narus.info PRISM/US-984XN

$400 million in corporate money injected into midterm Congressional races.  Just a few years ago this is more money than both sides would spend on a Presidential election.  The U.S. Supreme Court, with the infamous Citizens United decision, has sold American democracy down the river.

This is incredibly nutty.  Video has to be seen to be believed.

Media mostly ignores it.  Although 56,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, there’s one significant angle that I believe is being overlooked.  Various groups in Iraq, such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s “brigade,” were very likely preparing to attack departing US troops at the end of the month, when this evacuation was scheduled.  This would have been done to score domestic political points over rival groups and achiever bragging rights, and it would have killed several American soldiers.  By ordering this pullout early, President Barack Obama prevented that pointless tragedy from happening.  If someone thinks that doesn’t matter, and that everything Obama has done in Iraq is “too little, too late,” that there’s “no difference” between Obama and Bush on Iraq, tell that to Sergeant Vanover and his family.

A new low for the sponsor, just a few years ago, of an immigration reform bill.

Newly released documents obtained under the Freedom Of Information Act show that due to an immigration issue involving Obama’s mother and new husband which she married in 1965, the US federal government investigated and confirmed three times during their internal reporting on the subject, that Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1961 and has been since the moment of his birth, continuously, a US citizen. This is the single largest factual development since the original media stories exploring his background in 2008 when he was running for President. Those wanting to claim that Obama was born in another country now have to implicate both the State of Hawaii and the U.S. government, going back to 1961 and 1967 respectively, in some sort of conspiracy to lie about Obama’s place of birth. Such an enormous challenge to rational thought, of course, will not stop them. Many kudos to obamaconspiracies.org, an excellent web site, for making the FOIA request and for doing a great job of covering the world of “birther” conspiracy theories and lies.