caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

Afghanistan has cornered the global market in opium production, producing 90% of the world's opium on 780 square miles of opium fields.

Yesterday Wikileaks published documentation of NSA spying on German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier along with a list of 20 targets in the German Foreign Ministry.

One of the documents is an NSA intercept of Steinmeier's communications after Steinmeier met his US counterpart, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

According to the intercept, Steinmeier "seemed relieved that he had not received any definitive response from the U.S. Secretary of State regarding press reports of CIA flights through Germany to secret prisons in eastern Europe allegedly used for interrogating terrorism suspects."

The visit occurred in the context of an escalating and ongoing scandal in Europe over clandestine "rendition flights" conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using the airspace and airport facilities of cooperating European countries, in which it was alleged by leading news publications that European citizens and residents had been abducted outside of any legal process and taken to secret "black site" prisons, where they could be tortured with impunity. After the scandal emerged, European governments defied their publics, continuing to cooperate with the United States while denying all knowledge of rendition flights. These denials relied heavily on the insistence of European governments that they had received confidential "diplomatic assurances" from the United States that nothing illegal was taking place. It was subsequently shown in numerous court proceedings and commissions of inquiry that the activity was illegal.

David Mizner has an article up at Jacobin magazine that really needs some attention from the progressive media.

The French Foreign Legion has a special place in history, known both for its bravery and for its failures, but mostly for its association with the ills of imperialism and colonialism. That's why comments like this stand out.

Comedians love him. Donald Trump is practically a caricature of himself. He's so rediculous he should be an asterisk in the polling results.

Yet Trump leads all Republicans in the polls. Not just one poll, not just one state, and not just one week. Why?
Most people write it off as a fluke. It's not sustainable. It's just a temporary embarrassing moment in American politics.

Today's Beastiable is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who has now announced his candidacy for the Presidency. He has said many beastly things, as admirably reported by Daily Kos' esteemed Puddytat. Thus, now that he has announced, he has earned his turn as one of Les Beastiables.

NOTE FOR NEW READERS: This series features a new Les Beastiables cartoon every Friday afternoon here at caucus99percent. We indulge in a little Franglish because the French are tres classy. But I digresse.

For serious source information, please join me below for the squirming of beasties on the hot seat. Then you'll be able to "cleanse your palate" with a cute photo before you leave.

Americans are intimately familiar with the city of Fallujah. It's where the Sunni resistance to the occupation of Iraq was born, and where nearly 100 American soldiers lost their lives in the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War. More than 1,500 civilians were killed and over 70,000 buildings were destroyed in those battles.