Some of our special stories in September dealt with America’s deepening economic crisis, the political/media failures of the Establishment, solving a three-decade-old mystery about George H.W. Bush, the Founders’ actual views on government, and more.
A $20,000 ‘Challenge Grant’
From Editor Robert Parry: A while back, we approached a foundation with a request for a “matching grant,” a donation that would equal what we could raise from our readers. Last week, the foundation sent us a check for $20,000…
Missing Hope in Palestinian Statehood
The New York Times’ lack of objectivity on the Middle East is one of the core violations of U.S. journalistic ethics, obvious yet rarely acknowledged. Ethics professor Daniel C. Maguire thought it worth noting in a letter to Times columnist…
Did FBI Go ‘Rogue’ on Iran?
Official Washington’s clamor for retaliation against Iran for its alleged role in a bizarre plot to murder the Saudi ambassador has put the U.S. and Iran on a collision course again. But Lawrence Davidson wonders whether it’s U.S. counter-terror agencies…
US Uses Leaks to Hype Iran ‘Plot’
The U.S. government is using leaks to the news media to press its case regarding a purported Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, but the supposed links between a cooperating FBI witness and Iranian intelligence remain tenuous…
Temptations of Greed and Empire
With the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, a question before Americans is how the late civil rights leader would have responded to the nation’s recent decades of greed, war and decline. Rev. Howard Bess poses the same question as to how ancient Israelites…
Is Mitt Romney a Neocon Purist?
Exclusive: Anyone still doubting that the Washington Post is the media flagship for neoconservatism should reflect on Saturday’s editorial in which the Post criticizes Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney for saying U.S. troops should be pulled out of Afghanistan “as soon as we…
Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Right Wing, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
The Tale of Two Assassination Plots
Exclusive: President Barack Obama vows to punish Iran for a dubious assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador, but an actual murder of a diplomat in Washington in 1976 carried out by right-wing allies in Chile was followed by three decades of obstruction, Robert…
Petraeus’s CIA Fuels Iran Murder Plot
Exclusive: The U.S. media and public are being riled up again with a new set of allegations against Iran, this time for a bizarre assassination plot aimed at the Saudi ambassador in Washington. But former CIA analyst Ray McGovern wonders…
Common Cause Against Wall Street
During the Vietnam War, “hard-hat” construction workers would sometimes spit on or beat up young anti-war protesters. But the U.S. political/economic situation is now so dire that the “hard-hats” are finding common cause with the scruffy Wall Street protesters, notes…
Wary of ‘The Ides of March’
Politics in America is a balancing act between idealism and cynicism, with the latter usually triumphing over the former at least in the near term, until a new surge of idealism arrives. As Lisa Pease writes, this ebb and flow…
Punching a Hole in the Bubbles
In America, bubbles come in two forms: how Wall Street insiders suck in a sucker’s money before the speculative bubble pops and how those same scam artists stay inside a protective bubble to spare themselves from the fallout. In this…
Rick Perry’s Revolutionary War ‘History’
Exclusive: The stupidity of the Republican presidential field seems to know no bounds, with Gov. Rick Perry’s putting the American Revolution in the 1500s and joining Rep. Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party in messing up the history of the nation’s founding, notes Robert Parry.
Free Market v. Government Intervention
Exclusive: Backed by a powerful right-wing media and aggressive Tea Party activists, Republicans appear unafraid of any political risks from their out-of-hand rejection of President Barack Obama’s jobs bill. The GOP senses its anti-government message remains potent, writes Robert Parry.
‘Occupy’ Movement Surfaces in Tulsa
The “99 Percent” movement continues to grow, surfacing not only in New York, Washington and other major cities like Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles but in smaller cities, even in conservative bastions like Tulsa, Oklahoma, as Richard L. Fricker reports.
Freedom Plaza Protesters Settle In
Exclusive: The Park Police have agreed to let protesters camp out at Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. for four months as they press their demands for a shift in national priorities from war and greed toward jobs and peace. Former…
The Never-ending Terror Threat
For a decade now, the American people have been told that only a “long war” against Islamist extremism can keep them safe from terrorism, even at the cost of trillions of dollars and loss of their liberties. Not even the…
Moving Beyond War
The longstanding Israel-Palestine conflict engenders strong feelings on both sides, with the Palestinians citing decades of oppression and the Israelis recalling a long history of abuse and genocide. But Winslow Myers suggests that the principles of Gandhi offer hope.
US Military Takes Lead on Anti-Gay Bias
Curiously, it has often fallen to the U.S. military to take the lead in changing the society’s patterns of discrimination, even as churches sometimes lag. After World War II, the military took up the fight against racial bias. Today, the target…
Romney’s Neocon Foreign Policy Plan
Presidential contender Mitt Romney has laid out his vision for a foreign policy in a Romney administration and it looks like it could have been dreamt up by the same neocons who guided George W. Bush’s disastrous pursuit of permanent U.S. military dominance,…