Exclusive: A new book, Watergate: The Hidden History, suggests Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa and a Cuban report on attempts to kill Fidel Castro played major roles in the scandal, but author Lamar Waldron relies on dubious evidence, strange theories and…
Year: 2012
Reconnecting Words to Reality
The challenge of poetry in a time of professional euphemism is to reconnect words to reality, a nearly subversive concept in an age when rich investors and bottom-line executives have been transformed into “job-creators.” Martin Espada is one poet who has…
Report Shows Iranian Nuke Restraint
A new inspections report about Iran’s nuclear program prompted the usual alarmist headlines in U.S. newspapers about the growing need to attack Iran. But details in the report suggest that Iran is holding back from any “breakout” capability to build…
GOP Defends Marianas’ Sweatshops
Scandal-stained Republican activist Ralph Reed is back in the GOP’s good graces with a new “grassroots” operation organizing right-wing Christians. Also back on the Republican agenda is protection for an old Reed cause, maintaining sweatshops in the Marianas, note Bill…
Romney World’s Freedom from Fact
Exclusive: The Republican National Convention offered a look into one alternate future for America, a place where the ultimate liberty is to be fact-free. Mitt Romney’s campaign set sail confidently toward that future trusting that a plurality of Americans who…
GOP’s Fact-Challenged Convention
Even by the measure of modern U.S. political events, the Republican National Convention was fact-challenged. Again and again, Republicans reprised their favorite canards and distortions, including the claim that President Obama has eliminated the work requirement in welfare, writes William…
Egypt Seeks Regional Approach to Syria
Led by Egypt, key Muslim nations also including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran are exploring ways to reduce the political violence in Syria, an initiative that upsets some in Washington because it represents an independent regional approach, observes ex-CIA analyst…
Boy Scouts Still Embrace Discrimination
The pledges of the Boy Scouts of America to follow the nation’s laws and to befriend those who are different are increasingly at odds with the club’s continued rejection of gays and people who don’t believe in God, discriminatory policies…
More Fronts in Pa.’s Voter ID Battle
Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the two most important founding documents of the U.S. republic, is now a legal battleground where Republicans are seeking electoral victories by imposing a voter ID law to suppress the vote, explains William Boardman.
Romney’s Mysterious Foreign Policy
The uncertainty over where Mitt Romney or Barack Obama might take U.S. foreign policy in the next four years rests on the vagueness of Romney’s neocon rhetoric and the fact that Obama may veer in new directions because he will…