Category: Obama Administration

Betting on the Wall Street Crash

Exclusive: The 2008 Wall Street crash resulted from a combination of unrestrained greed and political contempt for government regulators who might have prevented the devastation. In The Big Short, the tale is told from the perspective of a few players…

Encountering a Sophisticated Putin

Pretty much all that Americans and much of the West get to hear about Russian President Putin is heavy-handed propaganda often read over images of him riding shirtless on a horse. He’s either a bully or a buffoon. But editors…

The Game of Demonizing Putin

Official Washington influences the opinions of the American people about world affairs by demonizing certain foreign leaders, making them objects of both revulsion and ridicule, thus justifying “regime change” strategies, a particularly dangerous game when played against nuclear-armed Russia, as John…

Learning to Love — and Use — the Bomb

Exclusive: The endless demonizing of Russian President Putin is the new fun game in Official Washington as neocons dream about “regime change” in Moscow and military contractors drool over huge profits from “modernizing” America’s nuclear arsenal, with few thoughts about…

Panicked Over the Trump Phenomenon

America’s conservative establishment is in panic mode as renegade billionaire Donald Trump continues to dominate the Republican presidential race and thumb his nose at the GOP donor class, which is alarmed that all its money might not dictate the outcome…

Islamic State’s Bloody Decline

Washington’s pundit class has interpreted the Islamic State’s recent turn toward international terrorism as proof of its growing strength, but it may actually represent the opposite, the group’s recognition that its “caliphate” is under stress and shrinking, observes ex-CIA analyst…

Hillary Clinton Seeks Neocon Shelter

Special Report: Stunned by falling poll numbers, Hillary Clinton is hoping that Democrats will rally to her neocon-oriented foreign policy and break with Bernie Sanders as insufficiently devoted to Israel. But will that hawkish strategy work this time, asks Robert…

Neocons Flack for Unsavory Saudis

Exclusive: Since Israel decided that Iran was its big enemy “and made Saudi Arabia its quiet ally” American neocons have fallen in line, demanding that the U.S. government punish Iran and coddle the Saudis whatever their unsavory behavior, notes Daniel Lazare.

Merkel’s Power Shaken by Refugee Crisis

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Time magazine’s “person of the year” in 2015, is facing her biggest political crisis as her welcoming of Mideast refugees has troubled and angered many Europeans, raising the possibility that Merkel’s days as the Continent’s undisputed…

Kerry Pressed for MH-17 Evidence

Exclusive: The father of a young American who died aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is pressing Secretary of State John Kerry to release evidence to support his early claims that the U.S. government possessed details about the launch of the…