Paul Phillips

LATEST ARTICLES ( 506 )

• Iraq War a Failure, Afghanistan Now on Its Way

  

  There is very little in the way of a rational argument supporting the idea the Iraq War was in any fashion a success.  By just about any measure imaginable, it... Read more

  Posted on 31 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• NSA Tracking All of Your Internet Activity

  

  A must-read article in The Guardian by Glenn Greenwald about a NSA computer program called XKeystore that can track almost all of you internet activities,... Read more

  Posted on 31 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Rouhani’s Challenges for Iran

  

  Incoming Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has many challenges ahead of him according to this interesting piece in The Atlantic. Read more

  Posted on 30 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Manning Acquitted of Aiding the Enemy

  

  Pfc. Bradley Manning, who leaked classified documents and videos to Wikileaks, was acquitted of “aiding the enemy” today. This allows for whistle-blowers and... Read more

  Posted on 30 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• I Have Yet to Write About This Issue Because It Seemed So...

  

  I have yet to write about this issue because it seemed so unlikely to occur, but it looks like Palestinian/Israeli preliminary peace talks will begin on... Read more

  Posted on 28 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Who Are Al Qaeda’s Associated Forces?

  

  A good piece on Salon.com by Cora Currier of ProPublica asks the question who these “associated forces” are of Al Qaeda’s who the White House is always... Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• New Iranian Leader May Be Game-Changer

  

  A good profile in the NYT about Hassan Rouhani, the newly elected leader of Iran, and how his past and present may lead us to believe that he may put his countr... Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Trouble In “Horse Country” and Elsewhere

  

  I can say that I love our Bluegrass State and will probably never reside elsewhere. But we have a problem here in the Commonwealth where many uneducated folks... Read more

  Posted on 25 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Democratic Economic Rhetoric More Leftist

  

  An article in the NYT reports that Democratic Party members are moving left of the centrist position in the economic debate to a more left-center position. Wit... Read more

  Posted on 25 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Cuba’s Declining Society

  

  I have always had a special interest, and defensive attitude toward any criticism of, Cuba, for I admire the Revolution with Che and Fidel. Their idealism and... Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Putin’s Better Than Chaos for Russians

  

  An interesting article in The Atlantic by Christopher Read proposing that, although sometimes overly authoritarian, the Russian people prefer the... Read more

  Posted on 23 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Very Possible (and Very Benign) Explanation for IRS “Scandal”

  

  After thinking about and debating the IRS “scandal” further, some of the pieces of information we have learned about the situation are coming together to form... Read more

  Posted on 23 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Geography Affects Upward Income Mobility

  

  A groundbreaking study led by the NYT was published today showing that geographic location, as much as any other factor, predicts a person’s upward mobility in... Read more

  Posted on 22 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Issa and Fox News Continuing to Embarrass Themselves Over IRS Targeting

  

  As the right continues to try to make the IRS’ bad behavior look political, they are seemingly doing nothing more than making themselves look foolish. Fox... Read more

  Posted on 21 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Thank You, Ms. Thomas

  

  A great obit. in the NYT on former White House press corps member Helen Thomas. You would probably just know her as that pushy old bat twisting the latest... Read more

  Posted on 21 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Russian Dissident Released On Bail!

  

  After being sentenced to a five year prison term yesterday on trumped up charges of embezzlement, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was released on bail... Read more

  Posted on 19 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Oppostion Leader in Russia Convicted of Trumped Up Charges

  

  Aleksei A. Navalny, an opposition anti-corruption blogger and leader of street protests running for Mayor of Moscow, was tried on trumped up embezzlement charge... Read more

  Posted on 18 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• How Snowden’s Leaks Allows Judicial Actions

  

  This is a good article in The Post about how the revelations regarding government surveillance by the NSA by whistle blower Edward Snowden is allowing for... Read more

  Posted on 15 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Greenwald On Al Jazeera America

  

  A MUST-READ op-ed from Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian on the upcoming launch of al Jazeera America (AJAM). He questions whether if AJAM will keep it’s role as ... Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Snowden Wants Russian Asylum: Will He Get It?

  

  Edward Snowden, NSA hacker and as seen-by-some whistle-blowing hero, is asking for asylum in Russia, where he currently resides in a Moscow airport, until he ca... Read more

  Posted on 12 July 2013 CURRENT, POLITICS, SOCIETY