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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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  • Why to be Wary of Fox News’ Reinvention of Exit Polling Tonight

    “The last time Fox decided to make a similar rush to judgment was in the 2000 Election, when — at 2:30 in the morning after Election Day — it projected George W. Bush the winner in Florida. This projection caused all the other networks to follow suit, only to rescind the projection two hours later.”

  • Bangladeshi Community in NYC

    “I’m following the Bangladeshi media as well and it’s important to see how this will play out there. There are certainly Islamic groups that support ISIS in Bangladesh, but the government there has used that as a pretext to clamp down on people they claim are part of the opposition.”

  • Bethlehem and the “Altar of Imperial Politics”

    “The Christmas story starts with an imperial decree signed by Caesar Augustus. As I was watching President Trump’s address yesterday evening on our TV, I could not help but think of the so-called Balfour Declaration signed 100 years ago when the British empire promised Palestine to the European Jews as their national homeland. Trump’s address…

  • Is the Democratic Party Anti-Democratic?

    “The DNC gave less than 48 hours notice — waiting until late in the day on Dec. 6 — to publicly disclose the times when the final meeting of the Unity Reform Commission would take place. Even then, although the DNC had stated that ‘the meeting is open to the public’ and required an online…

  • News Conference on Key Issues at Dec. 8-9 Final Meeting of Democratic Party’s “Unity Reform Commission”

    The report warns that allowing any remaining superdelegates “would still represent a barrier to a democratic Democratic National Convention.” The report concludes: “The superdelegate system, by its very nature, undermines the vital precept of one person, one vote. The voting power of all superdelegates must end.”

  • Will Democrats’ Unity Commission Abolish “Undemocratic” Superdelegates?

    “The system of superdelegates lends itself to manipulation of the nomination process. In the last primary presidential campaign, by mid-November 2015, fully 11 weeks before any state primary or caucus, Hillary Clinton had already gained a commitment of support from 50 percent of all superdelegates.”

  • Leading Russia Analyst in D.C.

    The “self-imposed blackout on news FROM Russia enables the proliferation in U.S. media of phony threats that serve domestic political games such as the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 elections while the existential threat from the modernized and highly potent Russian military, both conventional and nuclear is largely ignored, as are the confrontations…

  • * Jerusalem * Can the Palestinians Launch a “Legal Intifadah”?

    “Trump’s move is a symbolic but still critical step in Israeli designs to control not just Jerusalem, but all of historic Palestine. The Palestinian leadership needs to deal with this threat by all available legal means, including what I call a legal intifadah. The U.S. has prevented full Palestinian membership at the United Nations. ”

  • Why is Israelgate Being Downplayed?

    “There are no editorials or opinion pieces denouncing Israel’s ‘Plot Against America,’ or ‘War on America,’ or warnings that ‘Odds Are, Israel Owns Trump,’ or explorations of ‘What Israel Did to Control the American Mind.’ … In fact it is more than likely that going forward, the media will give Israelgate the same treatment as…

  • Is Flynn/Kushner Actually Israelgate?

    “Mr. Mueller’s investigators have learned through witnesses and documents that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel asked the Trump transition team to lobby other countries to help Israel, according to two people briefed on the inquiry. Investigators have learned that Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kushner took the lead in those efforts.”

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