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  • Sorry, Census. Poverty Really Did Increase in 2009.

    Between 2008 and 2009, unemployment increased from 5.8 percent to 9.3 percent, the largest one-year increase on record (which goes back to 1948). Over the same period, the number of Americans without health insurance coverage rose by more than four million — from 46.3 million in 2008 to 50.7 million in 2009 — and low-income…

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  • Bruce Reed Appointed Biden Chief of Staff Today

    In light of his prominent role in deficit reduction and the ‘end of welfare’ in the 1990s, Reed’s appointment sends a clear — and troubling — signal about the administration’s domestic policy priorities in the years ahead. Alice O’Connor is author of Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy and the Poor in Twentieth Century U.S.…

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  • A Statement from Former Prisoner Omar Deghayes on the 9th Anniversary of the Opening of Guantánamo

    Two years ago, President Barack Obama pledged to bring an end to the anomaly that is Guantánamo within a year, and to thereby restore America’s moral standing in the world. Yet today, on January 11, 2011, we are marking the beginning of the tenth year since the first prisoners were transferred to Camp X Ray…

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  • The Referendum in Sudan

    KHARTOUM, Sudan — Just days before the historic referendum on southern independence Khartoum is experiencing temperate weather and what may turn out to be a deceptive calm. In fact, everybody is either worried or excited, depending on their circumstances. Southerners are resolute that they will not accept second class citizenship in their own country, otherwise,…

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  • The End of New Deal Liberalism

    By William Greider We have reached a pivotal moment in government and politics, and it feels like the last, groaning spasms of New Deal liberalism. When the party of activist government, faced with an epic crisis, will not use government’s extensive powers to reverse the economic disorders and heal deepening social deterioration, then it must…

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  • Chomsky’s initial reaction to WikiLeaks’ latest

    I took a quick look at [“U.S. embassy cables: Hillary Clinton woos prickly Egyptians“].  It’s interesting that Israel does not appear, only Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon.  I found only one entry of any interest, in US Embassy to Clinton: “Soliman brokered a half-year-long truce last year, which Hamas broke in December, leading to the Israeli…

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  • The Katharine Gun Case

    Katharine Gun, a British former government employee, faced two years imprisonment in England for the “crime” of telling the truth. She was charged with leaking an embarrassing U.S. intelligence memo indicating that the U.S. had mounted a spying “surge” against U.N. delegations in early 2003 in an effort to win approval of the Iraq war…

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  • Bush and Blair: A Partnership of Deception

    British Prime Minister Tony Blair is back in Britain now facing an ever-widening scandal involving the distortion of evidence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, but his recent trip to meet with President Bush underscores the partnership the two leaders have shared as both face growing evidence that they knowingly used faulty intelligence to…

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  • Bush in Africa: “A Cruel Hoax”?

    President Bush’s recent tour of Africa to tout his $15 billion pledge to fight the continent’s AIDS epidemic and promote trade was met with skepticism by critics who charged that his administration is attempting to mask regressive policies with staged public relations events. Bush’s trip to Africa appears to represent, more than anything else, an…

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  • Responses to Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address

    Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished citizens and fellow citizens, every year, by law and by custom, we meet here to consider the state of the union. This year, we gather in this chamber deeply aware of decisive days that lie ahead. You and I serve our country in a time of…

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  • Biden’s “Budget-Cutting Dogma Is a Threat to Public Health”

    “Multiple times, Biden charged Sanders ‘still hasn’t told us how he’s going to pay for’ Medicare for All, even though he released a detailed funding plan last month. He misleadingly charged that Sanders had voted against the 2008 auto bailout. He accused Sanders of having ‘nine Super PACs’ and threatened to ‘list them,’ then backed…

  • During Pandemic, Biden Lies About Healthcare

    Biden claimed at last night’s debate: “With all due respect to Medicare for All, you have a single-payer system in Italy. It doesn’t work there. It has nothing to do with Medicare for All. That would not solve the problem at all.” Sanders responded: “What the experts tell us, is that one of the reasons that…

  • Dean Baker on * Vaccine * Debate Myths

    “In the 21st century, we are relying on patent monopolies, a relic of the medieval guild system, to finance the research leading to a vaccine and effective treatment. While we do have teams all over the world racing to develop vaccines and treatments, the problem is that the quest for patent monopolies means that they…

  • BREAKING: Coronavirus and Tonight’s Debate: “Now do you get it about Medicare for All?”

    “The projection was to illustrate how this issue looms over us all — and major responsibility exists with CNN and every other major media institution given how they’ve dismissed Medicare for All and overall have provided paltry coverage to key issues of public health. We genuinely hope that they’re now realizing what is at stake.”

  • Trump Administration Coronavirus Response Going from “Incompetent” to “Obstructionist”

    “The federal government continues to miss opportunities to provide resources that are essential to reining in the growing crisis, the likes of which have not been seen in a century. This latest refusal to loosen Medicaid restrictions advances the federal coronavirus response from indifferent and incompetent, to callous and obstructionist. Now, more than ever, Americans…

  • Coronavirus: Insurers’ Conduct “Outrageous”

    “It’s outrageous that during the worst health crisis facing our country in decades, insurers want to make clear that they still plan to profit from the treatment of coronavirus victims. This is just the most recent egregious example of the greed of the for-profit health insurance system and highlights why we need a Medicare for…

  • How Corporate Media Are Taking Down Sanders

    “On Tuesday night, there was no mistaking the smug joy of studio pundits and Democratic Party operatives on networks like AT&T-owned CNN and Comcast-owned MSNBC. Meanwhile, the New York Times rushed into print yet another all-out attack piece masquerading as a ‘news’ article about Sanders.”

  • MSNBC Enables Biden’s Pattern of Iraq Lies

    “After refusing to allow former chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter to testify before his committee that Iraq had achieved at least qualitative disarmament, Biden defended his false claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction on ‘Meet the Press’ in 2007, by insisting that ‘everyone in the world thought he had them. The weapons inspectors said he…

  • “Corporate Lobbyists Control the Rules at the DNC”

    “Sludge is producing a reporting series on DNC members whose votes raise a potential conflict of interest due to financial interests in presidential campaigns or with heavy-lobbying companies: on the 47 Executive Committee members and DNC officers, Sludge found that 17 have backgrounds in promoting corporate interests, including at least three at-large members; of the…

  • Michigan’s Huge Job Losses from Biden-Backed NAFTA

    “Despite there being no Mexican auto companies, Mexico’s auto sector employment rose from 120,000 before NAFTA to more than 735,000 today. More than 350,000 U.S. auto sector jobs were lost during the NAFTA era, one-third of all jobs in the sector. … Prior to NAFTA, Mexico did not have a major auto parts sector but…

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