Exclusive: For 10 days, right-wing talkers and Mitt Romney have circulated a deceptively edited quote tricking Americans into thinking that President Obama believes businessmen didn’t build their businesses. Belatedly, one of the “independent fact-checkers” has spoken up, reports Robert Parry.
Category: Obama Administration
Romney’s Pentagon Budget Out of Step
While advocating more tax cuts tilted to the rich, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney also wants to expand military spending, meaning that social programs would take a big hit. But polls indicate Americans prefer cutting Pentagon dollars rather than Social Security and…
Debunking Some Anti-Iran Agit-Prop
Led by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, hard-line critics of Iran were quick to jump to a conclusion blaming its operatives for a bus bombing targeting Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. Some Israeli and Western media even cited a speech by Iran’s…
Will Downing St. Memo Recur on Iran?
Exclusive: A decade after the infamous “Downing Street Memo” and its “fixed” intelligence for invading Iraq, the pressure is on again to make the case whatever the facts for a new war with Iran. Will the UK’s MI6 and the CIA bend…
Rushing to Judgment on Bus Bomb
In rushing to judgment blaming Iran for a bus bombing in Bulgaria, Israeli officials and neocon writers cited the conventional wisdom about Iran’s authorship of a bombing in Argentina in 1994. However, the investigation of that case was deeply compromised…
America’s Twisted Notion of Freedom
In America, “freedom” now means the right to inflict harm on the community, whether it’s the freedom of Wall Street bankers to gamble recklessly, the freedom of the rich to shut factories and off-shore jobs or the freedom to swagger around…
America: A Nation of Wildebeest
Exclusive: The slaughter of 12 moviegoers at the new Batman film in Aurora, Colorado, recalls other moments of horror known by names like Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson. But the repetition of such gun violence and the lack of a coherent response make Americans…
The Long Night of Gun Violence
The well-organized anger of the Right in favor of guns has silenced many Americans who recognize the madness of letting mentally fragile human beings run around with assault rifles. Will the latest massacre in Colorado do anything to change this strange…
Batman in an Age of Polarization
Exclusive: The last of Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” trilogy may always be remembered for the mass murder of fans packed into a theater in Colorado to see an opening-night showing. But “The Dark Knight Rises” has been controversial for other reasons in…
Lamenting the Dead, Not the Laws
Politicians and pundits are again lamenting the latest slaughter in Colorado, where a dozen moviegoers were murdered by a troubled young man who had no trouble buying an assault rifle and other guns. But the horror will be transient while…