Category: Politics

Should Israel/Palestine Merge?

The U.S. appears on the verge of a new war in the Middle East, between Israel and Iran, but much of the casus belli traces back to the long-running dispute over the rights of Palestinians. In that context, Lawrence Davidson…

Obama to Israel: No US War on Iran

President Obama is caught in a dilemma, how to dissuade Israel from going to war with Iran without alienating pro-Israeli voters in November. So, the Obama administration has told Israel that the U.S. won’t support an attack on Iran but has…

The Almost Vanunu

Special Report: Two decades ago, the U.S. and Israeli governments reached around the world to silence an ex-Israeli intelligence officer who was exposing sensitive secrets. The goal was to discredit, if not capture, Ari Ben-Menashe much the way Israel went…

Foolish Suspicion of Political Islam

American neocons have long criticized Arab countries for lacking democracy, but now are complaining that some of the new Arab democracies are electing parties with Islamic affiliations. Former CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar finds some of that alarm unnecessary.

The Ugly Words of Newt Gingrich

Exclusive: Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has built his political career on demonizing those who disagree with him. Off-handedly, he will accuse fellow Americans of possessing the most heinous motives for their actions, now even taking aim at medical researchers,…

Islamic-Tinted Democracy

More and more, the Republican Party is becoming a Christian fundamentalist movement with attacks on “secularism” and demands for school-run prayers for students, but many of these same politicos express shock when people in the Middle East turn to Islamic-oriented parties, Lawrence…

The Founders’ True Foresight

Exclusive: The Tea Party’s revisionist history of the nation’s founding document may play well with the ill-informed, but the truth is the framers of the Constitution were fed up with state “sovereignty” and decided on a strong central government, a judgment that has…

Sundering the Social Contract

In political philosophy, the idea of a social contract is that the individual surrenders some rights for the benefits of living in a civilized society that has reasonable rules for all. However, in recent decades, the greedy rich have torn…

Selling the ‘Supply-Side’ Myth

Exclusive: Any rational assessment of America’s economic troubles would identify Ronald Reagan’s reckless “supply-side” economics as a chief culprit, but that hasn’t stopped Republican presidential hopefuls, led by Newt Gingrich, from selling this discredited theory to a gullible GOP base, reports Robert…

The Ever-Revolving Revolving Door

The Wall Street banks may have crawled back from the cliff of 2008 and may have trimmed their bonuses a bit as they adjust to a more austere America but they still get to place ex-employees in key government jobs, close…