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Thursday, February 9, 2012
Ginning Up "War" on the Catholic Church
It is sometimes breathtaking to watch the right-wing media/political machine turn a relatively minor dispute into a "war" -- as is now happening over a provision of the health-care law that requires some church-run institutions like hospitals and universities to include contraception coverage in plans offered to female employees.

Monday, February 6, 2012
Rigging American "Democracy"
(1 comments) Aided by Republican partisans on the U.S. Supreme Court, America's ultra-rich are buying up the political process with vast sums of cash, some through dummy corporations. The money has made the GOP campaign nasty, but will dirty up President Obama in the fall.

Saturday, February 4, 2012
Return of Cheney's One Percent Doctrine
ust as happened before the Iraq War, those who want to bomb Iran are scaring the American people with made-up scenarios about grave dangers ahead, new warnings as ludicrous as the "mushroom cloud" tales that panicked the U.S. public a decade ago.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012
The Ugly Words of Newt Gingrich
(1 comments) Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has built his political career on demonizing those who disagree with him. Off-handedly, he will accuse fellow Americans of possessing the most heinous motives for their actions, now even taking aim at medical researchers.

Sunday, January 29, 2012
The Founders' True Foresight
(1 comments) he Tea Party's revisionist history of the nation's founding document may play well with the ill-informed, but the truth is the framers of the Constitution were fed up with state "sovereignty" and decided on a strong central government, a judgment that has served the United States well.

Friday, January 27, 2012
Selling the "Supply-Side' Myth
(1 comments) Any rational assessment of America's economic troubles would identify Ronald Reagan's reckless "supply-side" economics as a chief culprit, but that hasn't stopped Republican presidential hopefuls, led by Newt Gingrich, from selling this discredited theory to a gullible GOP base.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The Fiscally Reckless Mitch Daniels
Delivering the GOP rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is hailed as a "fiscal conservative," but his actual record as George W. Bush's budget director was one of fiscal recklessness, taking America from surpluses to massive deficits.

Monday, January 23, 2012
Reagan's Hand in Guatemala's Genocide
(4 comments) Guatemala has begun a politically difficult process to make human rights violators of the 1980s accountable for their crimes, including genocide inflicted on Indian villages, but the United States still heaps praise on the killers' chief American accomplice, Ronald Reagan.

Saturday, January 21, 2012
Getting Rid of "Anti-Israel" Presidents
(2 comments) Some staunch supporters of Israel believe that its interests are so compelling that they trump American self-governance, with one extremist suggesting the murder of President Obama. Others, however, appear to have joined in an earlier subversion of U.S. democracy.

Saturday, January 14, 2012
Turning America into Pottersville
(2 comments) The Republican presidential race has taken a detour into the "class warfare" that the party supposedly despises, with Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry tagging Mitt Romney as an elitist who got rich by laying off workers. But this spat misses the larger point of what the Right is doing to America.

Friday, January 13, 2012
Ron Paul's False Founding Narrative
(71 comments) Rep. Ron Paul and other right-wingers have lured many average Americans into their camp by creating a false narrative about America's Founding, claiming that the drafters of the Constitution wanted a weak central government. But that's not the real history

Thursday, January 12, 2012
Herding Americans to War With Iran
(1 comments) The murder of a fifth Iranian scientist on the streets of Tehran had all the earmarks of an Israeli-sponsored assassination. The killing also worsened tensions at a moment when the momentum toward war with Iran seems unstoppable.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012
NYT "Clarified" Santorum's "Black" Quote
Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum is denying his slur about "black people" and "somebody else's money" with absurd claims that the recordings of his quote aren't accurate, now getting a sympathetic hearing from a New York Times reporter.

Sunday, January 8, 2012
Fleecing the Angry Whites
(1 comments) Subtly and not so subtly, Republican presidential contenders are playing the race card again, hoping to win over the votes of angry whites by implicitly blaming the shrinking of the middle-class on preferential treatment of blacks and other minorities.

Monday, January 2, 2012
Iran/Iraq "Defectors" and Disinformation
Official Washington has a soft spot for "defectors" from hostile nations, especially if their tales of perfidy about their ex-homelands fit with favored policy. That was the case with Iraq before the 2003 invasion and now with Iran, but these "defectors" often tell lies.

Saturday, December 31, 2011
Cables Hold Clues to U.S.-Iran Mysteries
As the West's confrontation with Iran grows more dangerous -- and major U.S. news outlets blame Iran -- it may be worth recalling the documents that revealed how the U.S. and its allies showed bad faith in talks with Iran about its nuclear program.

Thursday, December 29, 2011
Slip-Sliding to War with Iran
(1 comments) Having apparently learned nothing from the Iraq disaster, many of the same political/media players are reprising their tough-guy roles in a new drama regarding Iran. These retread performances may make another war, with Iran, hard to avoid, writes Robert Parry

Saturday, December 24, 2011
America's Debt to Bradley Manning
(2 comments) The cables and videos allegedly leaked by Pvt. Bradley Manning offer the American people gritty "ground truth" about what the U.S. government has done in their names, such as the slaughter in Iraq, but the information also sheds light on a possible future war with Iran

Friday, December 23, 2011
The GOP History of Hostage-Taking
Since the days of Richard Nixon, Republicans have pursued an anything-goes brand of politics that often has the look of hostage-taking, with Democrats usually caving in. But, has President Obama finally learned that the only way to stop bullying is to stand up to it?

Monday, December 19, 2011
Is Iraq War End a New Day?
The departure of the last 500 U.S. combat troops from Iraq in the predawn hours on Sunday marked an anti-climatic end to a near-nine-year war that began with "shock and awe" and "embedded" journalists joining the invasion force. Were any lessons learned -- and what lies ahead?

Thursday, December 15, 2011
Will Iraq Debacle Prevent Iran War?
(1 comments) Neoconservatives are livid over President Obama's declaration that the Iraq War is over, fearing that its disastrous outcome will undercut plans for a new war with Iran. But Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich says, if elected, he stands ready to join Israel in invading Iran

Friday, December 9, 2011
The Warning in Gary Webb's Death
(6 comments) Webb's suicide on the evening of Dec. 9, 2004, was also a tragic end for one man whose livelihood and reputation were destroyed by a phalanx of major newspapers -- the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times -- serving as protectors of a corrupt power structure rather than as sources of honest information.

Thursday, December 8, 2011
Is Gingrich Fit to Be President?
(5 comments) Soaring in the polls, Newt Gingrich is confidently predicting his capture of the Republican presidential nomination and now sees the White House within his grasp. But, is this divisive megalomaniac fit to run the most powerful nation on earth?

Friday, December 2, 2011
Three Pillars of a Revived Republic
(1 comments) As local governments shut down more Occupy encampments, the movement for the "99 percent" is at a crossroads. Some supporters advocate more civil disobedience; others urge a shift toward media outreach; and still others want a move into politics.

Thursday, December 1, 2011
The Lost Opportunity of Iran-Contra
(2 comments) A quarter century ago with the breaking of the Iran-Contra scandal, the United States had a chance to step back from its march toward Empire and to demand accountability for White House crimes. But instead a powerful cover-up prevailed

Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Slanting the Case on Iran's Nukes
The U.S. news media shows no skepticism as it accepts the toughly worded report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. Ignored is the fact that the IAEA's new chief appears to have joined the U.S./Israel camp.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Big Media's Double Standards on Iran
(1 comments) The mainstream U.S. press corps is again pounding the propaganda war drums, this time over dubious accusations of Iran's secret work on a nuclear bomb. It is a pattern of bias that is the U.S. media's worst -- and most dangerous -- ethical violation.

Friday, November 11, 2011
Richard Nixon's Darkest Secret
(3 comments) In just-released Watergate grand jury testimony from 1975, ex-President Richard Nixon complained that his 1968 campaign was bugged by the Johnson administration. But there was little curiosity then -- or now -- as to why that surveillance was justified.

Thursday, November 10, 2011
Déjà Vu Over Iran A-Bomb Charges
The mainstream news media is again ratcheting up tensions with Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons program by hailing a new report on the topic. No one in the US mainstream news media seems to find it the least bit hypocritical that Israel would be supplying evidence to the IAEA about the alleged secret nuclear ambitions of Iran when Israel itself is a rogue nuclear state.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Who Is Judge Richard Leon?
The appointment of federal judges is a key power of the U.S. president. It can reward partisan allies for past services and ensure favorable rulings in the future. Both factors were in play for District Judge Richard Leon who just struck down new cigarette warnings.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011
An Iraq-WMD Replay on Iran?
The U.S. press corps and "independent" American weapons experts got almost everything wrong about Iraq's purported WMD before the U.S. invasion in 2003. Now, much the same cast is returning to interpret dubious intelligence about Iran's nuclear program.

Monday, November 7, 2011
The Gop's History Of "Hostage-Taking"
(1 comments) For more than four decades, Democrats have tolerated Republican abuses, claiming accountability wouldn't be "good for the country." But this softness has only encouraged the kind of hardball behavior that has now taken the U.S. economy "hostage."

Friday, November 4, 2011
Assessing Obama's "Peace" Moves
(2 comments) The neocons are trying to build on their own myth of a war "won" but then "betrayed" as justification for ousting Obama from office in 2012 and restoring neocon domination of American foreign policy under a President Mitt Romney or a President Rick Perry. If the Left can get past its historic trait of seeing the glass as half empty rather than sometimes half full, it might recognize that some progress is finally being made.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011
End Of The Reagan Narrative?
(2 comments) Election 2012 may turn on whether Ronald Reagan's narrative of evil government and beneficent tax cuts for the rich has finally run its course -- and has been replaced by a new narrative demanding government intervention to save the American middle-class.

Sunday, October 30, 2011
Unmasking October Surprise "debunker"
(5 comments) The fake "debunking" of the 1980 October Surprise case in the early 1990s was driven by a few "journalists," including Steven Emerson, who has been identified in a recent report as a "misinformation expert" spreading anti-Muslim propaganda.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Why The Left Won't Accept Success
(8 comments) With the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops, the neocon dream of U.S.-controlled bases in Iraq has been dashed and the diplomatic outposts are already being downsized. The gargantuan embassy complex in Baghdad may well be viewed in the future as more a monument to American hubris than a hub of U.S. intervention.

Sunday, October 23, 2011
Neocons Blame Obama For Iraq Disaster
The solution favored by the Post's editors and the Republicans is to continue the U.S. military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, just as they want a similar open-ended war in Afghanistan and sought a more aggressive U.S. military role in Libya. Simply put: Spare no expense in the blood of U.S. soldiers and the dollars of U.S. taxpayers.

Friday, October 21, 2011
Ending The Iraq Catastrophe
(1 comments) Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told President Barack Obama that U.S. troops wouldn't have immunity from Iraqi laws after December, forcing the last thousands of American soldiers to leave. That signals the end of the Iraq War -- and the start of the U.S. battle over what the war's lessons were.

Thursday, October 20, 2011
Petraeus's Cia Steers Obama On Policy
President Barack Obama may have thought appointing David Petraeus as CIA director was a political masterstroke, keeping the ambitious ex-general inside the tent. But Petraeus's close ties to the neocons may now be undercutting Obama's policy goals.

Saturday, October 15, 2011
Is Mitt Romney a Neocon Purist?
Anyone still doubting that the Washington Post is the media flagship for neoconservatism should reflect on Saturday's editorial in which the Post criticizes Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney for saying U.S. troops should be pulled out of Afghanistan "as soon as we possibly can."

Friday, October 14, 2011
The Tale of Two Assassination Plots
(1 comments) The top aim of today's neocon agenda is to support Israel's eagerness to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities -- with the United States either taking part directly or at least providing support. As CIA director, Petraeus finds himself in a perfect position to generate the necessary "intelligence" to bolster that neocon goal.

Thursday, October 13, 2011
Rick Perry's Revolutionary War "History"
(1 comments) The stupidity of the Republican presidential field seems to know no bounds, with Gov. Rick Perry's putting the American Revolution in the 1500s and joining Rep. Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party in messing up the history of the nation's founding

Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Free Market v. Government Intervention
Today's rapacious capitalism is unsustainable at least without devastation to the livability of the planet and to the living standards of the vast majority of its inhabitants. But most people will opt to cling to the little comfort and security they have rather than throw it away for some ill-defined, post-modern future that is more frightening than it is promising.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Reagan's "Greed Is Good" Folly
(8 comments) For three decades, the United States has undertaken an extraordinary social experiment, incentivizing greed among the richest Americans by cutting their top tax rates in half or more. The results are now in from Ronald Reagan's bold gamble and they aren't good.

Saturday, October 1, 2011
Enduring Terror Double Standards
(1 comments) President Barack Obama ordered the targeted killing of al-Qaeda figure and American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki despite the lack of any legal due process. But the same week, the U.S. government continued to turn a blind eye to a Cuban-American terrorist harbored in Miami.

Thursday, September 29, 2011
Would the Founders Like Health Law?
(1 comments) President Barack Obama's health care law is heading to the rightist-dominated U.S. Supreme Court which may render a decision during the heat of Campaign 2012. Republican jurists are sure to claim that the law violates the "originalist" thinking of the Founders. But today's highly partisan atmosphere, which also pervades the Supreme Court, may well carry the day -- whatever the Founders would have wanted.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Taking a Bush Secret to the Grave
(3 comments) The National Archives has approved an appeal by journalist Robert Parry seeking release of a 30-year-old secret, the address where George H.W. Bush supposedly went on an October weekend in 1980 -- when several witnesses put Bush in Paris meeting with Iranians. But it turns out the "alibi witness" is now dead.

Monday, September 26, 2011
The One Answer: Tax the Rich
(15 comments) When President Barack Obama suggested a minor adjustment in tax rates for the rich -- to make sure they pay at least the same percentage as their employees -- Republicans cried "class warfare." But higher taxes on the rich may be the only way to rebuild the middle class.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The Dark Legacy of Reaganomics
(6 comments) For half a century -- from the depths of the Great Depression until the rise of Ronald Reagan -- the U.S. government invested in building the nation and funding key research. And the country flourished. But Reagan then reversed those priorities. The results are in.

Sunday, September 18, 2011
Tea Party Gets the Constitution Wrong
(4 comments) The Tea Partiers love to cite the U.S. Constitution as supporting their contempt for the federal government. But they don't realize that the Constitution represented the most important assertion of central authority in American history.

Saturday, September 17, 2011
Dick Cheney: Son of the New Deal
(6 comments) "When I was born [on Jan. 30, 1941] my granddad wanted to send a telegram to the president," Cheney writes in his memoir. "Both sides of my family were staunch New Deal Democrats, and Granddad was sure that FDR would want to know about the 'little stranger' with whom he now had a birthday in common."

Friday, September 16, 2011
Cheney's Unintended Admissions
(4 comments) Former Vice President Dick Cheney's memoir is filled with accounts about the great and wonderful people who agree with him -- and the evil buffoons who don't. But the book offers some unintentional insights into how the American Republic got into today's mess.

Thursday, September 15, 2011
On Libya, Now They Tell Us
(2 comments) The Washington Post now admits that the key role of Islamists in Libya's uprising "went largely unnoticed" before Muammar Gaddafi was toppled last month. Whose fault was that, since it was the Post and other Big Media that were acting more as propagandists for "regime change" than honest brokers.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011
CNN Panders to the Tea Party
Mainstream American journalists have long feared the wrath of the well-organized Right, which targets independent-minded reporters with the damaging label "liberal." So, the career-minded are quick to bend over rightward, as CNN just did in teaming up with the Tea Party Express.

Monday, September 12, 2011
Who Are These People?
(1 comments) When President George W. Bush took aim at Iraq in 2002-03, it was the smart career play in the U.S. news media to jump on the pro-war bandwagon and cheer on propaganda about WMD and other excuses for war. Belatedly, the New York Times' Bill Keller admits that mistakes were made

Friday, September 9, 2011
Bush's "October Surprise' File in Dispute
(2 comments) The enduring October Surprise mystery -- whether Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign sabotaged President Jimmy Carter's efforts to free 52 American hostages in Iran -- has reached a possible turning point, whether details of George H.W. Bush's activities on a key day will be released.

Thursday, September 8, 2011
Resetting the American Narrative
(2 comments) Reagan and his team paved the way for the America that exists today. Incentivized greed (from lower marginal tax rates) encouraged corporate execs to ascend into a world far distant from their beleaguered workers -- and taught Wall Street bankers the lesson that "the closer you are to the money, the more you get to keep."

Saturday, September 3, 2011
Is Obama to Blame for America's Mess?
(5 comments) With the 2009 stimulus money running dry and with businesses unnerved by Washington's political gridlock and brinksmanship, America's weak "recovery" has stalled, prompting more criticism of President Barack Obama.

Thursday, September 1, 2011
Why Do All Hail Gen. Petraeus?
Iraq continues its drift toward a failed state, amid terror bombings, sectarian violence and a devastated infrastructure. Also, the strategic winner from George Bush's invasion looks to be neighboring Iran. So, why is Official Washington celebrating Gen. David Petraeus for his "successful surge"?

Wednesday, August 31, 2011
In Libya, a Bloodbath Looms
(3 comments) The Orwellian hypocrisy of NATO's mission "to protect civilians" in Libya has now been encapsulated in a vow from a NATO-backed Libyan rebel who announced plans to crush the few towns still loyal to Muammar Gaddafi with the words, "sometimes to avoid bloodshed you must shed blood."

Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Time Finally Ran Out for "Atiyah'
President George W. Bush's post-9/11 pivot from targeting al-Qaeda to invading Iraq left behind two open-ended wars -- and bought al-Qaeda's leaders time to regroup and recuperate, a reality recognized by one named "Atiyah," whose fate turned as President Barack Obama shifted U.S. assets back to Pakistan

Saturday, August 27, 2011
New War Rationale: "Protect Civilians'
(2 comments) The United Nations Security Council authorized NATO's air campaign in Libya "to protect civilians." But that rationale has been stretched by President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders to justify a war for "regime change" that actually is putting civilian lives in danger,

Thursday, August 25, 2011
Orange Jumpsuits/Double Standards
The U.S. news media regularly rallies the American public to outrage when a U.S. adversary or some unpopular group is linked to a heinous crime. But a different standard applies to U.S. allies even when there is strong evidence of a similar offense.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The Dangerous Reagan Cult
(4 comments) Ronald Reagan's anti-government philosophy inspires Tea Party extremists to oppose any revenue increase, even from closing loopholes for corporate jets. For their part, Democrats try the spin that "even Reagan" showed flexibility on debt and taxes.

Friday, August 12, 2011
Keeping a Curious Bush Secret
(1 comments) One of the strange mysteries from the Reagan-Bush era is where did George H.W. Bush go on one Sunday in October 1980 when some witnesses placed him meeting with Iranians in Paris. More than three decades later, Bush's supposed alibi remains a state secret.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011
US Lost Its Way from Omaha Beach
(2 comments) Visiting Omaha Beach and the nearby American cemetery of World War II dead recalls a moment in time when the US sacrificed to stop a global epidemic of madness. But those memories also underscore how the United States has since lost its way. The cumulative impact of right-wing American policies is pushing the world toward what may be another cataclysm.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Who Commits Terrorism?
(1 comments) A right-wing Christian nationalist has claimed credit for the terrorist attacks in Norway, killing at least 76 people. Though his writings show that Anders Behring Breivik was inspired by anti-Muslim extremists in the United States, that bigotry also made Muslims the early suspects in the U.S. media.

Sunday, July 24, 2011
The Slaughter in Norway
(2 comments) A right-wing Christian fundamentalist has reportedly taken credit for the terrorist slaughter of some 92 people in Norway on Friday. The alleged perpetrators' stated goal was to spark a Christian war against Muslims, a reaction to what he saw as a growing multiculturalism, an echo of Christian Right extremism elsewhere.

Thursday, July 14, 2011
October Surprise Evidence Surfaces
(1 comments) Among newly released archival records is the first documentary evidence that William Casey took a trip to Madrid possibly related to the 1980 October Surprise conspiracy. Doubts that Ronald Reagan's campaign chief went to Madrid fueled media attempts in 1991 to debunk allegations of a secret GOP deal with Iran.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Inside the October Surprise Cover-up
The George H.W. Bush Library in Texas has just released thousands of pages of documents on the October Surprise mystery, revealing how Bush's inner circle handled allegations that the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 struck a treacherous deal with Iran. It was a textbook case of controlling the narrative.

Sunday, July 10, 2011
Bachmann's Aide Hides $10M Secret
(2 comments) When Rep. Michelle Bachmann landed Ed Rollins as her campaign manager, the move gave a shot of credibility to her presidential bid. Washington pundits adore Rollins and his blunt style, so much so that they have ignored the fact that he is still covering up an illegal $10 million suitcase full of cash from Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Saturday, July 2, 2011
Neocons Want War and More War
(2 comments) The neoconservatives remain powerful in Washington in large part because of their continued influence inside leading opinion-setting journals like the New York Times and the Washington Post, two prestige newspapers that have pressed ahead with the neocon agenda despite serious blows to their credibility in recent years, a dilemma.

Thursday, June 30, 2011
The New York Times' Favor and Fear
A federal court opinion has revealed that the New York Times's 2004 spiking of the story about President George W. Bush's warrantless wiretapping of Americans didn't stand alone. A year earlier, the Times bowed to another White House demand to kill a sensitive story, one about Iran's nuclear program.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011
How Greed Destroys America
(1 comments) New studies show that America's corporate chieftains are living like kings while the middle class stagnates and shrivels. Yet, the Tea Party and other anti-tax forces remain determined to protect the historically low tax rates of the rich and push the burden of reducing the federal debt onto the rest of society.

Saturday, June 25, 2011
The Lie Behind the Afghan War
(2 comments) A recurring refrain about the Afghan War is that the United States must stay for the long haul now to avoid repeating the "mistake" made in 1989 when Soviet forces left and Americans supposedly disappeared, too. But this conventional wisdom, spread by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others, is a lie.

Friday, June 24, 2011
Afghan War: No Vietnam Redux
(9 comments) Many on the American Left are furious with Barack Obama -- and find nothing to praise in his gradual troop drawdown in Afghanistan. But the President's speech may be seen, in retrospect, as an important turning point in U.S. war policy toward the Muslim world as well as a signal that the Afghan conflict will not follow the pattern of the Vietnam War with one incremental escalation after the next.

Friday, June 17, 2011
Bob Gates' "Business" of Lying
(1 comments) As Defense Secretary Robert Gates prepares to retire in late June, he is routinely lauded as a "wise man" committed to telling it like it is, even making a frank comment this week about how "most governments lie to each other." But Gates's own record for honesty is a deeply checkered one.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Neocons Trade Medicare for War
The American neocons are again on the upswing as they undercut peace initiatives from the Obama administration and gain Republican support for maintaining massive Pentagon spending, in exchange for limiting senior citizens' access to Medicare. As Robert Parry reports, the neocons can now see the light at the end of the tunnel for their restoration to power.

Thursday, June 9, 2011
Three Deadly War Myths
The U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have involved myths pleasing to Official Washington -- about its own wisdom and the evil of the enemy -- but these false narratives have caused President Barack Obama and other U.S. policymakers to base decisions on illusion rather than reality.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Neocons Spin Two "Lost" Wars
(4 comments) The looming U.S. defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan represent a threat to the political fortunes of America's neocons -- if they get blamed for the disasters. However, if they can hang the failures around President Obama's neck, the two lost wars might help bring the neocons back to power as early as 2013.

Saturday, June 4, 2011
Making the US Economy "Scream"
(3 comments) Over the past several decades, Republican methods for winning national power have come to resemble CIA techniques for destabilizing an enemy country -- through the use of black propaganda, political skullduggery and economic disruptions. Now, heading toward Election 2012, the Republicans appear poised to make the U.S. economy "scream."

Wednesday, June 1, 2011
The Mysterious Robert Gates
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is leaving the Pentagon as a Washington "wise man," admired by both Republicans and Democrats for his supposed judgment and integrity. But does he deserve that reputation -- or is he just an especially clever manipulator of the political process?

Friday, May 27, 2011
Taking the Side of the Billionaires
(1 comments) America's Right pitches itself as populist, taking the side of the common man against "big guv-mint" and "lib-rhul elites," but its actual policies -- from the NFL lockout to Rep. Paul Ryan's budget -- side with the billionaires in what amounts to an escalating class war against the middle class and the poor.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Cheering Netanyahu's Intransigence
(4 comments) Republicans and Democrats in Congress leapt to their feet again and again to applaud Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even as he was challenging the policies of President Barack Obama. Yet, this pro-Israeli solidarity could have harmful consequences for Israel, the Palestinians and the United States.

Saturday, May 21, 2011
Netanyahu Sets Limits for Obama
(1 comments) With another angry Likud prime minister taking aim at the second term of another Democratic president, who is perceived as pushing too hard for a Palestinian state, it might finally be time for this important history to be examined honestly and presented clearly to the American people.

Saturday, May 14, 2011
Mitch Daniels, Architect of US Debt Crisis
(6 comments) In his hard sell for Bush's policies, Daniels also was not above hitting his opponents below the political belt. In December 2001, he denounced Democratic "tax and spend extremists" as "people for whom taxes can't be high enough and we can never spend too much government money."

Thursday, May 12, 2011
Jimmy Carter's October Surprise Doubts
(3 comments) If Carter had freed the hostages and won a second term, the United States might have continued on a path toward alternative energy, the federal deficit would not have soared as it did under Reagan, and deregulation of corporations would not have opened the environment and the financial sector to such dangers.

Saturday, May 7, 2011
The Curious Bush/Bin Laden Symbiosis
(2 comments) When Bush failed to take action as president to prevent 9/11, the blame had to be shifted to his predecessor, and now when his successor succeeds at getting bin Laden, the credit must accrue to Bush. Perhaps Bush's apologists will next claim that Bush deserves credit for getting bin Laden because he gave the terrorist leader what turned out to be a false sense of security.

Monday, May 2, 2011
Finishing a Job: Obama Gets Osama
Though it remains unclear what the long-term consequences of this action will be, Obama's success -- after years of Bush's failure -- does suggest one important lesson: U.S. officials would be well advised to ignore the special pleadings of the neocons who remain highly influential inside Official Washington.

Saturday, April 30, 2011
Questioning Obama's Americanism
(3 comments) While some on the American Left seem to have forgotten how extraordinary it was for the United States to elect a talented black politician as president, it does not appear that the Right has been so colorblind.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Trying 'Shock and Awe' in Libya
(1 comments) Led by the Washington Post and the New York Times, major U.S. news outlets have ignored the United Nations mandate to protect civilians. Instead, there's a renewed excitement over the prospect of a new "shock and awe" bombing of an "enemy" country that's been stripped of its air defenses.

Monday, April 25, 2011
Republicans Embrace 'Greedy Geezers'
(1 comments) Though polls show overwhelming numbers favoring raising taxes on the rich, that is the one option that Official Washington considers unthinkable. Far more admiring news coverage has been devoted to Ryan's "bold," "courageous" and "serious" plan to destroy Medicare than to progressive proposals to hike taxes on the well-to-do.

Thursday, April 21, 2011
Giving War a Chance
(1 comments) It seems that the neocons who dominate two of America's dominant newspapers can't get enough of "giving war a chance," an attitude reminiscent of their behavior prior to George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Monday, April 18, 2011
Spy vs. Spy: the First Patriots Day
Patriots Day commemorates the start of the American Revolution, the battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, and the staggering British retreat to Boston. What's less known is how the Americans outfoxed the British at one of their own strengths, intelligence.

Sunday, April 17, 2011
How I View the American Crisis
(2 comments) The Right feels it is strong enough to impose its Ayn Rand vision of a winner-take-all society and deploy its vast resources to prevail on Election Day. It is possible that the Republicans have overreached this time, with their ambitious agenda of slashing domestic spending, replacing Medicare with a voucher system, and lavishing more tax reductions on the rich.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Pity the Poor Tea Partier!
(18 comments) Ryan's 2012 proposal doesn't envision balancing the budget for almost 30 years. So, as the Tea Partier hobbles through his late 60s, suffering through insurance-induced poverty and anticipating an early death, the prospect of the government having its fiscal house in order will still be a hazy future promise, maybe a decade or more still to go.

Saturday, April 9, 2011
Letting a Cuban Terrorist Go Free
The Obama administration's Justice Department did prosecute Posada on perjury charges (the case that was lost on Friday) but has shown no interest in seeking justice for the Cubana Airlines victims. To do so would surely have political repercussions in the swing state of Florida in 2012.

Friday, April 8, 2011
NYT Demands Libyan War Escalation
The Times' belligerent rhetoric about Libya and its one-sided coverage of the conflict recall the behavior of the Times, the Washington Post and other leading U.S. news outlets during the run-up to war with Iraq in 2002-03, except then they were cheering on President George W. Bush whereas now they are hectoring President Obama to do more.

Thursday, April 7, 2011
Rep. Ryan's Free-Market 'Death Panels'
(1 comments) Ryan has been widely hailed by the mainstream media as a "courageous" visionary, a thoughtful guy brave enough to make tough choices. Watching CNN and CNBC--not to mention Fox--it's as if the revenue side of the budget crisis is non-existent. "Political courage" only comes from destroying the remnants of FDR's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, if not Theodore Roosevelt's progressive era.

Monday, April 4, 2011
WPost Seeks Longer Iraq Occupation
The neocon dream of using Iraq as a land-based aircraft carrier to project American military power against Iran, Syria and other adversaries dies hard. That's why the Washington Post is mounting its latest rear-guard battle to pressure Maliki and Obama to revise the SOFA and allow for at least a continuing U.S. military toehold in Iraq, with the hope for a much larger footprint later.

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