Month: April 2012

Help Us Get to the Halfway Point

From Editor Robert Parry: We’d like to end our spring fund drive, but we’re still less than halfway to our modest goal of $25,000. If you want to see Consortiumnews continue producing its unique brand of investigative journalism, please donate…

The 1%’s Hand in the Afghan Murders

Exclusive: Army Sgt. Robert Bales stands accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians, a crime that some trace to the financial pressures his family faced back home. However, to the rich financial swindlers, the ruining of Bales’s family and many others…

America’s Founding Pragmatism

Exclusive: America’s Founders were not marble statues, but rather real people facing tough challenges. To make ends meet, the esteemed Abigail Adams dabbled in black-market goods, and that kind of tough-minded pragmatism not starry-eyed idealism imbued the Constitution and guided…

Romney’s Upside-Down Constitution

Exclusive: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney wowed a convention of gun enthusiasts with a flowery talk about the Constitution and his fears about what a re-elected President Obama would do to it. But Romney’s speech reflected an American history…

When Religion Dominates Politics

Religion in politics is a touchy topic in the United States, but Americans have a legitimate right to know how a candidate’s religious views may affect public policy on issues like population growth, anti-gay discrimination and Christian supremacy says Rev.…

Is Occupy’s ‘Purity’ Under Assault?

Hardliners in the Occupy movement have begun equating police infiltrators and other enemies with Occupy supporters who favor some practical electoral and legislative goals. There is alarmist talk about the need to protect Occupy’s revolutionary purity from these reformers, as Danny Schechter…

US Politics Threaten Iran Nuke Talks

The rigidity of Official Washington  more than intransigence from Iran is threatening negotiations beginning in Istanbul this weekend. President Obama’s flexibility to ease sanctions on Iran in exchange for Iranian safeguards against building a nuclear weapon is limited by political pressures,…

Some Ultra-Rich Abandon Obama

Some of the ultra-rich who backed Barack Obama in 2008 are switching to Mitt Romney in 2012 because the President has called for closing tax loopholes that allow hedge-fund and private-equity billionaires to pay lower tax rates than working stiffs,…

Iran Talks Hinge on Israeli Demand

As international talks begin over Iran’s nuclear program, President Obama has put forward an Israeli demand for the dismantling of a well-protected uranium processing plant, but it’s less clear whether Obama will press the point if it means killing hopes…

How Neocons Sank Iran Nuke Deal

Exclusive: Iran is resuming talks over its nuclear program with leading international powers the United States, Britain, Russia, China, France and Germany with the prospect of an agreement to swap some enriched uranium for research isotopes. But a similar plan…