Exclusive: In the coming weeks, the Republican Party and its Tea Party extremists vow to create budgetary and fiscal crises if the Democrats don’t gut health-care reform and submit to a host of other right-wing demands. But a driving force in this craziness is an anti-historical view of the Constitution, writes Robert Parry.
Health Reform
GOP’s Mad Health-Care Vendetta
Republicans and their Tea Party allies are plotting one more frenzied assault on the Affordable Care Act by disrupting congressional townhall meetings and possibly holding the full-faith-and-credit of the United States hostage. But the madness may just expose how crazy the GOP has become, writes Beverly Bandler.
Racist Roots of GOP War on Obama
Exclusive: Right-wing Republicans in Congress are plotting to cripple the U.S. government if Barack Obama, the first African-American president, doesn’t submit to their demands. The battle pretends to be over the size of government but it echoes the whips, chains and epithets of America’s racist past, writes Robert Parry.
Ignoring the GOP’s White Racism
Exclusive: Conservative columnist David Brooks can’t understand why right-wing Republicans are so determined to kill immigration reform, especially since the Senate-approved bill would boost the economy and cut the deficit. But Brooks ignores what might be called the white elephant in the room, Robert Parry reports.
Migrant Workers’ Bitter Fruit
The battle to overhaul U.S. immigration policy has now moved from the Senate to the House where its future is at best uncertain. The debate continues even as the Obama administration presses forward with the most stringent deportation policies in modern history, as Dennis J Bernstein reports.
Why Ballpark Workers Might Strike Out
The chasm between rich and poor in America continues to widen as people who actually work for a living struggle and those who shift around money do very well, thanks. That reality is underscored by a labor dispute between San Francisco ballpark workers and the management, Michael Winship reports.
Right-Wing Ideology and Reality
Pervasive right-wing propaganda – relying on false allusions to the Founding myth and bigoted illusions about non-white minorities – has sucked millions of Americans into an unrealistic ideology centered on hatred of government. Lawrence Davidson encountered that reality on a vacation cruise.
Reality Bites Back
Exclusive: More than a Right-Left battle, the conflict for the world’s future is between empiricists and fantasists, those who are committed to reality and rationality and those who happily embrace propaganda as truth. It is a struggle with global implications, writes Robert Parry.
The Choice of Guns Over Butter
The American political system continues to ignore President Eisenhower’s dour warning about the Military-Industrial Complex and embrace President Reagan’s happy “We’re No. 1” illusions. The long-term consequences of this choice have been devastating to most U.S. citizens and to the world, writes Gary G. Kohls.
Capital Insiders Help Amgen
President Obama gave a ringing defense of progressive government and the good it can do for the nation and the people. But a little-noticed addition to the fiscal-cliff bill was a reminder of how politics can work to the advantage of corporate special interests, say Bill Moyers and Michael Winship.