The outline for a resolution of the Iranian nuclear dispute is coming into focus, perhaps only waiting for the U.S. presidential election to be decided. But suspicions between Iran and the West continue to beset the slow progress toward a resolution,…
Category: Politics
How Romney Harms the Middle Class
When seeking the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney promised to keep the Bush tax cuts and tack on a 20 percent across-the-board tax cut. Now, he struggles to explain how that would work, but even the status quo has helped the rich…
The Real Blame for Deaths in Libya
Exclusive: Rep. Darrell Issa and the Republicans are making political hay from last month’s killings in Libya of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. But the real blame traces back to Official Washington’s endless interventions in the Middle East,…
Science Dispute in Heated Arizona Race
A dispute over President George W. Bush’s politicizing of science is reverberating in a close Arizona Senate race. The Republican is highlighting a personal attack against Democratic candidate Richard Carmona that was first raised to blunt his criticism of Bush’s politicization, writes…
Buying ‘Justice’
Powerful corporations and right-wing interest groups are taking aim at state judges around the country who have ruled the “wrong” way and who can be tossed out via elections. This new flood of campaign cash is creating a system of…
When ‘Lesser-Evil’ Misses the Point
The American Left is engaged in its quadrennial debate, whether to vote for “the lesser evil” Democrat or maintain political purity and either boycott the election or cast a ballot for a minor-party candidate. A similar argument in 1968 helped change the…
Thanking Europe for No World Wars
The Nobel committee’s award of the Peace Prize to the European Union may be head-scratching to some, given the continent’s angry economic divisions and NATO’s role in recent wars. But the point was to commend Europe for having avoided a repeat of the…
How to Save the Middle Class
Many Americans don’t know where the Great Middle Class came from. They see it as a natural outgrowth of “free-market capitalism” when it was really the product of conscious government policies, starting with the New Deal. That confusion must be…
Treehouses Block Keystone Pipeline
Some environmentalists are living in treehouses in a last-ditch stand against building a section of the Keystone pipeline though Texas. The protest drew some attention after the arrest of actor Daryl Hannah, but has mostly been ignored by the U.S.…
Romney’s Middle East Militancy
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney put some space between himself and President Obama on Middle East policies by suggesting a return of U.S. troops to Iraq and drawing the “red line” for Iran around the fuzzy concept of nuclear “capability,” notes Adil…