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The Death Penalty is ‘Cool’: Latest from the Boston Marathon Bombing Trial by the WhoWhatWhy Team
The first day of individual juror interviews in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev included a young man who told the judge that his “testosterone-driven” roommates thought it would “be very cool” if he got to hand out a death sentence. Take a look at some of the other jurors, as described by WhoWhatWhy’s Andy Thibault, who’s reporting from the courtroom.
WHO
CIA Panel Finds No Wrongdoing in Search of Senate Computers
The CIA’s investigation of the CIA determined that the CIA did not spy on the Senate’s investigation into the CIA’s torture program. And, in an almost comical twist, the Accountability Board found that Senate staffers gained access to documents they were not authorized to see—thus breathing new life into the old adage: “Turnabout is fair play.”
The Corrupt Philanderer Who Built the CIA’s Black Sites
Author Scott Horton examines the secretive bureaucracy behind the CIA’s network of ‘black sites’ used to torture ‘suspects’ … and the role of the key bureaucrat who protected CIA operators involved in it. That man is Dusty Foggo—one-time protégé of former CIA Director Porter Goss and a federal prison inmate after being charged with “fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering in relation to his dealings with defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes.” Horton argues that Foggo’s “twenty-year career of alcohol abuse, physical violence, philandering, and corruption” exemplifies the cancerous effects of bureaucratic secrecy that, all too often, works to protect its own.
Who Needs Lobbyists? See What Big Business Spends to Win American Minds
A Center for Public Integrity investigation found that the biggest corporate powers are eschewing lobbying in favor of advertising and public relations, pouring more than a billion dollars into PR firms. To wit, the American Petroleum Institute spent over “$7 million lobbying federal officials in 2012,” but also pumped $85.5 million into “four public relations and advertising firms to, in effect, lobby the American public.”
WHAT
The Beginning of World Trade Disorganization?
The Diplomat examines the WTO and finds that recent cracks in the international trade system are inexorably linked to the decline of American hegemony. Although “developing countries often do not oppose free trade per se” they do oppose neo-liberalization and Western hypocrisy. Curiously, this may provide an opportunity for the U.S. to gain soft power by easing a trade stance that’s seen as unfair by many nations.
WHY
Paris Attack: Why It Took So Long For Al Qaeda To Claim Responsibility
Vocativ lists the possible reasons for the delay between the Charlie Hebdo attack and Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula’s claim of responsibility. Perhaps they didn’t know it was going to happen. Maybe they wanted to give the attackers time to flee. Or maybe they are just using it as a PR opportunity.
Does Climate Change Exist? The Senate Is About To Let Us Know
You’ve heard from all the scholarly experts—but Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wants the self-appointed experts in Congress to settle the debate over whether climate change exists. Sen. Sanders has thrown an amendment onto the bill authorizing the controversial KeystoneXL pipeline that’s designed to force a cohort of GOP climate deniers to vote. Thereby, they’ll put into the public record whether they believe “climate change is real, caused by human activities, and has already caused devastating problems in the U.S. and around the world.”
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