This week will likely entail light posting, but here are several items worthy of note:

(1) I can't recall any one news article that so effectively conveys both the gross immorality and the strategic stupidity of Obama's drone attacks as this one from Monday's Washington Post by Sudarsan Raghavan. It details how the US-supported Yemeni dictatorship lies to its public each time the US kills Yemeni civilians with a drone attack, and how these civilian-killing attacks are relentlessly (and predictably) driving Yemenis to support al-Qaida and devote themselves to anti-American militancy:

"Since the attack, militants in the tribal areas surrounding Radda have gained more recruits and supporters in their war against the Yemeni government and its key backer, the United States. The two survivors and relatives of six victims, interviewed separately and speaking to a Western journalist about the incident for the first time, expressed willingness to support or even fight alongside AQAP, as the al-Qaeda group is known.

"'Our entire village is angry at the government and the Americans,' Mohammed said. 'If the Americans are responsible, I would have no choice but to sympathize with al-Qaeda because al-Qaeda is fighting America.'

"Public outrage is also growing as calls for accountability, transparency and compensation go unanswered amid allegations by human rights activists and lawmakers that the government is trying to cover up the attack to protect its relationship with Washington. Even senior Yemeni officials said they fear that the backlash could undermine their authority.

"'If we are ignored and neglected, I would try to take my revenge. I would even hijack an army pickup, drive it back to my village and hold the soldiers in it hostages,' said Nasser Mabkhoot Mohammed al-Sabooly, the truck's driver, 45, who suffered burns and bruises. 'I would fight along al-Qaeda's side against whoever was behind this attack.'"

Once-secret documents reveal the FBI monitored Occupy Wall Street from its earliest days and treated the nonviolent movement as a potential terrorist threat. Internal government records show Occupy was treated as a potential threat when organizing first began in August of 2011. Counterterrorism agents were used to track Occupy activities, despite the internal acknowledgment that the movement opposed violent tactics. The monitoring expanded across the country as Occupy grew into a national movement, with FBI agents sharing information with businesses, local police agencies and universities. We're joined by Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, which obtained the FBI documents through the Freedom of Information Act. "We can see, decade after decade, with each social justice movement, that the FBI conducts itself in the same role over and over again, which is to act really as the secret police of the establishment against the people," Verheyden-Hilliard says. [

Abby Martin takes a look back at philosopher Plato's the 'Allegory of the Cave' and its application to today's society.

President Obama's potential nomination of Chuck Hagel, a former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska, to be his next Secretary of Defense is now being dubbed "flailing" before it was even confirmed.

Much of the discussion, and the principal source of Mr. Hagel's vulnerability, revolves around remarks he made, some dating back several years, on US policy toward Israel, Iran, and Hamas. Some critics are wondering aloud whether he is sufficiently supportive of Israel, while others are even going so far as to suggest he is anti-Semitic, a charge that Hagel's defenders, and even some of his detractors, have branded as outrageous.

At issue in particular is Hagel's use, in a 2006 interview, of the descriptor "Jewish lobby" to refer to the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, which includes US Christians, too, and which Hagel accused of "intimidating a lot of people."


These comments, along with Hagel's support of dialogue with Iran and Hamas, both sworn enemies of Israel, prompted an unnamed Republican Senate aid, quoted in the conservative Weekly Standard, to promise of the potential nominee, "Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite."

On Wednesday these charges were met by a published letter from four former US national security advisers, who wrote to "strongly object, as a matter of substance and as a matter of principle, to the attacks on the character" of Hagel, noting that such treatment will "only discourage future prospective nominees from public service when our country badly needs quality leadership in government."

"Abuses Of Power Always - Always - Expand Beyond Their Original Application"

Constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald writes:

Documents just obtained from the FBI by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund reveal, as the New York Times put it, that "the [FBI] used read here, reveal numerous instances of the FBI collaborating with local police forces and private corporations to monitor and anticipate the acts of the protest movement.

As obviously disturbing as it is, none of this should be surprising. Virtually every seized power justified over the last decade in the name of "terrorism" has been applied to a wide range of domestic dissent. The most significant civil liberties trend of the last decade, in my view, is the importation of War on Terror tactics onto US soil, applied to US citizens - from the sprawling Surveillance State and powers of indefinite detention to the para-militarization of domestic police forces and the rapidly emerging fleet of drones now being deployed in countless ways. As I've argued previously, the true purpose of this endless expansion of state power in the name of "terrorism" is control over anticipated domestic protest and unrest.

It should be anything but surprising that the FBI - drowning in counter-terrorism money, power and other resources - will apply the term "terrorism" to any group it dislikes and wants to control and suppress (thus ushering in all of the powers institutionalized against "terrorists"). Those who supported (or acquiesced to) this expansion of unaccountable government power because they assumed it would only be used against Those Muslims not only embraced a morally warped premise (I care about injustices only if they directly affect me), but also a factually false one, since abuses of power always - always - expand beyond their original application.

Mr. Greenwald is correct.

The Israeli Arab conflict is the result of interactions of superpowers in the early 20th century. British and French strategic interests in the Middle East were related to the Mediterranean trading route, which went from the Suez channel to Indian markets. But the presence of the Ottoman navy based in the Levant was a direct threat to British interests. So the British and the French decided to divide the Middle East into smaller entities and countries to make it impossible for the Ottoman Empire to control them all. A century later, the legacy of European colonization of the Arab world is reflected by its many ongoing conflicts.

On December 15, the day after the day after the shooting at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, State Department officials notified the press that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had fallen ill. "While suffering from a stomach virus, Secretary Clinton became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a concussion," deputy assistant secretary Philippe Reines said in a statement to the press.

Since then, Clinton does not appear to have been sighted in public.

On December 19, Clinton missed the State Department holiday party. "I was going to congratulate her on her record-breaking travel," President Obama said, noting her absence. "These are not frequent-flyer miles," he joked. "She is tireless and extraordinary."

On the same day as her office announced her illness, they also put out word that Clinton would be missing the Benghazi hearing scheduled for December 20 on Capitol Hill. Indeed, she did miss that hearing, and another one has not yet been scheduled.

And on December 21, Clinton missed President Obama's announcement that John Kerry would be nominated as the next secretary of state. "Hillary wanted very much to be here today, but she continues to recuperate. I had a chance to talk to her earlier today, and she is in good spirits and could not be more excited about the announcement that I'm making," Obama said at that event, again noting Clinton's absence.

Clinton's last trip, to the Czech Republic, Belgium, Ireland, and Northern Ireland, returned December 7.

US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner warned on Wednesday he would have to take "extraordinary measures" to avoid a default on the US's legal obligations as the country is set to breach its $16.4tn (£10.16tn) debt limit.

In a letter to Congress, Geithner said the debt ceiling would be reached on 31 December and that the Treasury could raise $200bn (£124bn) to fund government spending as a stopgap measure. But he warned that the current impasse over the fiscal cliff budget crisis meant it was uncertain how long that money would last.

"Under normal circumstances, that amount of headroom would last approximately two months.

"However, given the significant uncertainty that now exists with regard to unresolved tax and spending policies for 2013, it is not possible to predict the effective duration of these measures," Geithner warned.

In the two-paragraph letter Geithner also warned that "the extent to which the upcoming tax filing season will be delayed as a result of these unresolved policy questions is also uncertain."

A similar row over increases in the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011 led to a historic downgrade of the US's credit rating and panic on stock markets around the world.

The Treasury secretary's warning comes as Barack Obama prepared to cut short his Christmas holiday in Hawaii, with the intention of returning to Washington in the hope of restarting the stalled budget talks.

US history is littered with repressive laws. Constitutional protections and civil liberties have been targeted. The 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts restricted First Amendment freedoms.

So did the 1917 Espionage Act, 1919 anti-communist Palmer raids, 1934 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, its House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) successor, FBI COINTELPRO crackdowns, 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, 2001 USA Patriot Act, and other post-9/11 measures.

Police state harshness today reflects US policy. Compromised civil liberties expanded government surveillance, eroded habeas rights, formalized military tribunals, permitted torture-extracted confessions, and sanctified violence in the name of national security.

Thousands of political prisoners languish in America's gulag. It's the world's largest by far. It's one of the harshest.

Many there deserve praise, not imprisonment. OWS activists may join them. More on that below.

For the first time, Patriot Act provisions created the crime of domestic terrorism. Section 802 applies to persons alleged to engage in acts "dangerous to human life."

Evidence isn't needed. Accusations suffice. US citizens and permanent residents are vulnerable. They're frequent targets. They're unjustly accused of violating federal, state, or local laws if they:

intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
influence government policy by intimidation or coercion;
and/or affect government conduct by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.

Patriot Act legislation enacted sweeping federal powers. They're used to investigate and prosecute alleged terrorism. Civil libertarians, environmental and animal rights activists are targeted.

Peaceful demonstrations are criminalized. At times, long-term incarceration follows.

After the election Kerry Eleveld wrote a piece for The Atlantic titled "Why Barack Obama Will Be a More Effective Liberal in His Second Term." "In response to their initial disappointment with the president's early performance, many progressives speculated that Obama was just waiting for a second term to be more liberal," he said. That was true. They were.

Eleveld continued: "A more likely explanation is that Obama was still finding his groove, figuring out which levers worked best for him in the context of governing the nation. And in some ways, he was still developing the courage of his convictions."

That, it turns out, was false. He wasn't.

You can't develop convictions that you don't have in the first place.

It's hard to remember now, more than six weeks later, but there was once a time (six long weeks ago) when liberal Democrats who naïvely chose to ignore Obama's consistently conservative first term, his consistently conservative career in the Senate, and his consistently conservative pre-politics career as a University of Chicago law professor, seriously believed that his reelection would lead to a progressive second term.

"It's time for President Obama to assume the Roosevelt-inspired mantle of muscular liberalism," Anthony Woods wrote in The Daily Beast. "This is his moment. He only has to take it."

It's his moment, all right. And he's taking it. But when it comes to Obama, liberals are once again guilty of some major wishful thinking. Obama's economic policies are closer to Herbert Hoover than Franklin Roosevelt.

"With re-election safely behind him, we hope Obama will be bolder in his second term," Peter Dreier and Donald Cohen wrote in The Nation.

Again with the Hope!

Change, not so much.