President Obama has promised reform of the NSA’s mass collection of data on virtually all Americans and much of the world. But his proposals are limited and his speech failed to offer clemency to Edward Snowden who made the public…
Worse Than Orwell
Category: Right Wing
The ‘Persecuted’ Rich
Nazi metaphors should be avoided except in the most extreme cases of human cruelty. But that metaphor is especially obscene when today’s pampered rich, like billionaire Tom Perkins, compare themselves to persecuted Jews, as Bill Moyers and Michael Winship observe.
Reading Iran All Wrong
U.S. foreign policy elites often speak in their own echo chamber of acceptable thought and thus grow more and more detached from the real world. Such a case is the recent punditry about Iran, as Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann…
Still Trying to Sink an Iran Deal
President Obama has vowed to veto a Senate bill pushed on behalf of the Israeli government that could sink negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program by weighing them down with even more sanctions, a move that could put the region on course for…
FDR’s Legacy of Can-Do Government
Born to a well-to-do family 132 years ago, Franklin Roosevelt would earn the hatred of America’s plutocrats when as President he deployed the federal government to battle the Great Depression, an animosity toward FDR that the modern Right continues to this…
Dick Cheney: Son of the New Deal
From the Archive: In a coincidence of history, right-wing icon Dick Cheney shares the same birthday as liberal icon Franklin Roosevelt, Jan. 30. But the ironic link goes even deeper since in many ways it was FDR’s New Deal that…
Red-State Blues: Trouble in Oklahoma
Exclusive: The Right has locked down political control of a number of states like Oklahoma, making them laboratories for far-right legislation. But some legal experiments are so extreme that they are causing unintended reactions that may hurt the Right’s cause,…
No Tears for the Real Robert Gates
Exclusive: In Official Washington, the gap between image and reality can be wide, but there is a virtual canyon separating the mainstream’s awestruck regard for Robert Gates as a “wise man” and his record as a deceitful opportunist known to his former…
MLK and the Curse of ‘Moderation’
When Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. went to jail to focus national attention on the injustice of segregation, he was stung by criticism from Christian clergy who feared upsetting the status quo and urged “moderation,” prompting his historic rejoinder from the Birmingham…
Neocons Take Aim at Syrian Peace Talks
Exclusive: Syrian peace talks have finally begun, but many powerful interests including U.S. neocons are determined to see the talks fail. The Washington Post’s neocon editorial page is urging President Obama to give up on “feckless diplomacy” and threaten war,…