Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 74

Live-blog of the presidential debate on foreign policy | Glenn Greenwald

The two candidates engage in a titanic struggle to locate major differences between them

Tonight at 9:00 pm EST, the GOP and Democratic presidential candidates will participate in a "debate" over foreign policy, in which the most difficult challenge for each will be to identify meaningful differences with the other. One expects them each to compete vigorously for the title of he who will will impose the greatest suffering on Iranian civilians, demonstrate the most fealty to the Israeli governm...

The remarkable, unfathomable ignorance of Debbie Wasserman Schultz | Glenn Greenwald

The Chair of the Democratic National Committee is completely unaware of one of the biggest stories of the Obama years

On 29 May 2012, the New York Times published a remarkable 6,000-word story on its front page about what it termed President Obama's "kill list". It detailed the president's personal role in deciding which individuals will end up being targeted for assassination by the CIA based on Obama's secret, unchecked decree that they are "terrorists" and deserve to die.

Based on interview...

US justice likely coming soon to Benghazi with extrajudicial executions | Glenn Greenwald

If the Obama administration identifies suspects in the consulate attack, should they simply be killed without a trial?

(updated below - Update II)

Ever since the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Obama officials, including the President himself, have been vowing that the perpetrators will be "brought to justice". That, of course, is typical American-speak for: "without any evidence presented or due process afforded, we will execute suspects by bombing them from the air, along with anyone...

Obama powerfully exposes the real Romney plan | Glenn Greenwald

We must not permit "folks at the top" to "play by a different set of rules," the President urged

In Tuesday night's debate, President Obama delivered a bold, powerful, aggressive performance that has Democrats across the land cheering. One of his most effective lines about the oligarchical fraud known as Mitt Romney was this one:

"Governor Romney says he's got a five-point plan. Governor Romney doesn't have a five-point plan; he has a one-point plan. And that plan is to make sure that folks at...

The lame rules for presidential debates: a perfect microcosm of US democracy | Glenn Greenwald

Secret collusion between the two parties, funded by corporations, run by lobbyists: all the ingredients are there

The way the two major parties control the presidential debates is a perfect microcosm of how political debates are restricted in general. Though typically shrouded in secrecy, several facts about this process have recently come to light and they are quite instructive.

I was on Democracy Now this morning along with George Farah discussing the ways these debates, designed to cast the...

The Brookings Institution demands servile journalism | Glenn Greenwald

The New York Times public editor is attacked for suggesting the paper should "aggressively challenge" government claims on drones

As I noted on Sunday, the New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan devoted her weekly Sunday column to an excellent critique of her paper's coverage of US drone attacks. While noting that the Times has done some good work in attempting to bring transparency to the Obama administration's secret killings - in particular its May "kill list" article revealing that...

Various items: free speech v 'community', lawlessness in Libya, sprawling surveillance state | Glenn Greenwald

The core western political liberty is being slowly eroded by a toxic combination of the worst human attributes

(updated below)

Extensive travel will likely prevent me from writing much this weekend, but there are several brief items worthy of note:

(1) In Sunday's Washington Post, law professor Jonathan Turley has a superb Op-Ed on the gradual death of free speech in the west, and he places the blame squarely where it belongs: on the veneration of "sensitivities" over the free flow of ideas, and...

Martha Raddatz and the faux objectivity of journalists | Glenn Greenwald

Establishment journalists are creatures of a highly ideological world and often cause ideology to masquerade as neutral fact

Numerous commentators (including me) were complimentary of the performance of Martha Raddatz as the moderator of Wednesday night's vice-presidential debate. She was assertive, asked mostly substantive questions, and covered substantial ground in 90 minutes. That's all true enough, but the questions she asked reveal something significant about American journalism in gener...

Reaction to the vice presidential debate | Glenn Greenwald

Biden seemed to dominate the debate, but being immersed in politics likely makes it impossible to know how voters will react

(updated below)

I contributed one item to the Guardian's live blog on tonight's vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, and although I do not typically do this type of punditry (and don't worry: that's unlikely to change), I'm re-printing it here, with a couple of additions, because the debate raises a couple of mildly interesting points:

This is one of t...

US supreme court finalizes gift of immunity to the telecom giants | Glenn Greenwald

Yet again, the Congress, courts, executive branch and the establishment media work together to protect the nation's most powerful actors

So pervasive and reliable is the rule of elite immunity - even in the face of the most egregious crimes - that one finds extreme examples on a weekly basis. Six weeks ago, the Obama justice department forever precluded the possibility of criminal accountability for Bush torturers by refusing to bring charges in the only two remaining torture cases, ones invol...