From the Archive: After getting a judge’s stay reversed, Oklahoma officials pressed ahead with Clayton Lockett’s lethal injection, only to have the botched execution leave him writhing in pain before finally dying of an apparent heart attack. In March, Richard L. Fricker…
The Fat Cats of Fast-Food
Pay inequity has worsened across the U.S. economy, but perhaps nowhere more than in the fast-food industry where CEOs and other top executives fatten their compensation as their fast-food workers subsist on taxpayer-provided food stamps, as Michael Winship explains.
Kerry Grovels over Israeli ‘Apartheid’
Exclusive: Secretary of State Kerry gets to say whatever half-truth or fiction comes into his head about Syria, Russia or other “designated villains,” but when he cites the inconvenient truth of Israeli “apartheid,” he must scramble as fast as he can…
Killing the Putin-Obama ‘Trust’
Exclusive: Last year, Russian President Putin and U.S. President Obama became a geopolitical odd couple as they worked to cool off hotspots such as Syria and Iran. But U.S. hawks succeeded in killing that collaboration via the crisis in Ukraine,…
Hearing US ‘Allies’ Whine
Official Washington is abuzz with punditry about President Obama showing weakness around the world, with the old-reliable antidote being more Pentagon spending and more foreign military adventures. But this “debate” misses how real U.S. interests are served, writes ex-CIA analyst…
How Mandela and S. Africa Were Freed
History often recounts events through the tales of “great men,” but that is rarely the complete story. South Africa’s overturning of white supremacy is a case in point, not just the personal triumph of Nelson Mandela but the victory of a…
Obama Urged to Show Restraint on Ukraine
Across Official Washington and the mainstream U.S. media, there is a rush to restart the Cold War with all its black-and-white propaganda, ignoring Russia’s understandable concerns and portraying the “U.S. side” as always right. But some U.S. intelligence veterans urge a more adult…
Why Neocons Seek to Destabilize Russia
Exclusive: Any propaganda war starts by planting stories that your target is getting rich, whether he is or isn’t, the latest move in demonizing Vladimir Putin. But the larger question is what might happen if the neocons succeed in destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia,…
Tolerating Israel’s Land Grabs
Secretary of State John Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have reached their predictable collapse, but the U.S. news media still shies away from blaming Israeli intransigence and expansionism nor advocating stern action against the land grabs, as Lawrence Davidson explains.
Marshall Islands v. Nuclear States
Even as the U.S. government threatens to attack Iran if it moves toward building one nuclear bomb, U.S. leaders and those of other nuclear states — have ignored their treaty obligation to work toward nuclear disarmament, a point made in…
Pope Francis Signals Eased Moral Strictures
For decades, the Catholic Church has alienated many followers with its rigid stance on sexual behavior and marriage. But there are indications that Pope Francis is seeking a less judgmental approach toward these issues, as moral theologian Daniel C. Maguire…
Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Right Wing, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
John Kerry’s Sad Circle to Deceit
Exclusive: Secretary of State John Kerry is framing the Ukraine narrative to make the U.S. side despite neo-Nazis overthrowing an elected president the good guys and Russians the bad guys. But Kerry’s strident propaganda is a sad ending to a career…
The Iron Law of Oligarchy Returns
America likes to think of itself as a land of the Great Middle Class with a government “of, by and for the people.” But that reality has changed drastically over the past several decades, as money and power have created a…
Hamas and the Tyranny of Labels
Israel is using the latest rapprochement between the PLO and Hamas as the newest excuse to reject peace talks. The charge is that Hamas is “terrorist” although the same label has been applied to the PLO and indeed to some…
Beneath the Ukraine Crisis: Shale Gas
Exclusive: Behind the geopolitics pitting Russia against the West and the ethnic tensions tearing Ukraine east and west another backdrop for understanding this deepening conflict is the big-money competition for Ukraine’s oil and natural gas, writes Nat Parry.
America’s Surge Toward Oligarchy
Exclusive: With the rapid concentration of wealth in a few well-manicured hands and the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court declaring money to be speech, the American surge toward oligarchy has gained what looks like an unstoppable momentum, as JP Sottile explains.
NYT Retracts Russian-Photo Scoop
Exclusive: After starting a propaganda stampede with a lead story about photos of Russian troops purportedly in Ukraine the New York Times admits the pictures really don’t prove much, and one photo was labeled as snapped in Russia when it was really taken in Ukraine,…
Foreign Entangling Sanctions
The U.S. government prefers economic sanctions as the opening move in any international chess match with adversaries, but sanctions on Iran and threatened ones against Russia could disrupt energy supplies and hurt the West as much as the targets, ex-CIA…
Prepping for a Ukrainian Massacre
Exclusive: As the rhetoric rages out of control, worsening violence in Ukraine grows more likely. Official Washington is readying the American people to view the slaughter of eastern Ukrainians as justified because they are “terrorists” and linked to the hated Russians, Robert…
Hope for an Israeli-Palestinian State
For years, Israel condemned Palestinians for terrorism, but now Israel seems equally upset over non-violent resistance from a boycott movement aimed at ending more than six decades of repression against Palestinians, a reaction that shows progress, author Ali Abunimah tells Dennis…