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  • What We Should be Talking About: Romney’s Foreign Policy Advisers

    John Kennedy used to say, “Domestic policy can hurt us; foreign policy can kill us.”

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  • Dying to Live in Mexico

    In 2011, some 12,000 people were murdered in situations presumably related to the drug trafficking industry in Mexico. In 2010, the number was more than 15,000 killed. Between December 2006, when Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) took office and declared a “war on drug traffickers” and January 2012, depending on the…

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  • THE PAYROLL TAX CUT: Talk about a Ponzi Scheme!

    By Gwendolyn Mink Is President Obama trying to kill Social Security without explicitly saying so? He put Social Security “on the table” for consideration by his Deficit Commission — even though Social Security has not contributed to creating or sustaining the deficit/debt in the first place. He kept Social Security on the table when he…

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  • Stop the Cuts to the Social Safety Net!

    Medicaid cuts will injure communities of color disproportionately. 11 percent of Asian Americans, 14 percent of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, 27 percent of Latinos, and 27 percent of African Americans gain access to health care through Medicaid. Medicaid cuts will injure women disproportionately. Women account for 70 percent of Medicaid participants. Social Security is…

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  • Fires Near Los Alamos Nuclear Facility

    The forests surrounding Los Alamos National Laboratory have burned and are certain to burn again with some regularity, whether from lightning or human causes.  If too many trees are allowed to remain near laboratory facilities, those too will sooner or later burn, despite everyone’s best efforts. We are not as yet very concerned about radioactive…

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  • Case Against Cutting Social Security

    The case against cutting Social Security is strong. · Social Security benefits are modest by any measure and are already being cut – by raising the age of eligibility for full benefits and by deducting ever-rising Medicare premiums from benefit checks. · The cuts already in law add up to a19 percent reduction for people…

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  • Samantha Power, Libya, and Selective Memory of Genocide

    It might seem a bit surprising to see Samantha Power on the National Security Council and working with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who Power famously called a “monster” during the 2008 presidential campaign. But this was a heat-of-battle bit of name-calling, not a designation based on any difference in outlook. Both women are hardliners,…

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  • Low-Income Women Pushed to the Sidelines

    Low-income women have been invisible in budget deliberations thus far – yet they will be injured disproportionately by cuts to income programs like Social Security and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF], as well by cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and Food Stamps. Despite the prolonged recession, income assistance to low-income families has shriveled over the past decade, providing…

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  • Trumka Questioned on Wisconsin, Two-Party System, Journalism and Obama

    Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, stopped by the National Press Club this afternoon. Trumka underlined the need for economic equality in a 30 minute address before fielding questions submitted by the audience and selected by NPC President Mark Hamrick. Hamrick asked variations of three questions submitted by IPA. Here’s a transcript of those exchanges:…

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  • Herman: U.S., NATO Hypocrisy on Libya Precludes Their Action

    I’m surprised that Phyllis Bennis doesn’t recognize the problems of what we may call “clean hands” — and hypocrisy — in her call for Security Council action on Libya. Do the United States, UK, France and Germany have clean hands that would justify antiwar, anti-imperialist and humanitarians calling upon them to act against Libya? They…

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  • Pope’s Coming Jubilee Year: Debt and Right Relationships

    “Pope Francis has announced that the coming year will be a jubilee year. The concept of jubilee is found in scripture in Leviticus and then again in Luke – it’s the concept of an economic system built on right relationships. The jubilee movement — with support from across the political spectrum — won tens of…

  • Why Pope Francis is “Reaching More People”

    “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case…

  • Corbyn’s “Political Earthquake”

    “Just after his victory address before the Labour Party, Corbyn spoke at a rally for refugees: ‘We need to have a thought as to why people end up in such desperate situations. I’ve been in parliament a long time and I’ve seen many decisions taken. And in moments of clamor and moments of fervor, decisions…

  • Regime Change Refugees

    “Fences cannot contain the desperate multitudes. A few billion euros in economic assistance to the countries of origin, recently proposed by the Germans, are unlikely to buy away the problem. Only a clear understanding of the origins of the crisis can lead to an answer, but European leaders do not want to touch this hot…

  • Will the DOJ Finally Go After Corporate Criminals?

    “Instead of holding top level executives accountable, the Department has allowed corporations to throw lower level executives under the bus in exchange for lenient treatment for the corporation. Now the Justice Department is saying they want to focus on individuals. But what about the corporation? Yes, individuals matter. But until the Justice Department addresses its…

  • Iran Deal: “Nonsense” and Realities

    Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Khadduri argued that, contrary to what the Bush administration and others were claiming, the Iraqi nuclear weapons program had been dismantled in the 1990s. In a November 21, 2002 article, a few months before the invasion, “Iraq’s nuclear non-capability,” he wrote: “Bush and Blair are pulling their public…

  • Government Considering Increasing Public Exposure to Radiation

    “’If implemented, the hormesis model would result in needless death and misery,’ says Michael Mariotte, NIRS president. The current U.S. requirement that nuclear plant operators reduce exposures to the public to ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ would be ‘tossed out the window. Emergency planning zones would be significantly reduced or abolished entirely. Instead of being…

  • Obama-Saudi Meeting: War and Sectarianism

    “By 2014, the sectarian Sunni-Shia character of the civil war in Syria was bemoaned in the United States as an unfortunate development. But in December 2006, the man heading the U.S. embassy in Syria advocated in a cable to the Secretary of State and the White House that the U.S. government collaborate with Saudi Arabia…

  • * Ousting Guatemalan President * Icebreaker Gap? * Denali and Native Names

    “If the movement develops further, if it spreads more fully to the Mayan heartland of the country, then the issue could move from corruption to justice, because the reason the Guatemalan elite, like General Pérez Molina and Vice President Baldetti [who was forced to resign and is now being held on fraud charges], have been…

  • China: From Demonization to Dialogue

    “As the state visit of President Xi Jinping draws nigh, his demonization at the hands of the media, many members of Congress and most of the presidential candidates will make it difficult for the Obama administration to suggest a much more cooperative than confrontational approach to U.S.-China relations.”

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