Reuters reports: “President Barack Obama on Monday will announce the nominations of Republican Chuck Hagel as his next defense secretary and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan as the new CIA director, a senior administration official said.”

Some reports in the western media have been pointing fingers at Indian culture, values and attitudes and its animalistic male population. That violence against women is a global phenomenon — including in the West — of epic proportions is obscured in these reports.

AllGov.com reports: “The U.S. government will continue to spy on Americans’ private communications without a warrant for another five years — and without oversight provisions that were shot down in the U.S. Senate.

Unfortunately, the fiscal cliff deal negotiated by the White House and passed by Congress, with significant help from Democrats, emboldens those who will demand reductions to these programs as a way to offset the cost of the tax cuts. They will make these demands even though Social Security has not contributed a penny to the…

“It is impossible to assess precisely the totality of money’s influence on the 2012 elections, but notions that it did not matter can be immediately dismissed. The evidence we have reviewed suggests exactly the opposite. … [A] virtual straight line relationship existed between Democratic candidates’ shares of total political money and their showing against their…

Kerry’s reported nomination continues a pattern: Barack Obama, who originally got the Democratic nomination in 2008 based largely on his having given a speech critical of the Iraq invasion before it took place (though he didn’t have to vote on it) has without fail appointed individuals to top foreign policy positions who voted for or…

Several business organizations released a joint statement saying it’s “time for Plan C: big corporations now dodging billions in taxes should pay their fair share. Forget Plan B tax breaks for those making $999,999 a year [and] cuts to Social Security.” Instead, they call on Congress and the president to close corporate tax haven loopholes…

A reporter for Mother Jones magazine, Kroll recently wrote a piece on Bil Oil’s subsidies which states: “Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have argued that ‘everything should be on the table'” in any budget deal. “Yet notably absent from the debate over what to cut and what to spare in a deal are…

The New York Times reported on Sunday: “Congo has become … one of the bloodiest conflicts since World War II, with more than five million dead. It seems incomprehensible that the biggest country in sub-Saharan Africa and on paper one of the richest, teeming with copper, diamonds and gold, vast farmlands of spectacular fertility and…

“It is important to remember that under the law Social Security is supposed to be treated as a separate program that is financed by its own stream of designated revenue. This means that it cannot contribute to the budget deficit under the law, because it is only allowed to spend money from the Social Security…