Exclusive: A new book, Watergate: The Hidden History, suggests Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa and a Cuban report on attempts to kill Fidel Castro played major roles in the scandal, but author Lamar Waldron relies on dubious evidence, strange theories and…
Reconnecting Words to Reality
The challenge of poetry in a time of professional euphemism is to reconnect words to reality, a nearly subversive concept in an age when rich investors and bottom-line executives have been transformed into “job-creators.” Martin Espada is one poet who has…
Report Shows Iranian Nuke Restraint
A new inspections report about Iran’s nuclear program prompted the usual alarmist headlines in U.S. newspapers about the growing need to attack Iran. But details in the report suggest that Iran is holding back from any “breakout” capability to build…
GOP Defends Marianas’ Sweatshops
Scandal-stained Republican activist Ralph Reed is back in the GOP’s good graces with a new “grassroots” operation organizing right-wing Christians. Also back on the Republican agenda is protection for an old Reed cause, maintaining sweatshops in the Marianas, note Bill…
Romney World’s Freedom from Fact
Exclusive: The Republican National Convention offered a look into one alternate future for America, a place where the ultimate liberty is to be fact-free. Mitt Romney’s campaign set sail confidently toward that future trusting that a plurality of Americans who…
GOP’s Fact-Challenged Convention
Even by the measure of modern U.S. political events, the Republican National Convention was fact-challenged. Again and again, Republicans reprised their favorite canards and distortions, including the claim that President Obama has eliminated the work requirement in welfare, writes William…
Egypt Seeks Regional Approach to Syria
Led by Egypt, key Muslim nations also including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran are exploring ways to reduce the political violence in Syria, an initiative that upsets some in Washington because it represents an independent regional approach, observes ex-CIA analyst…
Boy Scouts Still Embrace Discrimination
The pledges of the Boy Scouts of America to follow the nation’s laws and to befriend those who are different are increasingly at odds with the club’s continued rejection of gays and people who don’t believe in God, discriminatory policies…
More Fronts in Pa.’s Voter ID Battle
Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the two most important founding documents of the U.S. republic, is now a legal battleground where Republicans are seeking electoral victories by imposing a voter ID law to suppress the vote, explains William Boardman.
Romney’s Mysterious Foreign Policy
The uncertainty over where Mitt Romney or Barack Obama might take U.S. foreign policy in the next four years rests on the vagueness of Romney’s neocon rhetoric and the fact that Obama may veer in new directions because he will…
Iran-Israel: Who’s Threatening Whom?
The U.S. press readily accepts the narrative that non-nuclear Iran is threatening to wipe out nuclear-armed Israel, though Israel repeatedly vows to attack Iran if it even approaches a nuclear-weapons “capability.” The latest furor is over some harsh Iranian rhetoric,…
Recalling a Young American’s Sacrifice
From the Archive: An Israeli court has ruled that Rachel Corrie “put herself in danger” and thus Israel bears no blame for the 23-year-old American being crushed by an Israeli bulldozer as it leveled Palestinian homes in Gaza in 2003.…
Selling War as ‘Smart Power’
The latest selling point for American warfare is “smart power” humanitarianism, dispatching the U.S. military to eliminate foreign leaders designated by pundits as evildoers taking lives and resisting freedom. Ex-FBI agent Coleen Rowley warns against this latest con.
Mitt Romney’s ‘Blood Money’
The U.S. press corps has been solicitous toward Mitt Romney’s work at Bain Capital with “fact-checkers” even insisting that Romney isn’t accountable for its actions while he was still the CEO. But almost completely out of the frame is how…
Training Societies to be Bigoted
Racial, ethnic and religious bigotry is often planted deep within a society, requiring a determined effort to root it out. However, there is inevitably resistance from forces that benefit from the presumed supremacy of one group over another, writes Lawrence…
When GOP Likes Big Government
The Republican Party touts itself as the advocate for small government and individual liberty, but the reality is different when it comes to demanding that personal behavior fit with the moral precepts of fundamentalist Christianity and within the strictures of…
Eager for War with Iran
Some U.S. neocons are eager for another war against a Muslim enemy of Israel, this time Iran. There is anger, too, at any signs of serious diplomacy that might avert a conflict, including UN Secretary General’s Ban Ki-Moon’s decision to…
More Neglect for America’s Poor
The Wall Street meltdown of 2008 pushed millions of middle-class Americans down the social ladder and left the Obama administration scrambling to limit the damage. But that has meant even less attention to the growing ranks of the nation’s poor,…
Is Mitt Romney a Racist?
Exclusive: Mitt Romney “jokingly” observed that “no one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate” as he once again pandered to “birthers” and their racist conspiracy theory. But TV commentators rushed to put down any suggestion that Romney is a racist. But is…
In Case You Missed…
Some of our special stories in July focused on the heightened tensions between Israel and Iran, the press corps going soft on Mitt Romney’s deceptions, the Left’s failed electoral tactics, and tragic cases of American gun violence.