The U.S. Senate rejected a cloture motion to end debate and pass the “Disclose Act of 2012” July 16 on a nearly party-line 51-44 vote, which would have required disclosure of donors who give to independent political causes when those independent organizations use $10,000 or more in an election cycle in communications that mention a political candidate.

The United Nations is polishing up a global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) this month in a New York convention that would create a global registry of private ownership of firearms. This treaty — which would also mandate creation of a national collection agency for those guns and is contrary to the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment — has the long-standing and enthusiastic backing of the Obama State Department, headed by Secretary of State  Hillary Clinton.

Ron Paul forces failed to secure a plurality of delegates at the state Republican convention in Nebraska, a state that could have guaranteed that Paul be entered into nomination for president and be given a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

Actor and comedian Andy Griffith died of a heart attack July 3 at age 86. The actor was best known for portraying small-town sheriff Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show, which ran on the CBS television network from 1960-68.

The attorney for accused document leaker former U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning won a pretrial motion for full discovery of exculpatory evidence in military court June 25, according to various news sources. 

“The United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights,” former President Jimmy Carter charged in a June 24 op-ed in the New York Times, charging the United States government with assassination attempts through the use of drones and massive domestic surveillance against the privacy rights of American citizens. But Carter cited the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights rather than the U.S. Bill of Rights as the inspiration to follow and restore a respect for the inalienable rights of others.

With the 2012 political season heating up, many people are calling for a ban on the SuperPacs created in the wake of the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United decision. A few on the left have even called for a constitutional amendment to ban corporations from making political advertisements, for fear that corporations have come to dominate elections in the United States.

In one sense, they are right. But it's not the SuperPacs. The corporations that have been dominating the public debate for decades are the media empires. Right now, six corporations control most of the television, radio, and print publishing networks that Americans see on a daily basis. They drive the debate, and the social issues behind the debate.

Presumed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney recycled establishment Bush-era foreign policy neoconservative apparatchiks June 23-24 in a weekend retreat at the Chateaux at Silver Lake in Park City, Utah, where Romney feted some 800 of his top political contributors. The gathering featured addresses by former Bush administration officials Karl Rove and Condoleezza Rice, and highlights concerns non-interventionists have about what a Romney administration foreign policy would look like.

The U.S. Supreme Court definitively reaffirmed its 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision in a 5-4 ruling that struck down a Montana state law banning independent expenditures on behalf of political candidates by corporations. The Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly.

The Montana law the court struck down in the case American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock had required that a “corporation may not make ... an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political committee that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party.”

Many Americans are justifiably anxious about drone use by the federal government against the American people, but the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations says that concerns about our privacy are overblown.“While many are understandably anxious about the seemingly inevitable expansion of drones a cross the United States, I argue that many fears are either overblown or based on misperceptions,” wrote Micah Zenko  on the Council on Foreign Relations website June 21.