From the Archive: Celebrating Easter in 2009, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern saw progress toward ending the Iraq War and hope that George W. Bush and other U.S. war criminals might finally face justice. Three years later, however, many of those…
What’s Happening in Syria?
It’s difficult to know what’s happening in Syria not only because of the confusing violence but because the Western news media has lost nearly all credibility when it comes to reporting on Muslim countries, at least those on America’s and…
Behind Another Rampage Massacre
Exclusive: Work-place and college-campus slaughters have become a regular feature of America’s harsh economic landscape the past few decades, as Ayn Rand-style policies sharply divide the nation into a few heroic “winners” and many hapless “losers,” a factor Mark Ames examines…
Constitution, Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Obama Administration, Religion, Right Wing, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
Render to Caesar, Extraordinarily
Exclusive: On Good Friday, Christians observe the brutal torture and crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of Roman occupiers, but many modern Christians don’t mind when it’s “their” side doing the extraordinary renditions of alleged subversives to be tortured and…
Big Banks Invest in Congress
Less than four years after precipitating a devastating financial crisis and getting bailed out by taxpayers the big banks are looking to Election 2012 as a chance to roll back even modest reforms, like the Volcker Rule, that reined in Wall…
Doubts about a Mideast Arms Race
Iran says it doesn’t want a nuclear bomb and Western intelligence agencies say it isn’t building one, but Israeli leaders and their U.S. supporters say a preemptive strike may still be necessary. A key argument is the threat of a…
Constitution, Health Reform, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
What’s Not Good for the Country
Exclusive: Many in the Washington Establishment including key parts of the press fancy themselves doing what’s “good for the country” by shielding Americans from painful realities, like the emerging crisis over a partisan-driven Supreme Court. But the hard truth, not easy…
Time to ‘Occupy’ the IRS?
As Americans struggle with their tax returns, they are reminded how skewed the tax system has become, with multi-millionaires who live off investments paying a lower rate that middle-class people who go to work every day, a situation that Danny Schechter says…
Intelligence, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Bin Laden’s Personal Debt to Bush
Exclusive: President George W. Bush not only botched the Afghan and Iraq wars but he bungled his “dead or alive” pursuit of Osama bin Laden, assuring al-Qaeda’s leader nine more years of life and the opportunity to father four more…
GOP Five Like Stripping Americans
Exclusive: The Supreme Court’s GOP Five just finished a run as brave libertarians protecting Americans from President Obama’s health-care reform, but now are back to their usual role as defenders of abusive state power, allowing strip searches of anyone arrested…
Is Bibi Bluffing on Iran?
In Israel, the debate over bombing Iran has been tamped down by the belief in national security circles that Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu may be bluffing about going to war but that the bluff requires the world to think he…
Netanyahu’s ‘King David’ Complex
Israeli hardliners and American neocons say U.S. and Israeli interests are one and the same, meaning that if Israel bombs Iran, the United States should join in. But other observers say Washington must create some distance from Israel’s messianic Prime…
The Founders’ ‘Musket Mandate’
Exclusive: The negative tone of the Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court suggests that the Affordable Care Act, with its individual mandate to buy health insurance, may be overturned as “unconstitutional” by a partisan 5-4 vote. But key Founders had a…
Robert Parry’s Biggest Regret
From Editor Robert Parry: In the 16-plus years of Consortiumnews, our most difficult fund-raising periods have been in presidential election years like this one. Many supporters tell me they are funneling what money they have into campaigns and, implicitly, that…
At 50, Cesar Chavez’s UFW Legacy
A half century after Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers, the people who harvest America’s crops remain under pressure from harsh working conditions and draconian immigration laws. In an interview with UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, Dennis J. Bernstein discusses Cesar…
Misunderstanding Jesus’s Execution
From the Archive: Over the centuries as Christianity bent to the interests of the rich and powerful, the story of Jesus’s fateful week in Jerusalem was reshaped to minimize perhaps its central event, his overturning of the money tables at the…
If the Supreme Court Goes Rogue
Exclusive: George Washington and James Madison, two key Framers of the Constitution, saw nothing wrong with issuing mandates to citizens (to buy muskets for a militia), but today’s Republican majority on the Supreme Court seems set on going rogue and rewriting…
Minnesota Battle Over Israeli Bonds
A legal fight is underway in Minnesota over the state’s investment in Israeli bonds that are used to support settlements and other Israeli actions in the West Bank deemed illegal under international law. Sylvia Schwarz, a plaintiff in the lawsuit,…
National Outrage over Trayvon Case
Despite attempts in the right-wing media to smear 17-year-old Trayvon Martin with references to minor school disciplinary problems, the overall reaction across the United States has been outrage over his slaying and the lack of an arrest, what Sherwood Ross calls a…
How Friedman Fixes Mideast Faults
Official Washington treats New York Times pundit Thomas Friedman as an oracle on the Middle East, but his commentary is often pedestrian and wrongheaded, as it was disastrously on the Iraq War. But Friedman has now proclaimed what must be done to…