Blog

  • 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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  • The Pope and Dorothy Day

    “Pope Francis, you have condemned ISIS for genocide against Christians, but given the fact that the U.S. military is for the most part Christian with one-third of the force Catholic, it is Christians who have participated in the genocidal killing in predominantly Muslim countries during the last 24 years.”

  • Pope’s Call to Stop Arms Trade

    “The Pope’s recognition that arms sales can result in the spilling of ‘innocent blood’ is a far cry from the misleading language so often used to justify multi-billion dollar arms deals — that they promote ‘stability’ and are only for ‘defensive purposes.’ As the country that reaps the most money from the international arms trade,…

  • Pope’s Blind Spots: * Militarism * Child Sex Abuse

    The pope “speaks of some alleged ‘great sacrifice’ made by bishops because of the abuse and cover up crisis. What sacrifice? What bishop takes fewer vacations, drives a smaller car, does his own laundry or has been passed over for promotion because he’s shielding predators and endangering kids? None.”

  • * Pope vs. Exxon? * Hunger Strike Against Pipelines and Fracking

    “On Friday, Sept. 25, fasters, together with their supporters and leaders from several faiths, ‘will break bread in front of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in D.C. to end a dramatic 18-day fast undertaken to demand that FERC stop issuing permits for the pipelines, storage facilities and LNG export terminals that use fracked natural gas,…

  • Why is “Radical Pope” Canonizing an Enslaver of Native Americans?

    “During his July visit to Bolivia, Pope Francis ‘apologized for the “grave sins” of colonialism against the native people of the Americas,’ USA Today’s Bill Theobald recently reported. ‘I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offense of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of…

  • “Prison for the Corporate Criminal Elite”

    “It’s not just Russia where criminal prosecution is about brute political power. It’s in the United States too. GM knowingly markets automobiles with a defective engine switch, more than 150 people die as a result, and no GM executive is criminally prosecuted. There is no corporate guilty plea.”

  • Pope Arriving, Civil Disobedience Ramps up

    “Just prior to the historic visit of Pope Francis, when he will visit the White House and address Congress, we call on our government to heed his words and stop the warmongering, protect Mother Earth and end income inequality. If our elected officials fail to heed the pope’s warnings, our planet will continue to suffer…

  • Is the Pope Just Verbiage?

    “It’s unfortunate that when Pope Francis denounces war, he does not also tell Catholics that they should not go into the military, or in any way cooperate with Caesar’s militarism. It’s time that the church began to divest of its vast property holdings, embraced poverty, and use the money to feed the hungry and homeless.”

  • Over 100 Killed, Government Lets GM Off, Ignores Legal Tools

    “GM killed over 100 people by knowingly putting a defective ignition switch into over one million vehicles. Yet no one from GM went to jail or was even charged with criminal homicide. This shows a weakness in the law not a weakness in the facts. GM killed innocent consumers.”

  • How WSJ is off by $18 Trillion on Sanders’ Proposals

    “These financial savings would be felt by businesses and by state and local governments who would no longer be paying for health insurance for their employees; and by retirees and working Americans who would no longer have to pay for their health insurance or for co-payments and deductibles. Beyond these financial savings, HR 676 would…

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