“Tough-guy/gal-ism” is rampant again in Official Washington with many New Cold Warriors lusting for a military confrontation with Russia. But few of these hawks have a clear idea how deterrence worked during the real Cold War, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul…
Category: Obama Administration
Recalling a Proud American Moment
United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez, with quiet dignity and nonviolent tactics, rallied millions of Americans behind the cause of oppressed farm workers in the 1960s, a remarkable moment recalled in a new movie by Diego Luna, interviewed by Dennis…
Finding a Way to Execute
In a Red State like Oklahoma, the death penalty is politically popular, especially among Republican politicians looking over their shoulders at possible Tea Party challengers. So the state government is taking no chances that a couple of inmates escape execution, writes Richard L.…
The Danger of False Narrative
Exclusive: Like a decade ago with Iraq, Official Washington’s pundits and pols are locked shoulder-to-shoulder in a phalanx of misguided consensus on Ukraine, presenting a false narrative that is taking U.S. policy into dangerous directions, writes Robert Parry.
Sheldon Adelson’s Own GOP Primary
Part of Ukraine’s crisis stems from the political power of 10 “oligarchs,” billionaires in a society with vast income inequality. It is a future that Americans seem headed toward, as one U.S. “oligarch,” Sheldon Adelson, picks his Republican presidential favorite, notes…
GOP Looks to Take the Senate
Leading political prognosticators see the Republicans winning total control of the U.S. Congress this fall, meaning that President Obama’s political agenda would be effectively finished. But will this bleak prospect finally force Democrats to fight back, wonders Beverly Bandler.
Why Europe Shies from Ukraine Showdown
Exclusive: Despite pressure from President Obama to escalate the fight with Russian President Putin over Ukraine, the Europeans are reluctant to stoke the crisis any further because it could consume their fragile recovery and ignite more fires of political discontent, notes…
Tolerating Saudi Arabia’s Intolerance
The U.S. government insists that it abides by principles of international law, democracy and respect for national sovereignty, but its actions often belie its words, with the U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s monarchy a stark example of the hypocrisy, writes…
The Pampered, Delusional Rich
America’s rich, who are consolidating more and more of the nation’s wealth in their own hands and giving less and less back, see themselves as “victims” of class envy, and some billionaires even liken their plight to the Holocaust, a…
Obama Ensnared in Bush’s Abuses
President Obama’s fateful decision after winning the 2008 election to seek “continuity” rather than “change” and “to look forward, not backward” has trapped him in a web of constitutional abuses that began in the Bush-43 presidency and extended into his…