Category: Constitution

A Decade of Patriot Act Abuses

After the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush’s administration pulled off the shelf dozens of internal security provisions that the Right had long wanted to implement. They were passed as the Patriot Act and have become part of America’s police-state culture,…

Hunting Witches in the ‘War on Terror’

America’s decade-long hysteria since 9/11 has taken on some characteristics of the European witch hunts of 500 years ago, with incineration of targets after a sham “due process,” albeit now with Hellfire missiles from the air not stake-burnings on the ground,…

NPR Ousts Producer Over ‘Occupy DC’

For years now, U.S. “public broadcasting” has run scared from right-wing attacks and Republican funding cuts. So, NPR and PBS lard on more right-wing pundits, while purging any sign of liberal dissent as just happened with a producer of an opera show…

Rick Perry’s Revolutionary War ‘History’

Exclusive: 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, notes Robert Parry.

The Never-ending Terror Threat

For a decade now, the American people have been told that only a “long war” against Islamist extremism can keep them safe from terrorism, even at the cost of trillions of dollars and loss of their liberties. Not even the…

Washington Protest Stays Put

Across the United States, the 99 Percent Movement is occupying more and more parks to protest America’s growing economic inequality. In Washington DC, activist Kevin Zeese reports on the protest at Freedom Plaza near the Treasury building.

The Moral Imperative of ‘Activism’

Exclusive: On Sept. 18, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern gave a talk about “activism” to a conference in Charlottesville, Virginia, focused on the need to confront the military industrial complex. Now, as the occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington gets…

Reagan’s ‘Greed Is Good’ Folly

Exclusive: 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…

‘Sarah’s Key’: Enforcing Injustice

As the Occupy Wall Street and other populist protests grow, the role of police in either allowing dissent or crushing it will be at center stage. In that regard, Gary G. Kohls sees valuable lessons from the Holocaust drama, “Sarah’s…

The Slippery Slope of Assassinations

With the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and al-Qaeda associate based in Yemen, the Obama administration has stepped onto a slippery slope where loosening standards for extrajudicial killings could slide into a terrifying use of government power, the…