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Melson Out, Holder Digs In: 1700+ Violations of the Arms Export Control Act?
September 5, 2011 16 min. read

Ok. Now we’re into it. Administration top dogs have thrown ATF Director Ken Melson and US Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke under the truck.In firefighting, they call it a ‘controlled burn,’ torching a perimeter of just enough man-made flame to meet and beat the advance of a wildfire impervious to less-drastic solutions.

Good luck, gentlemen.

The House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the DOJ/ATF gun-running operation known as Fast and Furious is roaring through the halls of Congress, and despite DOJ’s efforts to spin the story every which way but up, Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif) and Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) are on a trail insiders whisper may lead investigators all the way to the top.

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Reminiscing about Peace – Israel’s Founding Fathers
August 31, 2011 1 min. read

News broke recently from various outlets that Israel has been providing training and non-lethal supplies for Jewish settlers in Palestine to defend themselves from an expected onslaught of unrest during the days surrounding Palestine’s bid to seek official recognition from the UN in September. Palestine’s attempt at recognition, while doomed at the outset because of […]

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Syrian WMDs: Libya Redux?
August 30, 2011 2 min. read

With revolts against the al-Assad government raging on, the U.S. and Israeli governments are focused on what might happen to Syria’s suspected cache of mustard gas, VX, Sarin, and long-range missiles. The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that both countries are keeping a close eye on the status of the nasty stuff for fear […]

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UNSECGEN Ban: Message on the International Day Against Nuclear Tests
August 30, 2011 1 min. read
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On the occasion of yesterday’s “International Day Against Nuclear Tests”, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon reiterated the need for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to enter into force. The UN established an International Day against Nuclear Tests in 2009 on the 20th anniversary of the closure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in Kazakhstan. […]

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Turkey: Turning to the East
August 29, 2011 5 min. read

When eminent scholar Walter Russell Mead tackles a subject he does not do it on the cheap. One of his latest long articles attempts to discern the current trajectory of Turkey’s foreign policy and he takes his readers through quite a ride. Mead, an American history, smoothly goes through modern Turkish history and then ties […]

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Beyond Israel and Palestine – Pushing for Peace
August 27, 2011 1 min. read
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Finding an address to the conflict involving Israel and Palestine, to ensure lasting peace in the Near East, has been nearly impossible. A continual lack of support for Israel, though, has driven us to ask for some sort of  punitive measures to ensure that Palestine does not further endanger peace in the region. The Arabs’ lack […]

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There He Goes Again
August 26, 2011 2 min. read

The ever-unhelpful Senator Inhofe has been repeating his silly mantra that Iran will be in a position to deliver weapons of mass destruction against the United States by 2015. My friend Greg Thielman takes him to task in a recent blog, pointing out that the emphasis of Iranian missile development has been on medium-range rockets […]

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Putting the “New” in Nuke: Two Groups Formed to Look at Nuclear Energy, Non-Pro
August 25, 2011 2 min. read

In what I can only imagine to be an explicit acknowledgement of the importance of nonproliferation in the context of the renewed fervor for nuclear power – Fukushima notwithstanding – two new NGO initiatives have recently launched. The first, launched earlier this month, is courtesy of the Bipartisan Policy Center. Their new “Nuclear Initiative” will […]

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Tin, Tungsten, and Tantalum
August 25, 2011 3 min. read

This post originally appeared on August 20 on stephanbauman.com. Stephan Bauman, the author, is the CEO and President of World Relief. Tin, tungsten, and tantalum are at the heart of the loodshed that plagues Eastern Congo. Novelist Joseph Conrad referred to the exploitation of Congo’s minerals as “the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured […]

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Time to Applaud the TARP
August 25, 2011 9 min. read

The TARP covered banks across the nation The US government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was such a success that it not only saved America’s financial system, with the help of the Federal Reserve, it also saved the global economy AND turned a profit for the US taxpayer.  It was almost three years ago, during […]

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The Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet
August 24, 2011 2 min. read

The Federal Reserve Board With right-wing Republican presidential candidates these days either calling for the Fed to be abolished (Ron Paul) or simply calling the nation’s central bank “treasonous” (Rick Perry), thinking citizens should at least be concerned about the Fed’s activities. I defended the Fed on this blog and still do. People who should […]

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Unasur and Banco del Sur
August 24, 2011 2 min. read

The Union of South American Nations Will the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) and its monetary fund, Banco del Sur, be successful? It has been difficult for emerging markets to diversify their sources of balance of payments (BOP) support. During the 1997-98 Asian crisis, the shame such Asian nations as Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia […]

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