73 QuickLinks

Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Can the religious left sway the '08 race?
This was no garden-variety political presentation by the top three Democratic presidential candidates. The forum, sponsored by the progressive Christian group Sojourners, represented the boldest indication yet that the "religious left" is building as a political force, no longer willing to cede "values voters" to the religious conservatives

Wednesday, May 16, 2007
CENTCOM Commander's Veto Sank Bush's Gulf Buildup
Admiral William Fallon, then President George W. Bush's nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM.

Saturday, March 24, 2007
Are We Politicians or Citizens? By Howard Zinn
(2 comments) When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them.

Monday, March 12, 2007
Turn off the life support: America is dead By DOUG THOMPSON
(5 comments) We need to rethink this experiment called America. Maybe we need to start with a clean sheet of paper. Maybe it's time to recognize that our present America is a rotting corpse, devoured from within by the cancer of politics, corruption, greed and a lust for power.

Saturday, March 10, 2007
Dems' Big Middle Finger to the American Voter by David Sirota
(2 comments) Months after being elected to the majority on an antiwar mandate, we have a congressional Democratic Party that still refuses to do anything to end - or even slow down - the war. Because underneath all the platitudes and rhetoric, Washington, D.C. is a place that hates democracy.

Monday, March 5, 2007
China to Pass U.S. as World's Top Generator of Greenhouse Gases
(1 comments) A report released last week by Beijing authorities indicated that as its economy continues to expand at a red-hot pace, China is highly likely to overtake the United States this year or in 2008 as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Monday, March 5, 2007
A Must-Do List to Save Democracy
(1 comments) The Bush administration's assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. On Sunday, The New York Times a list -- which, sadly, is hardly exhaustive -- of things that need to be done to reverse the unwise and lawless policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Thursday, March 1, 2007
A Green response to a do nothing Congress on healthcare
(1 comments) Green Party leaders called on Congress to reject health care reform plans that maintained corporate-based insurance and HMO coverage, and urged passage of a single-payer national health insurance program. Greens assert need for single-payer national health insurance, which top Democrats and Republicans reject because of corporate HMO, insurance, and pharmaceutical contributors.

Thursday, March 1, 2007
Colorado to use inmates to fill migrant shortage
(1 comments) Ever since passing what its Legislature promoted as the nation's toughest laws against illegal immigration last summer, Colorado has struggled with a labor shortage as migrants fled the state. This week, officials announced a novel solution: Use convicts as farmworkers.

Sunday, February 18, 2007
Swiftboaters are 'Gangs' in a Moral America
(1 comments) CONGRESSMAN USES FAKE QUOTE FROM LINCOLN TO SAY DEMOCRATS SHOULD BE "ARRESTED, EXILED OR HANGED"

Sunday, February 18, 2007
The Neo-Con Dog That Isn't Barking
(1 comments) If a decision has already been made to attack Iran, it appears that the faction that led the pro-war propaganda offensive in the run-up to the Iraq invasion and that has long favoured "regime change" in Iraq -- the neo-conservatives -- has either not been clued in, or more likely, believes that any such attack is still some time off, if it takes place at all.

Friday, February 16, 2007
Backlash grows against free trade
(3 comments) Worries about the dark side of free trade are surfacing in the United States in ways that could affect the course of globalization worldwide. Don't expect an outright retreat from global commerce just yet, but it is becoming more likely that the US will act to temper and manage its impact. The reason: Free-trade brush fires have recently erupted on economic and political fronts.

Thursday, February 15, 2007
Escalating Truth by George Lakoff
(1 comments) Words have meanings; they express ideas and ideas are important. The word "surge" came with the idea of a relatively small short-term increase in force that would be effective. The actual proposal called a "surge" was the opposite of what the word meant. In short, the very use of the word "surge" was a lie. Conservative ideas and frames must be confronted and contested.

Saturday, February 10, 2007
Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring
(4 comments) US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007
What the US Can Learn from Europe About Global Warming
(4 comments) The real trick to effective legislation is in its details, a lesson that the European Union (EU) has learned the hard way as it prepares to cut greenhouse-gas emissions next year under the Kyoto treaty. So many companies emit so much carbon dioxide that the potential market for emissions trading is huge.

Friday, January 26, 2007
Peace Activists Target Congress
(1 comments) When thousands of Iraq war protesters gather in Washington Saturday, their chants and amplified speeches are likely to be heard inside the secure grounds of the White House where the commander in chief has made his case for sending more troops into combat. But the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue -– the Capitol and the Democratic-led Congress –- is where they most aim their message.

Friday, January 26, 2007
Cheney's Key Role in Leak Case Detailed
(1 comments) Cheney dictated detailed "talking points" for his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and others on how they could impugn Valerie Plame by having calls made to reporters in 2003.

Thursday, January 25, 2007
From Lion to Chicken Hearted; Huge majority in UK say civil liberty curbs a 'price worth paying' to fight terror
(3 comments) The very mention of something being a counter-terrorism measure makes people more willing to contemplate the giving up of their freedoms. It is as though society is in the process of forgetting why past generations thought these freedoms to be so very important.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Ritter sets goal of doubling post-secondary degrees and certificates in ten years
(2 comments) As both a resident of Colorado, and a college student, I found the statistics listed in this article, written by our newly sworn-in Democratic governor, to be quite the eye opener.

Thursday, January 18, 2007
US House Takes on Big Oil
(2 comments) A bill to be voted on today would cut federal benefits to big oil by a third and give them to renewable-energy programs. Butthe proposed cuts go only so far. Even if the House's new clean-energy legislation becomes law, the oil and gas industry will remain by far the largest recipient of federal energy largesse.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Democrats Seek the Middle on Social Issues
(2 comments) Forget about any progressive mandate, the Dems say the center is the place to be. ...Democratic Congressional leaders say they are committed to governing from the center, and not just on bread-and-butter issues like raising the minimum wage or increasing aid for education. They also hope to bring that philosophy to bear on some of the most divisive social issues in politics...

Friday, January 12, 2007
Bush's approval rating hits new low
(2 comments) Public approval of Congress has edged up a bit now that Democrats are back in control, but it's still nothing to write home about. Approval for the way Congress is handling its job rose to 32 percent in the latest AP-Ipsos poll, up from a meager 27 percent a month earlier. That puts Congress on par with President Bush, whose 32 percent approval rating represents a new low for him in AP-Ipsos polling.

Friday, January 5, 2007
More Troops for Iraq: Bush's Next 'Flight from Reality'
(3 comments) This isn't a new way forward, nor is it a recipe for the victory that the desperate architect of an unnecessary and costly war seems to believe is waiting out there to rescue his legacy. It's no more than a continuation of George W. Bush's urgent flight from reality.

Thursday, December 28, 2006
GOP corporate allies in Congress's cross hairs
(3 comments) When Republicans expanded their majority in 2004, their first target was the trial lawyers, virtual ATM dispensers for Democratic candidates. A new law curbing class-action lawsuits was on the president's desk by mid-February. Now, Democrats are targeting some of the GOP's strongest corporate allies - Big Oil, big pharmaceutical companies, and, in all likelihood, defense contractors.

Monday, December 25, 2006
Dingell Minded
(3 comments) Meet the man who may determine the fate of climate policy in the next two years: Rep. John Dingell. Dingell spoke with Grist from his office in Washington, D.C., giving insight into what the climate-policy landscape may -- or may not -- look like over the next two years.

Monday, December 25, 2006
Stealing Green
(3 comments) Mega-corps GE, BP and Wal-Mart have joined the chorus for sustainability by re-branding themselves as green companies. A pioneering green business consultant contends it's more than just PR

Wednesday, December 20, 2006
New German community models car-free living
(3 comments) The Vauban development - 2,000 new homes on a former military base 10 minutes by bike from the heart of Freiburg - has put into practice many ideas that were once dismissed as eco-fantasy but which are now moving to the center of public policy.

Monday, December 11, 2006
What I've Learned By Kofi A. Annan
(4 comments) I want to pass on five lessons I have learned during 10 years as secretary general of the United Nations that I believe the community of nations needs to learn as it confronts the challenges of the 21st century.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006
CALIFORNIA Carmakers say state's greenhouse rules would endanger SUVs
(3 comments) The auto industry said Monday that lawsuits over vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions could eventually force manufacturers to eliminate big SUVs from the market in California, an assertion denied by environmental attorneys and the state air quality board.

Monday, November 13, 2006
Bush & Co. to Seniors: Affordable Prescription Drugs? Not on Our Watch
(4 comments) The Bush administration said on Sunday that it would strenuously oppose one of the Democrats' top priorities for the new Congress: legislation authorizing the government to negotiate with drug companies to secure lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries.

Sunday, November 12, 2006
Here come the odious excuses, By Robert Fisk
(3 comments) The philosophers behind the bloodbath in Iraq are now washing their hands.

Saturday, November 11, 2006
The Architect Speaks
(3 comments) After maintaining a relentless optimism in the face of ominous polls, Karl Rove tells TIME why Republicans wound up taking a bath on Election Night.

Friday, November 10, 2006
Democrats are set to subpoena
(3 comments) With control of every committee in Congress starting in January, the new majority will inherit broad powers to subpoena and investigate. And that is expected to translate into wide-ranging and contentious hearings.

Thursday, November 9, 2006
Ralph Nader on Conservative Democrats, Corporate Power and the Middle East
(3 comments) For analysis on Tuesday's election and the Democratic victory in the House, consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader joins Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.

Thursday, November 9, 2006
Gates Has History of Manipulating Intelligence
(3 comments) Robert Gates, the former director of the CIA during the presidency of George H.W. Bush who was tapped Tuesday by the president to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, is part of Texas's good ol' boy network. He may be best known for playing a role in arming Iraq's former dictator Saddam Hussein with American-made weapons in the country's war against Iran in the 1980s.

Thursday, November 9, 2006
There's Nothing Partisan About Impeaching Bush
(4 comments) In an article in The Washington Monthly, John Nichols contends that House Democrats have an obligation to the American people to check and balance the executive branch -- by getting serious about impeachment.

Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Voting in the absence of Choice
(3 comments) ...let us be clear about something: voting matters only where real choices are allowed. It is universally understood that special interest money runs the American political system and thus defines what the choices will be. So we are left to choose between candidates who are financed by special interest money, which any fool can see, is no choice at all.

Thursday, November 2, 2006
Blair narrowly avoids new British inquiry into Iraq war
(3 comments) Just a week before the US public votes in elections seen by many as a referendum on the Iraq war, Britain's Labour government narrowly won its own referendum in the House of Commons, voting down a call for an "immediate investigation" into the war. But in aftermath of House of Commons vote, Labour hints at future investigation.

Thursday, November 2, 2006
Military launches huge public relations effort to counter eroding support on Iraq mess.
(3 comments) As concern in the Defense Department mounts over eroding public support for the Iraq war, the Pentagon has launched a rapid-response public relations effort to rebut news stories that officials believe are inaccurate or misleading.

Thursday, November 2, 2006
Why Consumers Should Care About Network Neutrality
(3 comments) Greetings. In a recent New York Times op-ed, former FCC Chairman Kennard characterized the network neutrality debate as simply a battle between the extremely wealthy and the merely rich, and suggested that it was distracting us from what he considers to be the truly important telecom-related issues...The technical term for most of the anti-neutrality argument is simply greed.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Bush Says 'America Loses' Under Democrats White House Talk Heats Up As Polls Show Tight Races
(3 comments) President Bush said terrorists will win if Democrats win and impose their policies on Iraq, as he and Vice President Cheney escalated their rhetoric Monday in an effort to turn out Republican voters in next week's midterm elections.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006
RESISTANCE TO DEADLINES FOR IRAQ IS WEAKENING
(3 comments) Growing numbers of American military officers have begun to privately question a key tenet of U.S. strategy in Iraq - that setting a hard deadline for troop reductions would strengthen the insurgency and undermine efforts to create a stable state.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006
U.S. Drops Bid Over Royalties From Chevron
(3 comments) The Interior Department has dropped claims that the Chevron Corporation systematically underpaid the government for natural gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico, a decision that could allow energy companies to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Supreme Court case: Are jury awards too high?
(3 comments) The High Court hears Tuesday a case where the widow of an Oregon smoker got $79.5 million. Tuesday, the case arrives at the US Supreme Court where lawyers for Philip Morris are asking the justices to strike down the punitive damage award as constitutionally excessive and fundamentally unfair

Tuesday, October 31, 2006
What Happens If the Democrats Win
(3 comments) With just days before the U.S. Congressional elections, Washington is consumed with predictions that the Republicans are on their way out of power. What would a Democratic majority actually mean for U.S. foreign policy? FP asked Washington insiders, ex-politicians, and pundits to look beyond November 7. A variety of responses

Monday, October 30, 2006
100 Americans die in Iraq during October
(3 comments) The U.S. military announced the death of the 100th service member killed in combat this month.

Monday, October 30, 2006
Budgets Falling in Race to Fight Global Warming
(3 comments) Cheers fit for a revival meeting swept a hotel ballroom as 1,800 entrepreneurs and experts watched a PowerPoint presentation of the most promising technologies for limiting global warming...Hold the applause...The challenge is all the more daunting because research into energy technologies by both government and industry has not been rising, but rather falling.

Monday, October 30, 2006
Hold, Hamper, Hinder
(3 comments) A primer on the organized effort to suppress voter turnout next week...far more ominous is the organized effort to suppress voter turnout, directed entirely against groups likely to vote for Democrats.

Monday, October 30, 2006
Midterm Vote May Define Rove's Legacy
(3 comments) "I believe Karl Rove," Bolten said in an interview in his West Wing office Friday. "Karl Rove, somewhere inside that massive brain of his, has figured out the political landscape more clearly than the entire collection of conventional-wisdom pundits and pollsters in the entire city of Washington."

Monday, October 30, 2006
UNREGULATED GROUPS WIELD MILLIONS TO SWAY VOTERS
(3 comments) Unions, corporations and wealthy individuals have pumped nearly $300 million this year into unregulated political groups, funding dozens of aggressive and sometimes shadowy campaigns independent of party machines.

Saturday, October 28, 2006
Democrats Get Late Donations From Business
(3 comments) Corporate America is already thinking beyond Election Day, increasing its share of last-minute donations to Democratic candidates and quietly devising strategies for how to work with Democrats if they win control of Congress.

Friday, October 27, 2006
Democrats Fear Disillusionment in Black Voters
(6 comments) ...despite a generally buoyant Democratic Party nationally, there are worries among Democratic strategists in some states that blacks may not turn up at the polls in big enough numbers because of disillusionment over past shenanigans.

Friday, October 27, 2006
Energy Prices, Housing Slow Economic Growth
(3 comments) U.S. economic growth slowed markedly from July to September, as higher interest rates and energy prices and a slumping housing market cooled the economy to its slowest pace in three years.

Friday, October 27, 2006
Poll: Most feel civil liberties not harmed by war on terror
(4 comments) While 39 percent of the 1,013 poll respondents said the Bush administration has gone too far, 34 percent said they believe the administration has been about right on the restrictions, according to the Opinion Research Corp. survey. Another 25 percent said the administration has not gone far enough.

Friday, October 27, 2006
Face-to-Face With the Fundamentalist Base
(4 comments) ...an institute linked to People for the American Way released its own survey of values challenging "the rhetoric around values voters (as) just plain wrong," according to its author, Dr. Robert Jones. "We found out...abortion and gay marriage ranked dead last and jobs and the economy, by far, ranked number one...

Thursday, October 26, 2006
A Wedge in the Door
(3 comments) Millions of seniors will receive a rude surprise in the next two weeks when they open a mailing from the federal government explaining how the Medicare program will work in 2007. For the first time ever, beginning in January, what a senior pays for Medicare premiums will be linked to his or her income.

Thursday, October 26, 2006
Bush Signs Mexico Border Fence Bill
(3 comments) President Bush signed a bill Thursday authorizing 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to give Republican candidates a pre-election platform for asserting they're tough on illegal immigration.

Thursday, October 26, 2006
N.J. Ruling Mandates Rights for Gay Unions
(3 comments) The New Jersey Supreme Court left the door ajar for the approval of same-sex marriage Wednesday, ruling that gay couples are entitled to rights no different from those of heterosexual couples. The court gave state legislators 180 days to craft a bill offering same-sex couples the same rights as opposite-sex couples...

Thursday, October 26, 2006
Worse Than Union Busting
(3 comments) The over-the-top mudslinging by the Center for Union Facts, the National Right to Work Committee and other anti-union groups is nothing more than an attempt to pull the wool over our eyes, hiding the real crisis in the American workplace.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Social Security Enters Elections
(3 comments) More than a year after Social Security reform faded from the political radar screen, the debate erupted anew yesterday, as Democrats seized on news that President Bush hopes to revive an unpopular proposal to make changes in the national retirement program.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Republican base loses faith
(3 comments) As midterm elections near, polls show that some religious voters are stepping off the GOP bandwagon. Ever since George W. Bush named Jesus as his favorite philosopher and positioned himself as a strong man of faith, Republicans have increasingly been viewed as the party sympathetic to religion - with the Democrats found seriously wanting.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Federal Rules Back Single-Sex Public Education
(3 comments) The Bush administration is giving public school districts broad new latitude to expand the number of single-sex classes, and even schools, in what is widely considered the most significant policy change on the issue since a landmark federal law barring sex discrimination in education more than 30 years ago.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Lakoff and Negative Branding
(3 comments) I gave discussed George Lakoff before and much of this post will sound familiar. But Lakoff has a new post that, I think, illustrates my earlier points. Lakoff writes:

Wednesday, October 25, 2006
George W. Bush v. The U.S. Constitution By Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.)
(4 comments) The situation we find ourselves in today under the administration of George W. Bush is systemically different. The alleged acts of wrongdoing my staff has documented-which include making misleading statements about the decision to go to war; manipulating intelligence; facilitating and countenancing torture; using classified information to out a CIA agent; and violating federal surveillance and privacy laws-are quite serious.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Jawbone George
(3 comments) ...last week the Bush administration announced a new National Space Strategy, which called for unilateral American military hegemony over outer space. Yes, that's right. Having failed to kill Osama bin Laden, or stabilize Iraq, or resolve issues relating to Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, the administration is preparing to tackle the pressing issue of Martian invaders.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Independent Voters Favor Democrats by 2 to 1 in Poll
(3 comments) Two weeks before the midterm elections, Republicans are losing the battle for independent voters, who now strongly favor Democrats on Iraq and other major issues facing the country and overwhelmingly prefer to see them take over the House in November, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Latino and black voters reassessing ties to GOP
(3 comments) A major effort to draw Latinos and blacks into the Republican Party, a central element of the GOP plan to build a long-lasting majority, is in danger of collapse amid anger over the immigration debate and claims that Republican leaders have not delivered on promises to direct more money to church-based social services.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
U.S. Prosecutors Targeting GOP Lawmakers
(3 comments) Public corruption cases brought by Justice Department prosecutors in Washington are on the rise, fueled in part by investigations targeting Republican lawmakers in Congress.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
North Korea, Turkmenistan, Eritrea the worst violators of press freedom...France, the United States and Japan slip furth
(4 comments) The United States (53rd) has fallen nine places since last year, after being in 17th position in the first year of the Index, in 2002. Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of "national security" to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his "war on terrorism."

Monday, October 23, 2006
Bush's family profits from 'No Child' act
(3 comments) A company headed by President Bush's brother and partly owned by his parents is benefiting from Republican connections and federal dollars targeted for economically disadvantaged students under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Monday, October 23, 2006
Has Canada Got the Cure?
(3 comments) Publicly funded health care has its problems, as any Canadian or Briton knows. But like democracy, it's the best answer we've come up with so far. Should the United States implement a more inclusive, publicly funded health care system? That's a big debate throughout the country.

Monday, October 23, 2006
What If They Gave An Empire and Nobody Came?
(3 comments) With young people blocking traffic on Los Angeles highways in support of their rights as undocumented workers and students traveling south to figure out what they can do in the wake of the Katrina disaster, it seems that there is an emerging student voice in grassroots actvist efforts in almost every part of the country.

Monday, October 23, 2006
GUILTY GOP LOBBYIST HAS DESK AT FBI TO SPEND HOURS EACH DAY TELLING ALL...
(3 comments) Jack Abramoff, the lobbying scandal figure, has become such a chatty rat that probe insiders say he's been given a desk to work at in the FBI. We're told he spends up to four hours a day detailing his shady business to agents eager to nail more congressmen in the scandal. And when cooperative witnesses spend that much time inside, they get a desk...