If there’s one thing that unifies the nation in times of perpetual war it’s the pledge to “Support the Troops”. Between yellow ribbon magnets, patriotic anthems at sports games and corporate marketing campaigns, the rhetoric that those in uniform are protecting freedom is hammered into the psyche of Americans at every turn. But no war ever fought by the US … Read More
Obama’s election marked a new dawn for hundreds of millions of people, who were looking to an eloquent, constitutional lawyer for “Hope” and “Change” in America. However, it quickly became apparent that Obama had little substance beyond the slogans branded by his campaign.With a little more than a year left in his presidency, his milquetoast legacy has been embodied by … Read More
Forget Stephen King. If you want scary, read U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier’s 150-page Findings of Fact released recently in the Deepwater Horizon case. Although the judge found BP liable for “gross negligence,” some U.S. media failed to mention that Barbier let BP off the hook on punitive damages. And that stuns me, given that the record seems to identify enough smoking … Read More
After BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion to the government, and another $9.2 billion in penalties since its catastrophic oil spill, a new ruling has put the corporation under fire again. A US District Judge has found BP grossly negligent and it’s subcontractors, Halliburton and TransOcean, negligent for their roles in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent dumping of … Read More
Few realize how expensive it is to keep Guantanamo Bay prison operational. The Joint Task Force (JTF) detention center, which opened in 2002, costs US taxpayers $140 million a year, breaking down to about $800,000 per detainee. The JTF was never meant to be permanent, yet twelve long years after the first round of prisoners arrived, 149 prisoners remain detained … Read More
