedia Commons
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According to diplomatic cables obtained and leaked by the whistle-blowers extraordinaire, the king of Saudi Arabia asked the U.S. to attack Iran, Hillary Clinton instructed her diplomats to spy on U.N. leaders and others, Vladimir Putin is ...
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 Flickr / openDemocracy (CC-BY-SA)
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Hamid Karzai is acting up. The Afghan president, who rankled top U.S. brass earlier this year with hints at split loyalties, has again come out with some fightin’ words against the American war effort in his country.
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None other than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has jumped aboard the “It Gets Better” train, delivering a video pep talk to young Americans struggling with issues of sexuality and discrimination and urging them to look forward to a better future.
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 AP / Carolyn Kaster, pool
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Nothing is certain on this front yet, but the U.S. is reportedly considering opening up some channels of communication to the Taliban in Afghanistan, and between the Taliban and the Afghan government, in the interest of long-term peace goals.
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 Wikimedia Commons / Therealbs2002 (CC-BY-SA)
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His supporters may not be as numerous (or enthusiastic) as they were back in the days of “hope” and “change,” but President Barack Obama still has the edge over one prominent hypothetical challenger for the White House in 2012: Sarah Palin.
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Fake news by Andy Borowitz —
In a three-way swap that may be unprecedented in U.S. history, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to become vice president of the United States, Vice President Joe Biden will become president of Afghanistan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will be traded to the Minnesota Vikings.
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 White House / Pete Souza
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Michelle Obama put her own career on hold to help her husband become president, but it looks like the perks of being first lady extend beyond just having a kick-ass organic veggie patch at her disposal.
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 Flickr / SEIU International (CC-BY)
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You’d think Bob Woodward would have no trouble selling books without making up a humdinger like this, but the WashPo sage told CNN that the White House was considering having Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden swap jobs. “Just absolutely not true,” responds the White House. (Video and more after the jump)
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By Fred Branfman, AlterNet —
Future historians will marvel at how U.S. leaders failed to learn from their horrific crimes in Indochina, and are instead repeating many of them today.
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 Bungie
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By Peter Z. Scheer — Don’t listen to Hillary Clinton. Video games are good for you. They make you and your children sharper, and kids should be able to play them without permission.
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 White House / Pete Souza
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Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority could implode before they even get off the ground. Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell will have their chaperoning cut out for them, with the PA threatening to withdraw if Israel resumes settlement construction and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing a plan to do just that.
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 AP / Jason Reed, Pool
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The mood in Washington on Thursday, the first day of revived peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, was decidedly optimistic, with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ...
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 AP / Mary Altaffer
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By Robert Scheer — Out of respect for privacy, even concerning famous people, I wasn’t going to write about the marriage of Chelsea Clinton to a Goldman Sachs alum and budding hedge-fund hustler with the resources to buy a $4 million loft so soon after graduating from Stanford.
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 Flickr / U.S. Army
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It’s been a long while since Afghans have had anything resembling autonomy when it comes to protecting their own interests, not to mention their own people. Well, it’s going to be a while longer, too, but on Tuesday ... (continued)
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 AP / Anjum Naveed
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was flexing her diplomatic chops on Monday during a strategic visit to Pakistan, where she announced a hefty aid package—to the tune of $7.5 billion—and this time, the funding is ostensibly intended for nonmilitary purposes.
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 iroquoisnationals.org
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The Iroquois nation may have invented lacrosse, but the national team wasn’t allowed into the U.K. to take part in an international tournament because British authorities insisted the Iroquois players use American or Canadian passports. Problem is the Iroquois don’t recognize the U.S. or Canada.
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 White House / Pete Souza
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By Stanley Kutler — The Obama administration is thoroughly committed to defense of the empire it inherited; there is no or little retreat from the mindless expansion of American ambition. Teddy Roosevelt would be proud.
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 AP / Daniel Roland
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Here’s another bit of news guaranteed to win us friends around the world: On Thursday, EU officials voted in favor of granting U.S. anti-terror investigators access to Europeans’ bank information.
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 White House / Pete Souza
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Newsweek senior editor and columnist Jonathan Alter talks about his new book, “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” and why “Just by getting health care through ... [Barack Obama is] now standing alone with Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson in terms of domestic achievement.”
Posted on May 26, 2010
READ MORE
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 White House / Pete Souza
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Newsweek senior editor and columnist Jonathan Alter talks about his new book, “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” and why “Just by getting health care through ... [Barack Obama is] now standing alone with Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson in terms of domestic achievement.”
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 bbc.co.uk
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The sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan back in March was “an unacceptable provocation by North Korea,” according to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who declared Wednesday in Seoul that “the international community has a responsibility and a duty to respond.”
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By Ruth Marcus — In understanding the foibles of politicians, I’ve always found it is a benefit to have spent large amounts of time with toddlers.
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 Wikimedia Commons / The White House
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Relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan were further strained over the weekend after the White House caught wind of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s musings that he might join the Taliban as a reaction to pressure from the West to make some changes in his country.
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 Flickr / United Nations Photo
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In a meeting that could signify shifting tides between the U.S. and Cuba, Cuba’s foreign minister has met with Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff at a U.N. forum on Haiti relief, the first public meeting of such high-level officials in years.
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 bbc.co.uk
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In a speech before members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the Netanyahu government’s plan to construct new settlements in East Jerusalem “undermines mutual trust” between Israel and the U.S.
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 AP / Alexander Zemlianichenko
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The negative reactions are snowballing on multiple fronts against Israel’s highly controversial decision to build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, an announcement that put the kibosh on Vice President Joe Biden’s good-will visit last week. (continued)
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 AP / Alexander Zemlianichenko
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton winged her way to Moscow on Thursday to go over the nitty-gritty details of a new arms control agreement with Russian leaders that is targeted to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) of 1991, but a successful outcome is by no means guaranteed in this round of negotiations.
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 Wikimedia Commons / U.S. Department of State
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Just days after Vice President Joe Biden’s good-will trip to Israel, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver a stern warning about Israel’s announcement, which unfortunately coincided with Biden’s visit, that it will build 1,600 more housing units in East Jerusalem.
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 AP / Alex Brandon
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It’s been nearly a year since Barack Obama took office, and, although opinions vary on this subject, the honeymoon may be over for some of the president’s supporters. However, the tuneful theater types who are staging an Obama-themed musical in Germany are apparently still feeling the love.
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