Why 55 U.S. Senators Voted for Genocide in Yemen

A vote against one war is never just a vote against one war. It’s a vote to challenge, if ever so slightly, the power of the war machine. Some Senators are paid not to do that.

David Swanson
By David Swanson
In this Tuesday, March 22, 2016 photo, infant Udai Faisal, who is suffering from acute malnutrition, is hospitalized at Al-Sabeen Hospital in Sanaa, Yemen. Udai died on March 24. Hunger has been the most horrific consequence of Yemen’s conflict and has spiraled since Saudi Arabia and its allies, backed by the U.S., launched a campaign of airstrikes and a naval blockade a year ago. (AP Photo/Maad al-Zikry)

Tuesday’s debate and vote in the U.S. Senate on whether to end (technically whether or not to vote on whether to end) U.S. participation in the war on Yemen can certainly be presented as a step forward. While 55 U.S. Senators voted to keep the war rolling along, 44 voted not to table the resolution to end it. Of those 44, some, including “leaders”

Read Full Article

Democrats and Republicans Unite In Vote To Extend Warrantless Surveillance

Civil liberties groups have decried the expansion of warrantless surveillance, saying that it violates Americans’ rights to privacy, creates an end-run around the Fourth Amendment, and may be subject to politically motivated abuse.

Thandisizwe Chimurenga
By Thandisizwe Chimurenga
NSA | Surveillance

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate has quietly voted to give intelligence agencies the permission to conduct warrantless surveillance on U.S. citizens for an additional five years. Senators took a vote on Tuesday of this week to end debate on a bill, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), that allows the National Security

Read Full Article

California Primary System Locks Out Third-Party And Alternative Candidates

Voters who turn out for Tuesday’s California primary will face a bewildering array of candidates, including 34 choices for a single U.S. Senate seat.

MintPress News Desk
By MintPress News Desk
Sabrina Riddle, left, a temporary worker at the Sacramento County Registrar of Voters office, inspects a mail-in ballot Monday, June 6, 2016, in Sacramento, Calif. Voter turnout is expected to be higher then normal in the nation's most populous state for Tuesday's primary.

SACRAMENTO --- Voters will go to the polls today in California, a state with an unusual and controversial primary system that many election analysts are calling a failure. The June 7 primary, like every California primary since a 2010 ballot initiative reformed the state’s electoral system, is a “nonpartisan blanket primary,” also known as a

Read Full Article

Maryland’s Green Party Senate Candidate Says It’s Time To ‘Build A Political Alternative’

Inspired by the success of Seattle’s third-party City Council member, Kshama Sawant, Margaret Flowers is using her campaign as an opportunity to ‘build a political alternative that’s the opposite of the two corporate parties.’

Kit O'Connell
By Kit O'Connell
Margaret Flowers speaks at a Mount Rushmore Earth Day Protest.

BALTIMORE --- A pediatrician and activist from Maryland who’s running for the U.S. Senate says it’s time for Americans to demand a voice in government. “This seems like a really important time to start to build a political alternative that’s the opposite of what the two corporate parties are,” Margaret Flowers told MintPress News. In January,

Read Full Article

Former US Senate Candidate: Israel Orchestrated The 9/11 Attacks​

Former U.S. Senate candidate Mark Dankof has said that he has proof that Israel orchestrated the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., during a television interview with Iranian TV recently.

Sean Adl-Tabatabai | Your News Wire
By Sean Adl-Tabatabai | Your News Wire
The twin towers of the World Trade Center burn behind the Empire State Building in New York.(AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)

Commenting on the Saudi’s role in supporting the 9/11 attacks, Dankof told the broadcaster that Israel were the chief player in organising the attacks. “When we get to 9/11, there are series of clues and series of explanations that have been provided for us; they really get in the bottom of the fact that it was Israel that was the chief player

Read Full Article

CISA Data-Sharing Bill Passes Senate With No Privacy Protections

There was unanimous opposition to the bill across the tech industry.

Zack Whittaker for ZDNet
By Zack Whittaker for ZDNet
The senator votes on one of the most controversial draft laws in the 115th Congress (Image: C-SPAN live stream)

A controversial draft law, which one senator called a "surveillance bill by another name," has passed the Senate. CISA, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S. 754), will allow private companies to share cyber-threat data with the federal government, including personal user data, in an effort to prevent cyberattacks, such as those on the

Read Full Article