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News Items

  • Election Reforms: Falling short

    WASHINGTON — Proponents of progressive election reform gave cautious approval to the recent report issued by a commission assigned to investigate the improvement of federal elections. Many critics, however, point to several obstacles that remain in the way of free and fair elections throughout the United States. The report, issued by the National Commission on Federal Election Reform headed by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, was presented to President Bush. Among its recommendations are provisions regarding increases in equipment standards and stepped-up federal funding for the administration of elections.

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  • Son of Star Wars: Another arms race?

    WASHINGTON — Reports emerging from the Pentagon about plans to test a “Space Bomber” are drawing accusations that the U.S. government is attempting to engage in another arms race. The bomber, a spacecraft reportedly capable of destroying targets on the other side of the globe within 30 minutes, is a key component of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s plan to modernize U.S. weaponry. The satellite is currently under production by NASA and Lockheed Martin, a leading military contractor. Pentagon claims that the bomber can cause greater and deeper ground damage from a virtually unassailable height have many critics questioning it as…

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  • ExxonMobil: Facing a boycott

    ExxonMobil, one of the biggest corporations on the planet, is now facing a boycott spearheaded by activist groups protesting the company’s policies at home and abroad. The boycott was launched by PressurePoint, a grassroots organization looking to “take real action on climate change and corporate influence,” according to Chris Doran, campaigns director for the group. “The U.S. government’s climate change policy is the ExxonMobil policy,” Doran says. “What sort of democracy do we have when one company can buy off our political process for its own gains?” ExxonMobil is a charter member of the Global Climate Coalition, an influential industry…

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  • Beyond the Ford-Firestone Uproar: Critics blast lack of regulation, accountability in SUV safety

    WASHINGTON – Recent congressional hearings probed the accountability of Ford and Firestone in many incidents where car or tire malfunctioned, causing injury or death. The hearings also questioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal government’s chief regulator of automobile safety, and its role in providing the public with adequate information. While the blame-placing among corporate executives and congressional subcommittees occurred on Capitol Hill, several analysts decried the lack of accountability being demanded of the corporations involved. Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, pointed to a lack of regulation of sport utility vehicles and rollover standards.

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  • NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM

    Questions from IPA appear below in bold HEADLINE: NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM DEBT RELIEF TO POOR COUNTRIES AND OXFAM EDUCATION NOW AWARD INTRODUCTION: MARTA ARIAS LOCATION: NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, WASHINGTON D.C. BODY:

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  • Ten Real Reasons To Impeach Clinton

    We all seem to have lost our sense of proportion. Why are the political leaders of the United States and the major media talking of impeaching Bill Clinton for lies about sex, surely not the most important sins of his administration? If Clinton is to be impeached, why do it for frivolous reasons? I can think of at least ten reasons to impeach him, for acts far more serious than his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky or his lies to Kenneth Starr. I am speaking of matters of life and death for large numbers of people. 1. Clinton approved, very early…

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  • Autopsy Of A Disaster: The U.S. Sanctions Policy On Iraq

    For a shorter version of this timeline, click here. Myth: The Sanctions Will be Lifted When Iraq Complies with the U.N. Inspections April 3, 1991: U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 687 which states that upon “the completion by Iraq of all actions contemplated in” specific paragraphs of the resolution, “the prohibitions against financial transactions … shall have no further force or effect.” The paragraphs cited have to do with weapons inspections. Other paragraphs in the resolution have to do with “return of all Kuwaiti property seized by Iraq” and Iraqi liability for losses and damage resulting from Iraq’s occupation of…

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  • Nader on Pushing Minimum Wage; Left-Right Alliance

    “No more lip service or half measures! As corporate profits and CEO pay soar ever higher, 30 million hardworking Americans — two-thirds women and two-thirds employed by large corporations like Walmart and McDonald’s — are making less today, adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1968!”

  • Burger King Deal a Tax Dodge for Brazilian Billionaire, Hurts both U.S. and Canada

    “You now have 100 major U.S. companies looking at ‘inversions’ like what Burger King is doing. This deal is a tax dodge by a Brazilian billionaire and other investors, it will hurt the U.S., Canada and such deals hurt virtually everyone else. These deals exposes domestic companies to competitors that are not paying substantial taxes.”

  • Militarization of Police

    “America is finally waking up to the militarization of its police forces. This is a good thing and heralds a tipping point in the changing face of policing in the United States. America must realize that what is happening in Ferguson, Missouri — with the overwhelming militarized response of local police forces to the protests…

  • Obama and Press Freedom: Washington Post Adds to Outcry

    “Mr. Obama has consistently proclaimed his belief in press freedom and its importance in our democracy. But his record undermines his words. The administration has conducted the most far-reaching campaign against leaks in recent memory, with more prosecutions than all previous administrations combined. Perhaps Mr. Obama doesn’t see any conflict here, but we do.”

  • Getting Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia Wrong

    “There are extraordinary elements in the present U.S. policy in Iraq and Syria that are attracting surprisingly little attention. In Iraq, the U.S. is carrying out air strikes and sending in advisers and trainers to help beat back the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (better known as ISIS) on the…

  • Anti-Jewish Campaign Traced to Pro-Israeli Grad Student

    “Like many other news websites, Common Dreams has been plagued by inflammatory anti-Semitic comments following its stories. But on Common Dreams these posts have been so frequent and intense they have driven away donors from a nonprofit dependent on reader generosity. A Common Dreams investigation has discovered that more than a thousand of these damaging…

  • Classified Leaks and Obama: Highly Selective Prosecution

    “James Risen’s case is a prime example of how the war on whistleblowers has been a back-door war on journalists. Risen is being asked to testify against a source in yet another Espionage Act prosecution of a CIA whistleblower who allegedly exposed a botched CIA operation. If Mr. Risen faces jail or exorbitant fines for…

  • Ferguson: * Black Passivity * Military Policing

    “This isn’t about one boy being killed or about one town. It’s about the lives of all African Americans. What’s surprising to me is that there isn’t more protest and outrage. Just recently, in the town where I live, a black man, John Crawford, picked up a toy gun in Wal-Mart and he got killed…

  • Was Ferguson a ‘Sundown Town’?

    “I think Ferguson was a sundown town, based on a statement in the published history of its neighbor, Kinloch, a majority-black town, but I have not confirmed Ferguson for sure. Often former sundown suburbs, when they do ‘break,’ rapidly go majority black. Their white residents, having lived for years under the ideology that African Americans…

  • Leading Kurdish and Iraq Analyst

    “Where have people been? Certainly some of the recent reporting of the carnage by IS is sensationalized, but their brutality is all too real. But critically, it’s been happening for years in both Iraq and in Syria, where is should have been confronted. In Syria, ancient Christian churches were destroyed, nuns and bishops were kidnapped…

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